TRANSCRIPT:
- Investigators haven't given up hope of finding man's body after his notorious killer dies
- Health Minister Mark Butler says more than 10 million vapes have been seized
- And in AFL, Carlton midfielder Adam Cerra fined for an umpire collision at tribunal.
Investigators haven't given up hope that the body of a man slain in the Australian outback will be found, despite a notorious killer taking the location's secret to his grave.
67-year-old Bradley John Murdoch has died from throat cancer, a month after being moved from jail to Alice Springs Hospital in the Northern Territory.
Murdoch was given a life sentence for the murder of 28-year-old British backpacker Peter Falconio and the assault and attempted kidnapping of his then-girlfriend Joanne Lees, now 51, on the Stuart Highway near Barrow Creek in July 2001.
Mr Falconio's body has never been found.
Authorities remain hopeful after a $500,000 reward for information was announced in June.
The case's former chief investigator Colleen Gwynne says the search continues but she understands it is a difficult time for Mr Falconio's family.
"We never thought that Bradley would disclose the whereabouts or give any further information that may assist us. It doesn't really change a great deal. I guess symbolically it's pretty significant for the family. They continue to go through a pretty prolonged agony over losing their son and brother."
Health Minister Mark Butler says more than 10 million vapes have been seized by government agencies since the Albanese government began its crackdown on the addictive devices.
But the Minister says that seizing vapes remains an ongoing challenge, a year after the government introduced laws banning the sale of the smoking products anywhere outside of pharmacies.
"The work that Border Force and the T-G-A have done in particular has been exemplary but we still see the sales of vapes through convenience stores, through tobacconists and other settings like that. Getting a handle on that requires close cooperation between the Commonwealth and state and territory governments."
The announcement coincides with new data released by the Generation Vape research project which found vaping rates are no longer increasing among young people.
In their surveys of young Australians, 14.6 per cent said they had vaped in April 2025 in comparison to 17.5 per cent in April 2023.
United States House Speaker Mike Johnson has called for the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein in a break with President Donald Trump and the White House.
Mr Johnson has now become the highest-ranking Republican to break with Mr Trump on Epstein in a rare divide between the president and his fiercely loyal base.
Conspiracy theories over Epstein's 2019 death in prison and potential evidence in his sex trafficking case, including an alleged "client list," were drummed up by Mr Trump himself on the presidential campaign trail, where he promised to release a swathe of government files.
But now his Justice Department says no additional evidence will be released, and President Trump has tried to downplay the importance of the Epstein case and wants to move past it.
But in an interview with conservative podcaster Benny Johnson, House Speaker Johnson says he wants full transparency.
"We should put everything out there and let the people decide it. The White House and the White House team are privy to facts that I don't know. I mean this isn't my lane, I haven't been involved in that. But I agree with the sentiment that we need to put it out there."
Former treasury secretary Ken Henry has argued that Australia's environmental protection laws have failed to stop the destruction of the country's natural environment and hindered economic growth.
The Albanese government says they are still committed to overhaul these laws and establish an Environmental Protection Agency after they chose to delay the promised reforms last year due to backlash from Western Australia's mining industry and state government.
Environment Minister Murray Watt is said to be designing a new package of laws with the hopes of getting the Coalition's support to pass the legislation through Parliament.
Ken Henry, who now chairs the not-for-profit Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation, has addressed the National Press Club and called on the federal government to act urgently.
"Clearly this is not a small task. There have been three failed attempts to reform these laws in the past 15 years. It's not because reform is not essential, reform is absolutely essential and the time to get this done is now. I can think of other reforms to boost productivity, though none more important than this. If we can't achieve environmental law reforms, we should stop dreaming about more challenging options."
In AFL,
Carlton midfielder Adam Cerra has received a $5550 fine after becoming the first player to front the tribunal after the A-F-L's controversial umpire crackdown.
Under the measures announced at the start of the month Cerra was referred directly to the tribunal after a collision with umpire Rob O'Gorman in last week's loss to Brisbane.
It was the fourth time he had been booked for the offence within two years, triggering the hearing instead of being able to have an early guilty plea accepted.
It comes as the AFL is concerned about the growing prevalence of the collisions, which mostly happen at centre bounces.
