-With AAP.
1.”We were encouraging her.” Friends who filmed Shania McNeill on Snapchat before fatal crash apologise.
The friends of a young Sydney driver, who fatally crashed into another car after being filmed driving dangerously on social media, hope to apologise to the victims of the “stupid” stunt.
Shania McNeill, along with her passengers Hazel Wildman and Faeda Hunter, had been drinking at a Richmond club on the night of April 27.
They left after midnight and drove toward a friend’s house, they told the Seven Network’s Sunday Night.
Hunter, in the front passenger seat, was filming 21-year-old McNeill as she drove the small Suzuki through Sydney’s north west while singing and pulling faces for the camera.
McNeill then began crossing double lines and playing chicken with oncoming cars.
In the footage, one of the friends yells at the driver, “Shania!” as she looks towards the road in open-mouthed adrenaline and what appears to be fear, before turning back to the camera and smiling.
She waves at the person filming to turn the camera back towards the road before the footage cuts out.
“Sometimes I’m not fully aware of what I’m filming or where the camera’s pointing. I was filming her. We were encouraging her for a while… just having fun. Then it started to get scary," Hunter said.
“It was very reckless driving. Very stupid,” Wildman added.
It was just after 1am when McNeill's car smashed, head-on, into a car driven by musician Ken Morrow.
Morrow was left with a shattered wrist while his passenger, Dennis Sales, had a broken back, shoulder, ribs, ruptured spleen and had his heart shifted by the force of the impact. He was in a coma for days.
McNeill died from internal injuries while Wildman and Hunter were also left injured.
They sparked further outrage when they posted a selfie from hospital, but they said they were unaware their friend had died when it was posted.
"When the selfie was posted, we were not aware of the condition of Shania," said Hunter.
"Messages were already coming through on my phone. People wanted to know what was going on, so I just put it out there to say, ‘We’re okay’. We thought Shania was fine. I even sent it to her Snapchat, as a personal message. She never opened it though."
Toxicology tests would later reveal McNeill had MDMA, cannabis and alcohol in her system, Seven Network said.
The two women want to apologise to Morrow and Sales for their role in the crash.
"From the bottom of our hearts we're terribly sorry," Wildman said.
Shania's father Lee McNeill last week slammed his daughter's friends for profiting from her death with the exclusive TV deal.
The Sunday Telegraph reported he was approached by two networks, but refused, saying “I’ve got a box of ashes in my garage. It makes me sick to involve money”.
The recovery is continuing for the two young women and the two men who became victims of what Wildman called "reckless" and "stupid" driving.
The two men said they aren't seeking to lay blame on McNeill's family and recognise their grief following the "senseless" stunt.
2. Concerns for two-year-old Tamil refugee's health.
Supporters in the tiny Queensland town of Biloela are concerned for the health of a two-year-old Tamil asylum-seeker held in detention for 15 months.
Tharunicaa - the youngest daughter of failed asylum-seekers Priya and Nadesalingam - has severe tooth decay and needs surgery urgently, family friend Angela Fredericks says.
Four of Tharunicaa's teeth are so rotten nerves are exposed, Ms Fredericks told AAP on Sunday.
"Priya says she won't eat solids because her mouth hurts so much and two teeth are now dead," she said.
Ms Fredericks said a lack of sunlight and a poor diet since the family was taken into custody during a dawn raid on their central Queensland home are to blame for the decay.
"It's been tough getting access to specialists," she said.
Doctors want to operate to remove the teeth but no date has been set.
It came as Australian-born Tharunicaa celebrated her second birthday in detention.
Ms Fredericks said supporters took a cake to the detention centre but staff confiscated the candles.
Priya, her husband Nadesalingam, Tharunicaa and her sister, Kopika, four, have received a temporary reprieve from deportation, however.
In late May, Immigration Minister David Coleman agreed not to deport them until Tharunicaa's asylum claim is heard.
The family had been at imminent risk of deportation after the High Court denied their final bid to stay in Australia on May 14.
Their case is complicated, however, because Home Affairs has placed a bar on Tharunmicaa making an asylum claim, Ms Fredericks said.
"It's ridiculous. There's a whole community here in central Queensland ready to support this family - we want them back here."
Priya, Nadesalingam, Tharunicaa and Kopika remain much-loved members of Biloela, where they lived before the Australian Border force took them into custody.
Nadesalingam worked in the local meatworks and Priya's curries became a sought after delicacy.
The couple came to Australia separately by boat in 2012 and 2013 following Sri Lanka's civil war and settled in town for four years on a temporary bridging visa, which ran out in March 2018.
Kopika is also born in Australia.
3. A mother with terminal cancer has opted to take part in Victoria's voluntary euthanasia.
A mother with terminal cancer who feared a bad death says having the choice to end her life when she is ready under Victoria's voluntary euthanasia laws is a huge relief.
Margaret Radmore, a nurse of more than 40 years, has been given 12 months to live after being diagnosed with bowel cancer which has spread to her liver.
In March, she decided to stop chemotherapy and "let nature take its course".
"One of my very first thoughts when I was given my diagnosis, is the terror of anticipating a bad death," she said on Sunday, noting a good death was a person being as a comfortable as possible.
Ms Radmore is expected to be among a dozen Victorians, on average over 12 months, to access a fatal cocktail of drugs during the voluntary euthanasia scheme's first year.
From Wednesday, terminally ill Victorians who meet 68 safeguards can ask their doctor to access the drugs.
"When this legislation was passed it was a huge relief to me," Ms Radmore said.
"I am perfectly comfortable with my fate and it is a very sad thing to be living through but the fact that I have control at the end is really important to me.
"I might not even use the medication but just knowing it is there. I am really keen to start the process to have the kit because then I can just put it in the cupboard and just get on with living."
The government expects the uptake for the lethal concoction to rise to between 100 and 150 annually.
Premier Daniel Andrews said it has been a long journey for many people who had advocated for "more dignified, more compassionate choices at the end of a person's life".
"Ultimately this is about giving to Victorians who have a terminal illness and are in the terminal phase of that illness and have unbearable pain and suffering the option, the dignifying choice," he told reporters on Sunday.
More than 2200 people have attended information sessions about the new laws with 106 medical practitioners trained or soon to be trained, as of Friday, to provide the care.
The government has put $72 million in the budget for extra palliative care services.
4. "Little gettin' even to do." OJ Simpson launches Twitter account.
OJ Simpson has launched a Twitter account with a video post in which the former football star said he's got a "little gettin' even to do".
Simpson confirmed the new account to The Associated Press on Saturday, saying in a phone interview while on a Las Vegas golf course that it "will be a lot of fun".
"I've got some things to straighten out," he said.
He did not elaborate before he said he had to go and ended the call.
Simpson has generally kept a low profile since his release from prison in October 2017 for robbery and kidnapping over an attempt to steal back some of his sports memorabilia from a Las Vegas hotel room.
In the Twitter video, Simpson said his followers would get to read all his thoughts and opinions on "just about everything."
"Now, there's a lot of fake OJ accounts out there," he said, adding that this one would be official. He appeared to record the message himself and ended it with a grin.
The 71-year-old recently told the AP he was happy and healthy living in Las Vegas 25 years after the killings of his ex-wife and her friend. Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were stabbed to death on the night of June 12, 1994.
Simpson was ultimately acquitted of the crime after a televised trial that riveted the nation and raised thorny issues of racism, police misconduct, celebrity and domestic violence.
Relatives of the two victims have expressed disgust that Simpson is able to live the way he does. Simpson was ordered to pay $US33.5 million ($A48.7 million) for the wrongful deaths of the two victims, but most of the judgement has not been paid.
Simpson has continued to declare his innocence in the two slayings. The murder case is officially listed as unsolved.
In his recent interview , Simpson told the AP that neither he nor his children want to talk about the killings ever again.
"My family and I have moved on to what we call the 'no negative zone.' We focus on the positives," he said.
5. Notre Dame holds first mass since fire.
A small congregation in white hard hats has attended mass at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, the first service since fire devastated the Gothic landmark two months ago.
Church leaders are keen to show life goes on at the cathedral as donations for rebuilding trickle in.
Less than 10 per cent of the 850 million euros ($A1.4 billion) pledged by billionaires, business leaders and others has been received so far, the French government said.
The mass, which commemorates the cathedral's consecration as a place of worship, was held in a side-chapel left undamaged by the April 15 fire, with attendance limited to about 30 people wearing protective headgear.
Priests in ceremonial garb of white robes and yellow stoles briefly parted with their hard hats during the communion.
"It is with much emotion that we are here to celebrate the consecration of the cathedral," said Paris's archbishop Michel Aupetit, who led the service.
"It is a message of hope and thanks to all those who were moved by what happened to this cathedral," he added, acknowledging afterwards it was "a bit strange" to celebrate mass with a helmet.
The service was broadcast live on a religious TV channel that showed poignant images of the blue sky through the collapsed roof, and black rubble still clogging the building.