Meredith Griffiths

Britney Thomas had a life-long goal: to play professional cricket. But the teenager’s dreams were dashed after a gruesome error during what should have been routine surgery. Britney, from Gippsland in regional Victoria, was 17 when she fractured her thumb playing cricket in Hong Kong. WARNING: This story contains graphic images. She was referred to a local orthopaedic surgeon at Latrobe Regional Hospital, who operated with his registrar to fix the thumb and set it in plaster.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has overruled a decision by one of his ministers to cancel the Anzac Day dawn service on the Western Front in France. This morning, Veterans’ Affairs Minister Darren Chester said he would move the Anzac Day service at Villers-Bretonneux from dawn to 10am after local French authorities said they would like the service to start later. “We expect it will see more local schoolchildren be able to attend, for example,” he said.

A new document has emerged suggesting Australian author Colleen McCullough wrote a fresh will leaving her estate to her husband, the New South Wales Supreme Court has heard.The internationally acclaimed author of The Thorn Birds and a series of novels about the Roman Empire, died in hospital on Norfolk Island in January 2015, aged 77.The Supreme Court was today due to begin a seven-day hearing about who inherits her estate.The case has been brought by the author’s agent, Selwa Anthony, who is...