Wednesday's news in under 5 minutes.

UPDATE: Australian Commonwealth Games team uniforms revealed.

The casual uniforms for the Australian Commonwealth Games team have been revealed. They look like this:

Thoughts?

1. Lithgow Murder/ Suicide

Two teenage boys have discovered the body of their mother in their home in the NSW town of Lithgow with what was described as ‘laceration injuries’.

The 46-year-old woman was named as being local doctor, Dr Leonie Geldenhuys. Police then found the body of their father at a rural property nearby.

They said they are not treating his death as suspicious.

Detective Inspector Luke Rankin confirmed the man was the children’s father.

He said the teenage boys were being looked after. “[They are] obviously traumatised and I suppose unimaginably traumatised finding their mother deceased,” he said.

If you need help please call Lifeline on 131 114. You can also visit the Lifeline website here 

2. Victorian constitutional crisis

Victoria faces a day of political turmoil after Premier Denis Napthine gave a press conference last night saying he will not be held to ransom by Independent MP Geoff Shaw.

“Let me assure you that I as Premier and this government will not be held to ransom by Mr Shaw,” he said.

“It is now up to Daniel Andrews, as the leader of the Opposition, as to whether he wishes to do a deal with the rogue MP from Frankston, whether he wants to accept the vote of Mr Shaw and how he wishes to proceed.”

Earlier Mr Shaw had stated that he would support a no-confidence motion in the Government or Premier Denis Napthine.

Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews said he would be passing the Government’s budget, despite the political turmoil but that he wanted a meeting with the Premier and the state’s Governor Alex Chernov to discuss what he said was a “constitutional crisis”.

Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews and Dr Napthine will meet this morning.

3. Rolf Harris trial

The trial of entertainer Rolf Harris in the UK has heard that Harris was a “lovely, gentle and kind” man – “a real softy”.

A witness for the defence told the court that he was very tactile.  “He is a great hugger, he would give big bear hugs.” The hugs were not sexual, she said.

He would greet her by saying “aren’t you lovely, it’s good to see you sort of thing”, she said.

He would also make comments like “aren’t you a curvy girl, you have got such lovely curves”.

Harris is accused of 12 counts of indecent assault on four separate women. He has denied all charged.

A second witness, a Physiotherapist Anne-Marie Ashford Eve whose family lived on the same street as Harris said he was “totally lovely”.

“He would envelop you in a hug – he would envelop my father in a hug which he found surprising; they were at two ends of the tactile spectrum,” she said. But he never touched her inappropriately and she never saw him touch anyone else inappropriately, she said.

The trial continues.

4. PM in Indonesia

The Prime Minister, Tony Abbott will today meet with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Indonesia’s Batam Island – set to be the first face-to-face meeting between the two men in six months.

Mr Abbott is in Indonesia en route to a 10-day trip to Europe and the United States.

5. Sailor ‘spotted MH370’

A British sailor has told Australian authorities that she believes she spotted missing jet MH370 on fire flying through the sky in March.

She was sailing from India to Phuket, Thailand with her husband when she saw what appeared to be a plane that was on fire with black smoke trailing behind it.

At the time she says she told no one because she doubted her own metal health. She said her and her husband were having difficulties and had not spoken for a week at the time so she did not ever tell him.

She told The Phuket Gazette, “I saw something that looked like a plane on fire. That’s what I thought it was. Then, I thought I must be mad… It caught my attention because I had never seen a plane with orange lights before, so I wondered what they were.”

She now says she wishes she had spoken up sooner. “I chose to sweep it under the carpet and now I feel really bad,” she said. “Maybe I should have had a little more confidence in myself. I am sorry I didn’t take action sooner.”

6. Young girls stab friend as a ‘sacrifice’

Two 12-year-old girls face attempted murder charges in the US after they tried to sacrifice a friend in an attempt to join an ‘online cult’ of the mythical figure ‘Slender Man’.

Morgan Geyser and her friend Anissa Weier lured another girl to the woods in an attempt to murder her.

For more read this post here.

7. Michael Schumacher

A former F1 Doctor has spoken to The UK Telegraph saying that fans of Michael Schumacher need to be warned that they will “never have any good news” concerning his condition.

Gary Hartstein, a former F1 doctor, said: “I’m quite afraid (and virtually certain) we will never have any good news about Michael. At this point, I rather dread seeing that the family has put out a press release.”

“I can conceive of no possible reason that Michael’s entourage, understandably extremely protective of his and their privacy, would not tell his fans if significantly good things have happened.”

8. Call to ban homework as it makes kids fat

Fitness guru Sharny Kieser has called on parents to put a stop to their children doing homework in a bid to beat the childhood obesity epidemic.

The author of Fit, Healthy, Happy Kids told News Limited. “Instead of slaving over a computer or books in the few hours of daylight after school, our kids need to be out getting some exercise. Banning homework will produce healthier kids.”

She said that parents should just approach their schools and say, ‘no, our kids are not doing this’.

9. Darwin murders

Police in Darwin are desperately trying to piece together the last moments of deceased vet, Jenny Wells, and her two children who were found murdered on the weekend.

They are still unable to say with certainty whether the deaths were the result of a murder-suicide or a triple murder.

10. Pope warns that pets are no substitute for kids

The Pope has warned couples that having pets does not act as a substitute for having children.

The Pontiff spoke at a special ceremony for couples who have been married 25 – 60 years. The Pope criticised couples who decide not to have children saying they had been seduced by the myth that a life of material comfort is better than raising a family.

“You can go explore the world, go on holiday, you can have a villa in the countryside, you can be carefree,” he said.

He said that having pets instead will only lead to solitude and the ‘bitterness of loneliness’ in old age.

11. Footballer sacked for sending explicit messages

Carlton Blues player Josh Bootsma has been sacked for inappropriate conduct on social media.

The club was notified of the misconduct on Monday, apparently by the mother of a teenage girl who was believed to be exchanging explicit images with the player on the social media app SnapChat.

Bootsma’s girlfriend Kyla Maree Addis is heavily pregnant with the couple’s baby.

12. Autism linked to stress hormone

A groundbreaking study has linked autism to high levels of the stress hormone cortisol and testosterone in the mother’s womb during pregnancy.

The study published in Molecular Psychiatry tested the amniotic fluid of 128 mothers whose children were subsequently diagnosed with autism and the fluid of 217 control mothers.

It has found five steroid hormone levels were higher on average in the mothers whose children were diagnosed with autism than in those whose children did not have the condition.

“These results provide the first direct evidence of elevated foetal steriodogenic activity in autism,” the authors say.

13. New Mums body image

The pressure on new Mums to return to their ‘post baby body’ is harming the bonding time between mothers and babies according to a Government report in the UK.

The report also claims that babies are at risk of developing body image anxieties from their mothers.

It calls for pictures of women of different “shapes and sizes” to be hung in maternity wards and says that ‘midwives should not refer to biscuits as “naughty” so that new mothers do not feel pressure to shed their baby weight.’

14. Clive Palmer apologises to Peta Credlin for comments in parliament.

For the back story on this situation, you can read Mamamia editor-in-chief Jamila Rizvi’s post here. 

He said that he had written her a note to apologise, saying he was “completely unaware” of her struggles with fertility.

“It was a matter of great regret if I, in any way, offended her personally,” he said in Brisbane. “But I was using her because she’s a successful woman, she’s getting a high salary and my point that I was trying to make was that women on a high salary… are eligible for paid parental leave… but a lot of stay-at-home mums aren’t.”

What news are you talking about today?