Pesticide residues have been detected on fruit and vegetables sold by some of Australia’s largest supermarket chains, prompting renewed questions about food safety.

Pesticide Action Australia’s (PAA) Residue Report 2026, released on Wednesday, examined 13 types of produce, including apples, bananas, lettuce, strawberries and potatoes.

Researchers bought the samples at random from Coles, Woolworths and Aldi outlets in Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney, Perth and Melbourne during June.

Across 78 samples, the report recorded 201 pesticide residue detections involving 54 different chemicals. PAA said some of those substances have been associated with health concerns.

Around 44 per cent of the samples contained at least one PFAS chemical, commonly known as “forever chemicals”. PFAS exposure has been linked to health concerns including certain cancers and high cholesterol.

“Australia approves hundreds of hazardous pesticides that are banned overseas, and our government is failing to regularly test for residues,” project lead Eleanor Davis told news.com.au.

“As a result, more hazardous pesticides are ending up on our plates… For many Australian kids, food is the main way they’re exposed to pesticides.

“And our industry-funded pesticide regulator is not assessing the ongoing low-level ‘chemical cocktail’ kids are exposed to every day.”

Farmers use pesticides extensively to protect crops, preserve food supplies, limit waste and maintain agricultural productivity.

The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) is responsible for approving products and setting maximum residue limits. State and territory agencies investigate suspected misuse and potential breaches involving pesticide residues.

PAA’s report highlighted differences between Australia’s pesticide rules and regulations in other countries. It claimed that 60 per cent of the pesticides most heavily used in Australia are prohibited in the European Union.

The report also said only 16 per cent of those widely used pesticides have received full international approval.

Neonicotinoids were found in 14 per cent of the samples. The pesticide group is banned in the European Union and restricted in parts of the UK, US and Canada because of environmental and potential health concerns.

PAA said residues from four pesticides exceeded maximum levels permitted by the APVMA, including in some grape and strawberry samples.

The testing also detected five organophosphate pesticides. According to the US National Institutes of Health, chemicals in this group can affect the nervous system.

The APVMA told the Daily Mail it was aware of the report published by PAA.

“Any suspected MRL violations should be reported to the relevant state or territory authority for investigation,” an APVMA spokesperson said.

“These authorities will determine the origin of the food and, for Australian produce, whether approved use patterns were followed.

‘Where non-compliance is identified, the relevant control-of-use authority will take appropriate action.’

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Pesticide Action Australia criticised the APVMA in June after the regulator allowed the continued use of paraquat with restrictions, concluding that the weight of evidence did not show approved uses increased the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. 

The regulator was criticised again in July over proposed higher residue limits for isocycloseram on berries, with campaigners noting the pesticide was not approved for use in the European Union. 

Ms Davis said that, with the rising cost of living, shoppers should not be expected to shop around or pay more to avoid chemicals on their food.

‘Many farmers, already under growing pressure, want to spray fewer chemicals,’ she said. 

‘But our current food system doesn’t make it easy for them. In fact, it places all the risk on them.’

Ms Davis added: ‘Supermarkets should be supporting our farmers to transition to nature-friendly farming practices. 

‘Farmers can’t be expected to take on all the risks and costs alone.’

Coles, Woolworths and Aldi all stated they follow Australian laws for all fresh produce.

‘Food safety is our highest priority at Coles, and we expect all fresh produce suppliers to meet strict food safety requirements and comply with applicable Australian regulations,’ a Coles spokesperson said.

‘All fresh produce supplied to Coles must come from certified growers who follow strict food safety requirements on pesticide use and when produce can be harvested.

‘Coles regularly tests a range of fresh produce for pesticide residues throughout the year and has been doing so for decades.’

An Aldi spokesperson told the Daily Mail the supermarket ‘requires its fresh produce suppliers to meet recognised food safety standards’.

‘Suppliers undertake regular testing, with fresh produce items required to comply with all standards,’ they said.

‘In addition to supplier testing, ALDI conducts risk-based surveillance testing as part of its food safety and quality assurance program.’

It is understood Woolworths follows the strictest food safety standards and ensures full compliance with legislative requirements set by Food Standards Australia New Zealand and the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority.

All primary suppliers and growers are independently audited under the Harmonised Australian Retailer Produce Scheme, which mandates residue testing and agricultural standards. 

In addition, the technical teams conduct risk-based testing, farm site inspections, and work closely with state food safety regulators to ensure produce integrity.

Former members of Cornell University’s Chi Phi fraternity allegedly met to discuss how to contain the fallout from an alleged gang rape in 2024.

The former members of the Ivy League fraternity, which has since been disbanded, are accused of giving a female student alcohol and drugs at a party in October 2024 before sexually assaulting her.

Afterward, Cornell’s police department received an anonymous tip alleging that Chi Phi leaders had urged potential witnesses to remain silent. Spreading details of the incident across campus, the caller said, could damage “the reputation of all involved and the frat,” according to records obtained by ABC News.

When investigators questioned witnesses about an alleged cover-up, one female student said the fraternity had organized a meeting to coordinate the men’s accounts of what occurred.

“I know for a fact there are GroupMe messages about the situation,” she told police, according to the records.

She said the fraternity members characterized the encounter as a “consensual orgy,” while also worrying that the allegations could damage the chapter’s image.

Cornell police interviewed at least two Chi Phi members about the alleged assault and about conversations that took place inside the fraternity house afterward.

One member reportedly said the incident was mentioned informally during a regular weekly meeting, when fraternity leaders were discussing their “brother of the week and idiots of the week.”

“We didn’t have a meeting about it specifically,” the fraternity member said. “It was our weekly chapter meeting. We got through a bunch of stuff.”

However, text messages obtained by ABC News appeared to show fraternity members attempting to manage the fallout after Cornell suspended the chapter from campus.

In one exchange, the fraternity president asked Matthew Ingalls, who had invited the accuser to the house on October 19, 2024: “When was the last time you spoke to [Jane Doe]?”

Ingalls replied, “Yesterday… what’s the plan of action?” according to the records.

He then asked, “Should I call [her]? I don’t think she would have reported this.”

The exchange came days after Ingalls allegedly insisted that Jane Doe had told him during a phone call that she was sober.

Police obtained audio of that call, which reflected sharply different accounts of the alleged assault. Jane Doe told Ingalls that he “already knew I was 10 shots deep” when he and six other men allegedly sexually assaulted her.

“If I wanted to take this somewhere, what y’all did would be classified as gang rape,” she wrote in one message, according to the records.

During another conversation, Jane Doe said she could not remember all of the men involved. She recalled seeing four men on a bed at one point, with additional men standing nearby.

Ingalls responded: ‘I have racked my brain for this mystery. You know, it’s possible that both of us, like, remember this and it’s not true.’

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Jane Doe argued back to this, saying: ‘No, because I remember looking up and being like, ‘That is too many people.’

The audio showed that while Ingalls appeared to try and calm Jane Doe’s feelings about the incident, he did not mention that he texted his fraternity group chat during the alleged assault, according to Jane Doe’s lawsuit. 

He allegedly posted a photo of Jane Doe to the fraternity group chat, and said, ‘Boys come whip it out,’ the lawsuit alleges.

Jane Doe now claims in a civil lawsuit that seven men eventually participated and that Doe became ‘completely incapacitated.’ She says the ordeal continued until around 5.45am, when she lost consciousness.

She then reported the allegations to Cornell University Police on November 8 after friends encouraged her to come forward, according to the lawsuit.

Ingalls, however, later claimed he was the one who was sexually assaulted, arguing that he was too intoxicated to consent to any sexual intercourse.

In an email to Cornell’s Title IX investigator in February 2025, Ingalls even accused the school of ‘entrapment’ and suggested he would file his own complaint against Jane Doe.

‘After all, you received information that I was sodomized by her while I was incapacitated back in November and you never once thought to alert me of my rights under these procedures as a survivor of this assault?’ he wrote in the email.

‘The very fact that I had to bring this to your attention now in February confirms my worst fears: that this process is rolled [sic] with gender discrimination.’ 

Ingalls was later expelled from the school along with Jonathan Newell, who engaged in a threesome with Jane Doe and Ingalls and allegedly struck the victim.

Suspensions and disciplinary probation orders were also handed down to Winston Lee and Gillio Lopes, according to records obtained by The New York Times.

Both men were also ordered not to contact the alleged victim, and were required to study sexual harassment and write reflection papers.

Meanwhile, Diego Sarabia was barred from campus for three years. He had already graduated from the school by the time of the disciplinary panel’s ruling in March 2025.

The other two men, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar, were ordered not to contact Jane Doe, to study sexual harassment, social media use and bystander intervention and to write ‘reflection papers.’

They were not part of the alleged attack, but were accused of entering the room after Newell allegedly posted in a fraternity Snapchat group that there was ‘free p***y’ upstairs.

But none of the men involved in the alleged assault were ever charged with any wrongdoing, as Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten concluded there was a lack of evidence based on Jane Doe’s statement to police at the time.

His office has since reopened the case, and New York Governor Kathy Hochul has appointed Attorney General Letitia James as a special prosecutor.

Meanwhile, officials at Cornell University announced Tuesday they have hired former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to review the school’s handling of the case and its broader sexual assault policies.

The probe will cover Cornell’s ‘policies, practices and resources across the full range of prevention and response,’ university officials said.

That includes examining how reports are received and investigated, how hearings and disciplinary decisions are handled, as well as the role and response of campus police and its coordination with other law enforcement agencies and prosecutors and even oversight of fraternities and sororities on campus.

A former senior government adviser who defended himself in court against more than a dozen child sex charges is seeking taxpayer-funded legal representation after being convicted.

Craig Munnings remained unidentified for seven years while he faced multiple trials over allegations involving two girls. His name was withheld after a clerical mistake resulted in a suppression order being incorrectly applied.

During a 12-year political career in and around Macquarie Street, Munnings worked as an adviser to NSW Labor ministers Ian Macdonald, John Aquilina, Di Beamer and Harry Woods.

The 61-year-old, who is married with two children and lives at Woy Woy on the Central Coast, is also an ordained Anglican minister. He previously made an unsuccessful bid to become a Labor local government candidate.

Daily Mail can reveal that Munnings’ company, Crakyl Pty Ltd, remains listed on the NSW Lobbyists Register despite him spending the past two months in custody. The listing gives the business access to political decision-makers.

According to the register, Crakyl’s employees, Munnings and his wife Kylie, are authorised to communicate and meet with NSW Government officials for lobbying purposes.

Munnings had been scheduled to face trial several times from 2020 onward, but the proceedings were repeatedly delayed or discontinued after they had begun.

During the lengthy and costly legal process, he at various points said he had prostate cancer, suffered a heart attack and needed heart surgery.

After being convicted, Munnings swallowed a bottle of painkillers at the bar table in Gosford District Court in an apparent bid to halt or delay the proceedings.

He has represented himself since around 2022. However, appearing by audio-visual link from Parklea prison last Thursday, Munnings told the court he had applied for Legal Aid ahead of sentencing.

In Gosford District Court, Judge David Wilson addressed Munnings on the screen, asking: ‘Mr Munnings. How are you?’

Munnings responded: ‘I’m fair. But thank you for asking.’

He then told the judge that he had applied for Legal Aid ‘probably five weeks ago’ but had yet to learn whether his application had been assessed.

‘The other thing I should add is I still haven’t had a pre-sentence report complied,’ he said. ‘So that should be undertaken as a matter of some urgency I believe.’

Munnings has consistently denied sexually assaulting the two alleged victims, one of whom was 10 when the alleged abuse began. The incidents were said to have occurred during the mid-1980s and early 1990s.

He was charged in February 2019. When he first appeared in court the following month, a non-publication order was mistakenly issued covering his identity.

That order should have covered only the names of the two sexual assault victims or anything which might tend to identify them.

But when entered into Justicelink, the digital electronic case management system used across NSW courts, the order had erroneously included Munnings.

‘The name of the defendant was temporarily suppressed in a clerical error that has now been rectified,’ a spokesman for the NSW Local Court said.

Daily Mail understands that when the error emerged during Munnings’s final trial, a decision was made to leave it in place until the hearing had finished. 

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Munnings pleaded not guilty to nine counts of sexual assault, four of aggravated indecent assault of a victim under 16, and one of carnal knowledge of a girl aged between 10 and 16. 

Trial dates were set nine times between August 2020 and July 2026. A jury in one of three aborted trials was discharged after the Crown raised concerns Munnings’s opening address was prejudicial.

Another trial began on July 6 but was aborted the next day when two of 14 jurors could not continue. A fresh jury was empanelled on July 8 and that final trial ran for a month. 

The victims’ evidence and their cross-examination by a barrister acting on Munnings’s behalf had been recorded for his first scheduled trial in 2020 and was tendered again for each hearing. 

While on bail, Munnings continued operating his consultancy businesses and even travelled overseas before being found guilty of all 14 child sex offences on August 7.

It took a jury four hours and 46 minutes of deliberations to reach their unanimous verdicts.

As the jury foreman began reading out the panel’s findings, a female court officer saw that Munnings had upended a bottle of pills into his mouth.

According to a witness who was watching the proceedings via an audio-visual link, the court officer said words to the effect of, ‘Stop! Don’t take those!’

The court officer then rushed to the bar table and asked Munnings, ‘What was that?’ as Judge Gordon Lerve turned from the jury and looked at the offender.

When Munnings said, ‘It’s just my prescription medication, my painkillers’, the court officer replied, ‘But you’ve taken the whole bottle.’

Munnings, who claimed to have swallowed only three tablets, told Judge Lerve, ‘My feet are giving me pain so I needed to take these pills.’

The jury foreman resumed delivering the guilty verdicts but when Judge Lerve spoke to Munnings he was slurring his words, according to the witness.

After proposals to remove the suppression order and revoke Munnings’s bail were raised, Judge Lerve took an early lunch adjournment.

When the court reassembled, a sheriff told Judge Lerve that during the break Munnings had been seen with an empty unmarked pill bottle, falling asleep in his chair.

Fearing Munnings had overdosed on the painkillers, authorities contacted the NSW Poisons Information Centre and he was taken by ambulance to hospital.

After being discharged later that day, Munnings was transferred to prison.

Munnings first came to police attention when Brisbane Water detectives launched an investigation into allegations of child sexual abuse at Woy Woy in September 2016.

He was a 19-year-old youth leader when he started abusing his first victim and an ordained pastor by the time he began assaulting a 15-year-old girl who came forward in 2020.

Munnings technically remains an Anglican priest until the Diocese of Newcastle is provided with a certificate of conviction, which will allow his removal from holy orders.

On Thursday, Judge Wilson asked Jessica Sanchez, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, to contact Legal Aid about Munnings’s application and adjourned the matter until next week.

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Sydney Sweeney is reportedly exploring a possible conversion to Judaism as her relationship with Scooter Braun continues to grow more serious.

Sweeney, 29, has lately been exploring a conversion to Braun’s religion, Judaism, a source told Page Six, after Deuxmoi first reported that she was allegedly considering changing her faith.

A source claimed the Euphoria actress began considering the change after she and the 45-year-old music executive discussed starting a family. Sweeney recently appeared to reference Braun in a series of revealing vacation photographs shared online.

“The couple is discussing having their own family and Scooter feels strongly on the subject,” the source alleged.

The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for Sweeney and Braun for comment, but neither has responded.

Braun is already a father of three children with his former wife, Yael Cohen. The pair were married from 2014 until 2022.

Page Six previously reported that Sweeney had attended Rosh Hashanah services with Braun at Temple Sholom in Greenwich, Connecticut.

“They sat in the back,” an alleged witness told the publication.

The outlet also cited a source who said Sweeney had met with two rabbis to learn more about the potential conversion.

The timeline for converting to Judaism varies by denomination. Reform conversions may take up to two years, while Conservative conversions can last as long as three years and Orthodox conversions may take up to five.

Those undertaking the process must also have a rabbi sponsor them throughout their conversion.

Earlier reports from Page Six claimed Braun was also considering proposing to Sweeney.

“He is trying very hard to marry her,” a source alleged in mid-September. “He is following her and chartering private planes. He’s going to stay focused on her until she marries him.”

The same source reportedly described Sweeney as Braun’s “modern Marilyn Monroe.”

Marilyn Monroe, whom the source allegedly compared to Sweeney, converted to Judaism after marrying playwright Arthur Miller, her third husband, in 1956.

Last week, Sweeney appeared to suggest that her romance with Braun was intensifying when she shared a series of sizzling social media snapshots from their recent vacation.

In one image, the Euphoria star posed in a plunging red Baywatch-inspired swimsuit that struggled to contain her famous curves.

In another cheeky photo, a shirtless Braun lifted Sweeney into the air and held her up by wrapping his arms around her waist. 

Other photos showed the group jet skiing, hiking, dancing and shooting off fireworks.

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‘When your man takes you to the moon,’ Sweeney captioned the images. 

The couple started dating a year ago after first meeting at Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s wedding, and clearly their spark is still going strong.

In recent photos promoting her lingerie line SYRN, Sweeney wore a gold chain necklace featuring the initials of her boyfriend, 45. 

Two delicate ‘S’ and ‘B’ charms served as the focal point of the necklace. 

After Sweeney and Braun first started dating last year, a source told Entertainment Tonight at the time that the couple was ‘trying to be as low-key as possible, while still dating and having fun.’

‘They are just taking things slow and enjoying their time together,’ the source added.

By December, it was revealed that the couple was getting ‘serious.’

‘Scooter and Sydney are going strong and things between them are great. They’re in a committed relationship and things are serious,’ a source told People.

In January this year, Sweeney told Cosmopolitan about the speculation around her love life. 

‘Sometimes I’ll think that I can do a normal thing and have a date in a normal way, and then it gets perceived in a very non-normal way. It’s kind of sad,’ she shared. 

On going public with her romance, she said: ‘I understand that I’m a public person, but I’m still in my 20s. I’m still figuring out love, and it’s hard to do that with millions of people who have their own opinions of what that looks like…

‘At the same time, for all of my 20s, I put my head down and focused on work—and now I want to experience things. But it’s hard deciding that I want to experience love in the public eye. I’m just navigating it all.’

In May, Scooter said on the Second Thought With Suzy Weis podcast: ‘I’ve met an extraordinary woman who is kind and generous and smart, and real and down to earth.’

They’re sentiments he echoed while wishing Sweeney a happy birthday earlier this month, praising her ability to make the ‘ordinary’ feel extraordinary.

‘Happy birthday to the woman who is the exception to every rule. The person who surprised me and showed me how life with true partnership can be lived,’ he began.

‘You make me smile harder, laugh louder, adventure more, and dream bigger. You’ve made the ordinary feel exciting and the future feel like something I can’t wait to get to. A giggle can change an entire day.