7NEWS Spotlight

Olympian and world champion snowboarder Alex “Chumpy” Pullin tragically lost his life in 2020 while spearfishing in a free diving accident near the Gold Coast.

As the snowboarding community grieved the loss of the popular 32-year-old, Chumpy’s long-term partner, Ellidy Vlug, was left devastated. The couple had just bought their dream home on the Gold Coast and were trying for a baby.

After Chumpy’s death, Laura and Ellidy’s brother Dave came to Ellidy in her darkest moment to suggest posthumous sperm retrieval from Chumpy. 37 hours after Chumpy died, and with the consent of his family, a doctor successfully removed viable sperm.

7NEWS Spotlight reporter Denham Hitchcock spoke with Ellidy, their family and the couple’s friends, including legendary surfer Mick Fanning, over several months, creating a documentary that delivers a heart-warming and fascinating look at love, loss and miracles.

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New developments in the global mystery surrounding UFOs with host Michael Usher and investigative journalist Ross Coulthart. An Australian witness to the infamous Westall incident in Melbourne finally breaks their silence about a cover-up.

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEczN_8Q380

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This major 7NEWS investigation examines the critical errors and cover-ups in the deepening Ruby Princess coronavirus crisis, to date responsible for seven deaths and 10 percent of all COVID-19 cases in Australia.

Featuring interviews with key players at the centre of the developing scandal and passengers aboard the fateful cruise, 7NEWS reveals damning new information in documents obtained from the highest echelons of government detailing the truth of what the boarding passengers of the Ruby Princess unwittingly walked into, and those who knew about it.

It was a cruise that should have been cancelled. When 2,700 holidaymakers boarded the Ruby Princess on March 8 for a round-tour of New Zealand, what they didn’t know was they were walking on to a floating petri dish that, hours before they’d stepped aboard, sick passengers from the previous tour had disembarked.

By the time the ship returned to Sydney in the early hours on March 19, the COVID-19 virus had spread rapidly through the ship. Yet all passengers were granted permission to come ashore and use any means of travel to return to their homes both in Australia and in many cases, overseas – no warnings of the dangers they faced, the peril on board, and the danger they now posed to the wider community.

7NEWS investigative reporter Denham Hitchcock presents this explosive investigation into how the Ruby Princess became a breeding ground for the largest cluster of COVID-19 in the country, now spread to every state and territory – and other parts of the world.

This special originally aired April 5, 2020.

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Five-time Walkley Award-winning investigative journalist Ross Coulthart – who has been investigating the phenomena for the past two years – has led the 7NEWS Spotlight team across the US, amassing never-before-seen compelling evidence and speaking to the key players behind an event that will change the course of history. Featuring interviews with the highest echelons of military defence and intelligence officials, leading researchers, scientists and witnesses in America and Australia, this mind-blowing documentary years in the making seeks to answer the most fundamental question there is: are we alone? 

Watch this investigation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtpxiNvGCp4

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The arrival of the COVID-19 Delta variant has thrown Australia’s two biggest cities back into lockdown, prompted State borders to slam shut again, and raised even more questions about the glacial pace of the nation’s vaccine rollout.

This 7NEWS Spotlight special examines how the Delta variant found its way here, why so much of Australia has been plunged back into crisis, and the terrible toll it is taking on the health of many Australians, our communities and our economy.

Told through the eyes of the people on the frontline – the real Australians who are fighting COVID-19 and fighting to survive it – this special report includes startling revelations about the failure of the vaccine rollout and first-hand accounts of battling the virus including from NSW Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall.

7NEWS Spotlight: Delta Crisis Exposed is essential listening for all Australians, as we confront one of the biggest public health scares in our nation’s history.

Watch the episode on 7plus or YouTube.

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Anne Zappelli was a young woman from country Western Australia. The beauty queen and Miss Australia Quest contestant was raped and murdered in September 1969, aged just 20. Police bungled the investigation and the case was never solved. A chilling deathbed confession that pointed the finger at the suspect was also useless. How did police get it so wrong?

This story originally aired in 2012. Both prime suspects have since died.

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On July 18, 2009, the battered bodies of newsagent Min Lin, his wife Lily Lin, their sons Henry and Terry; and Lily's sister Irene were found in their North Epping home. Brenda Lin was the only family member to survive - saved only by a school trip to New Caledonia. After making pleas for public assistance to solve the case, Min's brother-in-law Robert Xie was charged with their murders in 2011. In 2017, Xie was found guilty of murdering all five members of the Lin family and sentenced to five life terms in jail. In February 2021, Chief Justice Tom Bathurst and Justices Robert Allan Hulme and Robert Beech-Jones rejected Xie's appeal and found Xie didn't suffer a miscarriage of justice.

This story originally aired on Sunday Night in 2017.

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A group of seven carefree siblings and cousins, enjoying a moment of childhood independence as they walked to get ice cream from the shops on a hot Australian summer evening. There was laughter and jokes as they took turns on a bicycle – when without warning the unthinkable.

In the blink of an eye, an alleged drunk driver ploughs his out-of-control ute into the group at more than 100 kilometres per hour. Four young lives were instantly lost by the side of the road at Oatlands in Sydney’s west that fateful day in February this year – not even 10 minutes from their home. Three siblings, Antony Abdallah, 13, Angelina Abdallah, 12, and Sienna Abdallah, 8, and their cousin Veronique Sakr, 11, who now share the same grave. It was a tragedy that rocked all of Australia. The details would break any heart.

Dedicated to honouring the memories of their children, these courageous families open up to Michael Usher in this emotional story no parent can miss.

Listen to Part Two now.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A group of seven carefree siblings and cousins, enjoying a moment of childhood independence as they walked to get ice cream from the shops on a hot Australian summer evening. There was laughter and jokes as they took turns on a bicycle – when without warning the unthinkable.

In the blink of an eye, an alleged drunk driver ploughs his out-of-control ute into the group at more than 100 kilometres per hour. Four young lives were instantly lost by the side of the road at Oatlands in Sydney’s west that fateful day in February this year – not even 10 minutes from their home. Three siblings, Antony Abdallah, 13, Angelina Abdallah, 12, and Sienna Abdallah, 8, and their cousin Veronique Sakr, 11, who now share the same grave. It was a tragedy that rocked all of Australia. The details would break any heart.

Dedicated to honouring the memories of their children, these courageous families open up to Michael Usher in this emotional story no parent can miss.

Listen to Part One now.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.