A cyclone, the mushroom killer and terror at Bondi: Your most read stories
SOURCE:ABC Australia
It was a year that bought us a federal election, ongoing war in the Middle East and Ukraine and a trial in a small Victorian town watched keenly around the world.
It was a year that brought us a federal election, an ongoing war in the Middle East and Ukraine and a trial in a small Victorian town watched keenly around the world.
And then, a few weeks before the close of the year, an antisemitic terror attack on our shores changed everything.
Here are the stories that got your attention this year.
Anthony Albanese declared victory after a large swing towards Labor. (ABC News: Brendan Esposito)
Voters delivered Labor a landslide election win on May 3, giving the government a second term that defied early polls and offered a punishing repudiation of the Coalition.
Fighting back tears when he addressed supporters, Albanese flashed his often displayed Medicare card and vowed he would be back at work tomorrow.
It was expected to hit the coast as a category 2 cyclone, but ended up being downgraded to a tropical low, still bringing heavy rainfall and flooding to the region.
A US B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, the type of which was used in the strikes. (Reuters: Hyungwon Kang)
On June 22, President Donald Trump said the US has dropped "a full payload of bombs" on Iran's Fordow nuclear site.
Hours later, the Israeli military warned its citizens to seek cover from an Iranian barrage that appeared heavier than the salvos it had fired in the past few days.
Police scoured the mountains after the shooting, but alleged gunman Dezi Freeman is still at large. (ABC News: Annie Brown)
Two police officers died, and another was seriously wounded after a shooting at a property in Porepunkah, near Bright in Victoria's north-east, on August 26.
Dezi Freeman, who was accused of shooting the officers, is a self-identified "sovereign citizen" with a history of run-ins with the legal system.
Mushroom killer Erin Patterson in court. (ABC News: Paul Tyquin)
After a trial watched around the world, on July 7 a Supreme Court jury found Erin Patterson guilty of murdering three relatives by deliberately lacing a beef-wellington lunch with death cap mushrooms.
Patterson, 50, had pleaded not guilty to murder and attempted murder, telling the Morwell court the poisonous mushrooms were accidentally included in the meals she served to four relatives in 2023.
As the verdict was handed down, Patterson did not express any obvious outward emotion, watching the process from inside the courtroom.
At 13, Alliyah believed they were married to their science teacher. (Supplied: Alliyah)
At 13, Alliyah believed they were married to their science teacher. An abusive and controlling sexual relationship then continued in secret for almost a decade.
Alliyah was conditioned to lie, denying they were anything more than friends.
Several complaints were made to school principals and local police. But little was done. Until Alliyah chose to speak out.
Trump's new visa regulations came as a shock to thousands of Australians. (Reuters: Kevin Lamarque)
Sudden new visa rules issued by the Trump administration in September meant Australians could find it tougher to extend their stay in the US.
The US State Department issued a directive that meant Australians on working visas in the US, including the Australia-specific E-3 visa, may have to travel back to Australia to renew them every two years.
The changes mean Australians on working visas in the US may have to travel back to Australia every two years to attend an interview at a US consulate. Until now, Australians commonly travelled much shorter distances to renew their visas in countries like the UK or Barbados.
Carolina Wilga, 26, had been missing for 12 days when she was found alive in WA's outback on July 11.
WA Police Inspector Martin Glynn said Ms Wilga was found walking along a bush track at the edge of the Karroun Hill Nature Reserve by a member of the public.
The banking passwords were stolen using malware. (ABC News)
More than 31,000 passwords belonging to Australian customers of the Big Four banks are being shared amongst cyber criminals online, often for free, an ABC investigation in April revealed.
"Infostealer" malware siphoned an estimated 3.9 billion passwords globally, in what the Australian Signals Directorate dubbed "the silent heist".
The votes has already been counted before they went missing. (ABC News: James Dunlevie)
Almost 2,000 ballot papers went missing on election night and were later recovered from the Sydney home of a temporary Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) worker, the ABC revealed on May 14.
While the AEC said the incident did not affect the result in the seat of Barton because the votes had already been counted, it did not explain how the ballots ended up at the worker's home and launched an investigation.
Kirk was shot dead on stage at a university campus. (Reuters: Trent Nelson, The Salt Lake Tribune)
Charlie Kirk, a friend and political ally of Donald Trump with millions of online followers, was assassinated while taking questions from a crowd of students near Salt Lake City on September 10.
Utah man Tyler Robinson, 22, was arrested and charged with murder two days later.
Chris Burton was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer. (Four Corners: Rob Hill)
Australians aged in their 30s and 40s are experiencing unprecedented and in some cases world-leading rates of 10 different types of cancer — and scientists are desperate to understand why.
The technical term for this phenomenon is early onset cancer, and it is rising steeply. Data provided to Four Corners by Cancer Australia, the federal government's cancer agency, painted a concerning picture for young people.
Between 2000 and 2024 — in 30 to 39-year-olds — early-onset prostate cancer increased by 500 per cent, pancreatic cancer by 200 per cent, liver cancer by 150 per cent, uterine cancer by 138 per cent and kidney cancer by 85 per cent.
Tourism is a big economic driver for Spain, employing 3 million people. (Foreign Correspondent: Tyler Freeman Smith)
The official signage in Barcelona encourages everyone to enjoy the city, but graffiti dotted around Spain's second biggest city has a different message aimed squarely at visitors. In English, it says: "Tourists go home."
Spain is expecting a record 100 million international travellers this year, which puts it on track to overtake France as the world's most visited country.
Foreign Correspondent visited some of Spain's tourism hotspots to meet the locals who say their home is being loved to death.
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in London. (AP: Kin Cheung)
On March 1, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Britain, France and Ukraine had agreed to work on a ceasefire plan to present to the United States.
The announcement came in the aftermath of US President Donald Trump's confrontation with Mr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, in which the US leader accused him of "gambling with World War III".
US beef exports to China ground to halt in early 2025 as a trade war heated up. (ABC Landline)
The United States's $2.5 billion beef trade to China ground to a halt following Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff hikes.
And Australia's cattle industry enjoyed a surge in demand from China for grain-fed beef as a result.
Statistics from Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) showed Australian grain-fed beef exports to China ramped up significantly, with 21,885 tonnes shipped in February and March — up nearly 40 per cent on the same period last year.
In early 2025, Europeans were encouraged to maintain survival kits with enough supplies to sustain them for 72 hours. (Reuters: George Frey)
With the war in Ukraine on their doorstep, the European Union's (EU) 450 million residents were urged to pack a 72-hour survival bag in March, as part of a new EU Preparedness Strategy.
"For three years in Ukraine, we have seen a battlefield of bombs and bullets, drones, fighter planes, trenches and submarines ... European security is directly threatened by this," said the European Commission's head of crisis management, Hadja Lahbib.
The EU's plan was borrowed directly from Australia and the experiences of those living in communities prone to bushfire and flooding, according to University of Durham professor of risk and hazard Lucy Easthope.
Jane's son was repeatedly strapped to a high-chair for hours at a time at his childcare centre. (Supplied)
Jane thought everything was normal at her son's childcare centre — he was happy and playing in updates sent to her by staff, but she later discovered it was "all fake".
In reality, he and other children at the facility were force-fed, pinched, thrown to the ground and left in high-chairs for hours at a time, in what Jane described as a "house of horrors" that was "every parent's worst nightmare".
She shared her family's story for the first time in March as part of a six-month Four Corners investigation into Australia's childcare industry.