SBS News in Easy English 28 April

SBS Australia

28-04-2025

Listen to Australian and world news, and follow trending topics with . Pope Francis has been laid to rest in Rome. The pontiff's coffin has been carried into St Mary Major Basilica following a funeral ceremony and procession in Rome attended by 400,000 mourners. The service was also watched on a livestream around the world, including the Sacred Heart Parish Shrine church in the Philippines. Australian Catholics have also gathered across the country to commemorate the Pope's life in a series of local services. Bishop Vincent Long Van Nguyen has held a solemn mass at Saint Patrick's Cathedral in Parramatta. "Whether it was the homeless, Indigenous peoples, prisoners, refugees, asylum seekers, gender diverse, divorced and remarried people, Pope Francis has personified the closeness and the pathos of God, for the people on the margins." Authorities fear the death toll from a car ramming in the Canadian city of Vancouver could rise in the coming days. Dozens have been left injured in the attack, which saw a 30 year old man drive his car into a crowd celebrating a Filipino festival ((and killed 11 people)). Vancouver Interim Chief Constable Steve Rai says some of those hurt are in critical condition. But British Columbia Premier David Eby says the government will do everything it can to help the survivors and the families of those who died. "This is a community that is suffering right now. We're gonna put our arms around them as all British Columbians. We're going to stand with them and support them just like they support us every single day in this province. It's their turn. It's there turn to get care from us." A coronial inquest is set to begin today into the mass stabbing attack at a shopping centre in Bondi Junction one year ago. The mandatory inquest will consider the circumstances of the deaths of the six victims and the attacker, who was shot dead by police at the scene. It will also consider the emergency response and adequacy of mental health services. The court will be using a trauma-informed approach during the five week inquest, which will include no sensitive CCTV or body cam vision to be played in court. Undecided voters have crowned the prime minister the debate winner after a chaotic and eccentric end to the final leaders' debate. The 60-strong live studio audience reached its decision after witnessing Anthony Albanese's final face-off against Opposition Leader Peter Dutton before voters head to the polls on Saturday. But almost 2.4 million Australians have already voted. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has criticised the frequency of Indigenous Welcome to Country ceremonies during the final leaders debate. He has called them "overdone" and divisive. "In relation to the Welcome to Country, otherwise, I think there is, and people have said this to me as we moved across the country, there is a sense across the community that it's overdone. For the opening of parliament, fair enough, it's respectful to do, but for the start of every meeting at work, or the start of a football game, I think a lot of Australians think it's overdone and it cheapens the significance of what it was meant to do. It divides the country, not dissimilar to what the Prime Minister did with the Voice." The topic has resurfaced in recent days after a known neo-Nazi booed during a Welcome to Country ceremony in Melbourne on ANZAC Day. The Melbourne Storm also cancelled a Welcome before a game at the weekend, citing a "miscommunication" for the decision. It later emerged that the club's director Brett Ralph is a significant donor to Advance, which is a lobby group campaigning to end the ritual. A mind-altering medication chemically akin to ketamine will be made cheaper for Australians suffering from treatment-resistant depression. From Thursday, Spravato will be available for up to 30,000 Australians through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Professor Ian Hickie is the co-director of Health and Policy at the University of Sydney's Brain and Mind Centre. He says this is the first new government- backed initiative to treat the chronic mental illness in decades, with no major pharmaceutical innovations for depression since the launch of Prozac and related antidepressants in the late 1980s.
"Largely in fact over the last 60 years, most antidepressants have focused on one of the common monoamines: serotonin or adrenaline dopamine. This has a different chemical target: glutomate in the brain. So it's different. And it's the first drug to be supported by the PBS that is fundamentally different from all those compounds."