1. A Queensland mum has gone into labour just hours after her 22-month-old son was hit and killed by a garbage truck.
Olivia Atkinson’s son, Lochlain was killed instantly last Thursday when he was accidentally hit by the truck, which he’d gone outside to watch with his parents.
Olivia gave birth to her new baby just 12 hours after losing her first. “It was just a tragic accident where, for that split second, something went wrong,” she told News Corp.
“You can be so vigilant and in a second something can unfold and you can’t even comprehend what’s happening.”
2. Researchers from Cancer Research UK have claimed that skin cancer sufferers could be cured with breakthrough drugs, which they are claiming is the “beginning of a new era”.
It is the first time scientists have come close to developing a remedy for advanced melanoma. The new treatment involves two drugs — ipilimumab and anti-PD1s – which break down the defences of cancer cells.
The chief clinician at Cancer Research UK, Peter Johnson, has said: “These drugs that can turn the body’s own defences against a tumour are starting to show real promise for melanoma and other types of cancer … It’s only through research that we can gain the insights needed to develop new treatments for cancer patients.”
3. Attorney-General George Brandis will reportedly repay $1700 that he claimed as tax-payer funded expenses, in order to attend a wedding two years ago. Senator Brandis said yesterday he would repay the Government the money he used to attend the wedding of former radio shock-jock Michael Smith in December 2011, but also insisted in a letter to the Finance Department that, “I considered that those costs were within parliamentary entitlements, since they were incurred in the course of attendance at a function primarily for work-related purposes. I remain of that view.”