60 Minutes

On 60 Minutes how has a secret weapon brought down hundreds of high-ranking United States government workers? Plus kayaker Jess Fox is profiled.

Havana Syndrome
Some people might applaud the ingenuity; most though would condemn the barbarity. A secret new weapon has apparently been developed and is being used to target hundreds of high-ranking United States government workers. Those affected include diplomats, military officials, and spies, who believe they've been struck down in mysterious circumstances by strange energy waves. After being attacked, the victims report a range of debilitating neurological ailments that have seriously impaired their lives. In this special report for 60 Minutes, Dimity Clancey investigates the so-called "Havana Syndrome". The condition got its name because it was first detected in Cuba, but there are no prizes for guessing it's another country accused of engineering it.
Reporter: Dimity Clancey
Producers: Garry McNab, Nichola Younger

Rapid Success
Between them, Jess Fox's parents, Richard Fox and Myriam Fox-Jerusalmi, won 18 world titles in paddling, and were trailblazers in the sport. It's little surprise then that from the moment Jess was born, she was destined to have the considerable skills and daring needed to race down rapids in a kayak and a canoe. What wasn't predicted was just how successful she'd become. Experts now say Jess Fox is the greatest paddler of all time. And as Adam Hegarty reports, that's the best news for Australia as this champion prepares for the Paris Games. It will be her fourth Olympics, another extraordinary feat, but even more significantly for Jess, this time there's the strong chance she'll be joined by a very special team mate: her sister, Noemie Fox.
Reporter: Adam Hegarty
Producer: Lisa Brown

On 60 Minutes the dangers of dating apps, plus the young woman whose brain could provide clues to treating conditions like dementia.

No Warning, No Chance
Dannielle Finlay-Jones should be alive today. On weekdays, she should be teaching students at the school where she worked. And on weekends, she should be playing sport and hanging out with her friends. Instead, she's another murdered victim of domestic violence. Her family, though, don't want their precious Danni to be a statistic. They want the system that failed her to be fixed. As Amelia Adams reports, Danni had been looking for love, and met Ashley Gaddie, a 33-year-old tradie with a long history of violence against women, on a dating app. But Danni didn't know about his past, or that he was out on bail at the time, and with no warning about his real character, she stood no chance.
Reporter: Amelia Adams
Producer: Laura Sparkes

A Beautiful Mind
Imagine being able to remember the day you were born. And from then on, every high and every low of every day of your life. For a tiny club of fewer than one hundred extraordinary people worldwide, this is no trick. Unbidden, and sometimes unwelcome, highly detailed memories constantly flood their thoughts. Eighteen-year-old Canadian Emily Nash is the latest and youngest person to be identified with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, or HSAM. But while Emily's definitely the girl you want on your Trivial Pursuit team, her ambitions run higher. As she tells Tara Brown, she has volunteered herself, and her unforgettable and beautiful mind, to help those who can't remember. And medical researchers couldn't be happier, because they believe understanding Emily's super brain will provide clues to better treat conditions like dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
Reporter: Tara Brown
Producer: Sammi Taylor

Patriot Games
Who is the real Daniel Edmund Duggan? It's a simple question, but the answer is highly contested and has enormous consequences. For his family and a large group of supporters, he's a hero. A former U.S. Marine fighter pilot turned proud Australian citizen; a loving husband and devoted dad. For others though, namely the United States government, he's a traitor, accused of supplying China with top-secret military information. For the past 19 months, Duggan has been sitting in Australian prisons fighting attempts to send him back to the United States. As Dimity Clancey reports, a decision about his extradition is expected within weeks, but if the Americans get a hold of him and can prove the allegations, he faces up to 65 more years locked up. It's a thought his wife Saffrine and six children are struggling to comprehend.
Reporter: Dimity Clancey
Producer: Lisa Brown

Elon Musk's Crash Course
For all of his futuristic vision and entrepreneurial drive, billionaire Elon Musk's bold mission to build a fully autonomous car is stalling. His company Tesla is facing increasingly serious questions about the safety of its self-driving technology. A major investigation by a U.S. regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, has linked Tesla's autopilot feature to hundreds of crashes, many of them fatal. NHTSA says drivers have been lulled into a false sense of security about the cars that isn't matched by reality. And it gets worse. There are also accusations that Musk and Tesla talked up the self-driving capabilities of the vehicles so much that they may have committed fraud by misleading investors and consumers.
Reporter: Amelia Adams
Producers: Garry McNab, Emma Schwartz

Giant Leap
It's important to be reminded that sometimes what we think is impossible isn't. Fourteen years ago David Mzee suffered terrible spinal injuries after an accident on a trampoline. He was told he'd be a wheelchair-dependent paraplegic for the rest of his life. That was news David didn't want to hear, so he didn't listen. All he wanted was to walk again. And as he shows Adam Hegarty, with much perseverance and great help from a lot of very smart people, he now does.
Reporter: Adam Hegarty
Producer: Sammi Taylor

Big Brother
For all the wrong reasons, everyone knows of Belle Gibson. A decade ago, she claimed that she'd beaten terminal brain cancer by rejecting conventional treatment in favour of natural remedies. Her cure made her a hero of the wellness industry. And not only did she love the worldwide attention her inspirational story attracted, she profited from it to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. But this medical miracle was all a lie, a twisted invention of the charlatan's mind. Today, the pain inflicted by Belle Gibson's deception still hurts her many victims, including her big brother Nick Gibson. In an emotional interview with Dimity Clancey, he describes how his life has been destroyed by his heartless sister.
Reporter: Dimity Clancey
Producer: Sheree Gibson

Gangster's Paradise
It might sound strange, but the crime capital of Australia is currently Dubai. That's because this glitzy mega city in the Persian Gulf has become home to nearly all of our biggest organised crime bosses. Their thinking in moving offshore is that they're out of reach of federal and state policing authorities, but if they watch 60 Minutes this Sunday, they might want to think again. As Nick McKenzie reports, an enormous leak of Dubai property records has revealed not only their residential addresses, but also how the city has become the perfect destination for crooks, and suspected criminals, from all around the world to do their dirty business.
Reporter: Nick McKenzie
Producer: Amelia Ballinger

Troubles at Home
It's almost unimaginable. Last November, a 12-year-old girl in Victoria was charged with murder after allegedly stabbing a 37-year-old woman to death. On Thursday the charges were dropped though, because being so young, it was determined the girl didn't have the mental capacity to be held criminally responsible for her actions. However, what's important to know about this case is that at the time, she was the responsibility of the state. The girl was living in what's called residential care; homes that are supposedly supervised, safe places for vulnerable children. But they're not. On assignment for 60 Minutes, Nine's Christine Ahern meets a very brave young woman who wants Australia to know what's really happening in residential care homes. This now 20-year-old says she suffered enormously and is demanding immediate changes to the system.
Reporter: Christine Ahern
Producer: Laura Sparkes