Daily News Roundup

MONDAY, October 21

A teenager and his friend have been charged with the murder of his ex-girlfriend’s father after allegedly hitting the 49-year-old man with a pistol and leaving him to die in southeast Queensland.

Queensland Police allege the two 19-year-olds, Kynan Ignacio Vital and Ethan Maurice McPherson, forced their way into a Springfield Lakes home on Saturday at 8:30pm.

They allegedly punched 20-year-old Julia Murphy in the face before stealing her phone.

Police said they left the scene in a white ute and after 10pm a silver sedan began following the vehicle along The Promenade.

Police allege that the two cars stopped and the teens allegedly got out of their vehicle and threatened Ms Murphy’s father, Dave Murphy with a firearm.

The pair hit Mr Murphy on the head with the gun, causing him to fall to the ground and lose consciousness.

The 20-year-old male driver of the silver sedan, a family friend, tried to help Mr Murphy but was also allegedly assaulted.

Police confirmed all four men and the woman were known to each other.

Emergency services attended however the 49-year-old man died at the scene.

Specialist police took the two 19-year-old men into custody at a residence in nearby Atlantic St just before midnight on Saturday.

Both teenagers have been charged with one count each of murder, common assault, enter dwelling and robbery with violence.

They are both listed to appear in the Ipswich Magistrates Court today.

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Victorian households could be separating rubbish into six or more bins, instead of the usual two or three to help solve the state’s recycling crisis.

It is one of several proposed ideas to rescue the state’s collapsed recycling sector, published in an interim report to the State Government by Infrastructure Victoria.

“It’s very important that we have very clean streams of materials that are easy to recycle,” Elissa McNamara, the project director at Infrastructure Victoria, said.

“The systems where everything’s all put in the one bin has been around for 20 years, and we haven’t updated that.

“The glass gets broken, paper and cardboard get tiny particles of glass in it, they’re so mixed up and contaminated that it’s really hard to extract a high-value material that can be recycled.”

This contamination led to China making the decision to stop importing foreign waste for recycling in 2018, sparking the recycling crisis in Victoria.

Since then, waste from Victorian recycling bins has either gone to landfill or been stockpiled, creating massive fire risks.

“In the past, we’ve really been able to just set and forget,” Ms McNamara said.

“Now we’ve had this global shock that really requires us to urgently reconsider how we deal with our recycling.”

The proposed six-bins system could involve separating rubbish into stackable crates that would be carried out to the kerb on something similar to a removalist’s trolley.

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The national healthy regulator’s criminal offences unit has launched an investigation into four clear orthodontic teeth straightener providers, amid claims of discounts to preferred dentists that are not disclosed to customers and social media influencers.

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald can reveal that the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency’s (AHPRA) criminal offences unit is investigating Invisalign as well as three direct-to-consumer operators SmileDirectClub, EZ Smile and WonderSmile.

Invisalign aligners can only be prescribed by an orthodontist or dentist and followed up with regular check-ups to adjust them. This is in sharp contrast to mail-order aligners, which send customers an impression kit that is assessed by an orthodontist, to create a custom-made clear aligner.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration regulatory authority has confirmed it has a number of open investigations into potential breaches of the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code in relation to the advertising of dental aligner products.

Four separate AHPRA investigations were launched days after a series of articles in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald revealed that federal regulators including AHPRA had received complaints from dental industry insiders about the marketing of invisible aligners.