'Items of interest' found in search for Samantha Murphy, pub's brutal $20 pint decision: Australia news live

Victoria Police say they have found "items of interest" in their search for missing mum Samantha Murphy.

Their search turned to Buninyong this morning, 6km from Mount Clear where police allege she was killed.

"The area has been cordoned off and those items will now be forensically tested," police said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon.

WA's top police officer says it's wrong to suggest police did nothing to concerns raised by a woman and her daughter about her ex-husband who later went on to kill two family friends in a double murder-suicide.

On Tuesday, Mark Bombara's daughter Ariel told the ABC she and her mother had contacted police three times about the threat Bombara posed, saying she felt let down by their response.

Bombara shot Jennifer Petelczyc and her 18-year-old daughter Gretl dead in the leafy Perth suburb of Floreat last Friday after he'd gone to their property looking for his estranged wife.

Federal Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth said the response by WA Police seemed “inadequate”, claiming on ABC Breakfast it appeared both women did not get the response they needed.

But Col Blanch, the WA Police Commissioner who has held the role since 2022, said it was “wrong” to suggest police did nothing in response to the concerns the woman had previously raised.

Read more here.

Ariel vision from Nine News' helicopter shows an excavator digging in the search for missing mum Samantha Murphy.

Victoria Police confirmed on Wednesday there would be a new "targeted" search for the 51-year-old in the Ballarat area.

Patrick Orren Stephenson has been charged with Murphy’s murder.

Read more here.

Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce is raising eyebrows again, this time for his choice in footwear.

The former deputy prime minister was seen in Parliament wearing a pair of cowboy boots.

He later spoke with 2GB's Ben Fordham to explain the shoes, saying it was a protest against billionaire Twiggy Forrest and refused to wear R.M. Williams boots – a company Forrest recently bought.

While saying it wasn't anything personal with Forrest, he was against his investment in wind farms which Joyce believes are "killing us out in the country".

How's this for a turn-up for the books.

Known for terrorising native animals, it's rare to see foxes meet their match in Australia's wild.

But that's exactly what Wires cameras recently captured, with video showing a fox in NSW's Albion Park fleeing as a determined wallaby sets chase.

Enjoy the video below and read more here.

Nicole Kidman is reportedly upset with husband Keith Urban after he said an Ariana Grande song was "audible heroin".

Urban, who has a history of drug abuse, performed an acoustic version of Grande's hit "We Can't Be Friends" before sharing it online, where he described the song as "audible heroin".

He later made the same comparison in an interview with People magazine.

A source close to Kidman told Woman's Day magazine she is "disappointed" with her husband's remark after it brought back a "very dark time" in their relationship.

Read more here.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Tuesday that NATO members in Europe were playing with fire by proposing to let Ukraine use Western weapons to strike deep inside Russia, which he said could trigger a global conflict.

More than two years into the deadliest land war in Europe since World War Two, Putin has increasingly spoken of the risk of a much broader global conflict as the West grapples with what to do about the advance of Russian troops in Ukraine.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told The Economist that alliance members should let Ukraine strike deep into Russia with Western weapons, a view supported by some NATO members but not by the United States.

"Constant escalation can lead to serious consequences," Putin told reporters in Tashkent. "If these serious consequences occur in Europe, how will the United States behave, bearing in mind our parity in the field of strategic weapons?"

"It's hard to say - do they want a global conflict?"

Read more here.

- Reuters

Police in Victoria are launching a new search for missing woman Samantha Murphy who disappeared while out for a run in Ballarat four months ago.

Investigators will now embark on a new targeted search in the area today, however police declined to provide further information and have asked the public to refrain from trying to assist.

Police have deployed an excavator as part of the search, NCA NewsWire reported.

Patrick Orren Stephenson, 22, has been charged with the murder of 51-year-old Murphy.

A Melbourne pub says it would rather close its doors than charge customers $20 a pint.

The Carringbush Hotel in Abbotsford, which has been a venue for 135 years, says financial pressures are the reason behind its decision to shut up shop.

And instead of continuing to hike prices to cope with rising costs, it says it is going out "on a high".

"The cost of everything in Australia for hospitality right now is just horrendous," co-owner Liam Matthews told the Australian Financial Review.

To survive, he said he would have had to raise the pub's most sold lager from $15 a pint to $20.

And some think Australia is a nanny state. One couple in the UK have been fined $770 (£400) after they put an envelope with their address on it in a public bin.

Council workers found the letter in the city of Stoke and the council were later able to track down Deborah and Ian Day. They were found to be in breach of sections 87 and 88 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and constitutes it as an offence of littering because household waste cannot be deposited in a public bin.

"The world's gone mad," Deborah told the Daily Record.

Read more here.

Three men have been charged over an alleged $2.2 million fraud scheme that involved selling fake toll e-tags.

NSW Police believe 800 tags are in circulation and are allegedly linked to falsified payment methods. The scheme is believed to have been run for five years.

Surcharges are a growing annoyance amid the cost-of-living crisis and we've all seen our fair share of questionable additions.

But one cafe in Melbourne may have taken the biscuit according to one customer after they were slugged with a $1 charge to heat a muffin.

The man documented the charge on his $7 muffin online and it quickly received a wave of anger from people in disbelief over the fee.

So what do you think? Have your say below.

More than a dozen people have taken a slice of the Oz Lotto jackpot from last night as a syndicate had one of three winning tickets in the $40 million draw.

One Sydney man took home $13.3 million and like the sole winner of the $150 million Powerball draw last week, he has vowed to carry on working.

The winning syndicate from Lithgow has 15 members meaning they take home just under $900,000 each. The Lott is calling on some of those players to check their tickets as they are unregistered and haven't been identified.

Further details will be released about the person behind the third winning ticket.

Police in Sydney are continuing their search for a mum and a newborn baby after a burial site they dug up turned out to be a false alarm.

Investigators discovered a burial site near where a placenta with an umbilical cord were found on the banks of the Cooks River and cordoned off the site. However police soon realised a cat had been buried in the ground.

Police continue their search operations, including on the Cooks River, as they plead for the mother to come forward. "There is no judgement. They need to know we are concerned for them," Superintendent Christine McDonald said.

Read more here.