The extension was necessary due to an ‘unprecedented’ asbestos find.

World champion opens up about her abusive relationship and how her kids saved her life.

Paul Goldsmith became the minister after Melissa Lee was demoted.

Almost eight out of every 10 Australians surveyed are hoping to change jobs in the next year in a bid to increase their salary and alleviate cost-of-living pressures.

According to recruitment giant Hays' latest salary guide, 77 per cent of workers have either started looking for a new role or plan on doing so in the next 12 months.

After years of high inflation and interest rates, it's little surprise that the cost of living was the top reason causing people to seek new work.

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Some of the other factors driving the trend were a lack of promotional chances, poor workplace culture, bad management, and changes in personal circumstances.

While the vast majority of employers (86 per cent) are planning on offering pay rises in upcoming reviews, the report says their offers are likely to fall short of workers' expectations.

"The mismatch between what employees want and what employers are willing to offer will play out over the next year, with almost 40 per cent of employees being dissatisfied with their salaries and 73 per cent saying it doesn't reflect their individual performance," Hays Asia-Pacific CEO Matthew Dickason said.

"We are seeing a trend of employees expecting higher salary increases over the past three Salary Guide reports.

"In 2019, 67 per cent of employees expected a pay rise of less than three per cent.

"In just five years the pendulum has swung to 61 per cent of employees expecting a pay increase of more than three per cent."

One of the main considerations for employers who were planning to offer a raise was new pay transparency laws, with large organisations now required to publish their gender pay gap every year.

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"When determining the value of a pay rise, employers' considerations have changed dramatically over the past 12 months, reflecting the current cost of living crisis and the new pay transparency laws," Dickason said.

"Individual performance remains the number one consideration for a pay increase (84 per cent).

"Other factors employers will consider include benchmarking for the role, responsibilities (74 per cent), expertise (53 per cent) and the organisation's performance (50 per cent)."

Like graduating seniors everywhere, members of Newtown High School's class of 2024 expect bittersweet feelings at their commencement ceremony — excitement about heading off to college or careers and sadness about leaving their friends and community.

But about 60 of the 330 kids graduating today will also be carrying the emotional burden that comes from having survived one of the deadliest school shootings in US history and knowing many former classmates won't get to walk across the stage with them.

Twenty of their fellow first-graders and six educators were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012.

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The victims will be honoured during the ceremony, but details have been kept under wraps.

Soon, these Sandy Hook survivors will be leaving the community that many call a "bubble" because of the comfort and protection it's provided from the outside world.

Five of them sat down with the Associated Press to discuss their graduation, future plans and how the tragedy continues to shape their lives.

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'They'll be there with us'

"I think we're all super excited for the day," Lilly Wasilnak, 17, who was in a classroom down the hall from where her peers were killed, said.

"But I think we can't forget … that there is a whole chunk of our class missing.

"And so going into graduation, we all have very mixed emotions — trying to be excited for ourselves and this accomplishment that we've worked so hard for, but also those who aren't able to share it with us, who should have been able to."

Emma Ehrens was one of 11 children from Classroom 10 to survive the attack.

She and other students managed to flee when the gunman paused to reload and another student, Jesse Lewis, yelled for everyone to run.

Jesse didn't make it. Five kids and both teachers in the room were killed.

"I am definitely going be feeling a lot of mixed emotions," Ehrens, 17, said.

"I'm super excited to be, like, done with high school and moving on to the next chapter of my life.

"But I'm also so … mournful, I guess, to have to be walking across that stage alone. … I like to think that they'll be there with us and walking across that stage with us."

Grace Fischer, 18, was in a classroom down the hall from the killings with Ella Seaver and Wasilnak.

With only 11 days to go before Christmas, the school was in the holiday spirit and the children were looking forward to making gingerbread houses that day.

"As much as we've tried to have that normal, like, childhood and normal high school experience, it wasn't totally normal," Fischer said.

"But even though we are missing … such a big chunk of our class, like Lilly said, we are still graduating. … We want to be those regular teenagers who walk across the stage that day and feel that, like, celebratory feeling in ourselves, knowing that we've come this far."

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Leaving home and the 'bubble'

Many of the survivors said they continue to live with the trauma of that day: loud noises still cause them to jump out of their seats, and some always keep an eye on a room's exits.

Many have spent years in therapy for post-traumatic stress, depression and anxiety.

The town provided an array of services to the families.

Officials shielded them as much as they could from the media and outsiders, and the students said leaving such a protective community will be both difficult and somewhat freeing.

"In Sandy Hook, what happened is always kind of looming over us," Matt Holden, 17, who was in a classroom down the hall from the shooting, said.

"I think leaving and being able to make new memories and meet new people, even if we'll be more isolated away from people who have stories like us, we'll be more free to kind of write our own story. … And kind of, you know, not let this one event that happened because we were very young define our lifetimes."

Ehrens said she feels some anxiety over leaving Newtown, but that it's a necessary step to begin the next chapter of her life.

"It definitely feels for me that we're kind of stuck in the same system that we've been stuck in for past 12 years," she said.

"For me, I feel like it's definitely going to get better and be able to break free of that system and just be able to become my own person rather than, again, the Sandy Hook kid," Ehrens said.

Fischer echoed that sentiment, saying that although it will be hard leaving the town and friends she's grown up with, she'll make new friends and build a new community as she explores new challenges at college.

"Sandy Hook will always be with me," she said.

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Tragedy spurs activism, shapes their futures

All five seniors have been active in the Junior Newtown Action Alliance and its anti-gun violence efforts, saying they want to prevent shootings from happening through gun control and other measures.

Last week, several of them met with Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House to discuss their experiences and call for change.

They say their fallen classmates have motivated their advocacy, which they all plan to continue after high school.

Seaver, 18, said working with the alliance makes her feel less helpless.

She plans to study psychology in college and to become a therapist, wanting to give back in a way that helped her.

"Putting my voice out there and working with all of these amazing people to try and create change really puts a meaning to the trauma that we all were forced to experience," Seaver said.

"It's a way to feel like you're doing something. Because we are. We're fighting for change and we're really not going to stop until we get it."

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Ehrens said she plans to study political science and the law, with the aim of becoming a politician or civil rights lawyer.

Fischer said she, too, hopes to become a civil rights lawyer.

Holden plans to major in political science and wants to push for gun policy changes.

Wasilnak, meanwhile, said she hasn't settled on a major, but that she intends to continue to speak out against gun violence.

"For me, I knew I wanted to do something more since I was younger when the tragedy first happened," Wasilnak said.

"I wanted to turn such a terrible thing into something more, and that these children and educators didn't die for nothing. Of course it was awful what happened to them, and it should have never happened.

"But I think that for me, something bigger needed to come out of it, or else it would have been all for nothing."

Gabby Petito once asked Brian Laundrie to stop calling her names, according to a letter she wrote released in a collection of FBI documents, signaling tensions between the couple prior to the 2021 road trip that would end with Laundrie killing his 22-year-old fiancée.

"Brian, you know how much I love you. So (and I'm writing this with love) just please stop crying and stop calling me names because we're a team and I'm here with you," Petito wrote in the undated letter, included among 366 pages of records from the FBI's investigation of the case. "I'm always going to have your back."

"You in pain is killing me," Petito writes. "I'm not trying to be negative but I'm frustrated there's not more I can do."

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While it's unclear when the letter was written, Petito references plans to work together on the van that they would later take on the trip, which ended late in the summer of 2021 with Petito's disappearance. She was found more than a week after her parents reported her missing, strangled in Wyoming's Bridger-Teton National Forest. The coroner determined she had been dead for three to four weeks before being found.

By that time, Laundrie – who returned to his parents' North Port, Florida, home without Petito – had vanished into a nature reserve, leading to a weekslong manhunt. His remains were eventually found alongside a number of his personal items, including a notebook in which the FBI said he admitted killing Petito. A medical examiner determined he died by suicide.

Petito's letter to Laundrie makes up just two of the hundreds of pages included in the FBI documents published on a website where the agency shares records released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.

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A number of the documents are redacted, but they outline the FBI's efforts to trace the couple's movements around the time of Petito's disappearance reported on September 11, 2021, recounting interviews with witnesses and descriptions of surveillance footage captured at gas stations and stores across the US.

Also included are scores of photographs of items recovered by authorities after the execution of a search warrant on September 20, 2021, including Petito's letter to Laundrie. The address where the warrant was executed is redacted, but the records indicate they stemmed from an investigation in North Port.

Asked about the letter, Steven Bertolino, an attorney for Laundrie's parents, told CNN Tuesday that Petito and Laundrie "both had their moments and had their issues."

"This is a tragedy that I've said all along that has affected two families," he said, describing a "lopsidedness" that has taken a "toll" on his clients.

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"There are always two sides to every story but as of this moment, there has only been one side put out there and that's the side that everybody's running with," Bertolino said.

CNN has reached out to an attorney for Petito's parents for comment on the letter.

There is no context for Petito's letter, and it's unclear why the couple was at odds when she wrote it. But it appears to foreshadow strains in the relationship that would spill out into the open over the course of their trip, perhaps most notably in Moab, Utah, where police body camera footage captured the pair two weeks before Petito's death.

The incident – now at the heart of a lawsuit by Petito's parents against the Moab Police Department – occurred after a witness "saw Brian hit Gabby," according to an amended complaint filed earlier this year.

The footage shows Moab police officers talking to Petito and Laundrie, who admitted having a fight in which Petito said she struck her fiancé first. The officers let the couple go after they agreed to spend the night apart.

The lawsuit claims the officers improperly concluded Petito was the "primary" aggressor despite injuries to her face, failing to recognise that Petito's attempt to take responsibility for the altercation was an "obvious" sign she was a victim of domestic abuse.

"The purpose of this lawsuit is to honour Gabby's legacy by demanding accountability and working toward systemic changes to protect victims of domestic abuse and violence and prevent such tragedies in the future," James W McConkie, an attorney for Petito's parents, said in a statement when the lawsuit was first filed.

The city of Moab has previously said its officers "acted with kindness, respect, and empathy" toward Petito, noting they "are not responsible" for her death.

"The attorneys for the Petito family seem to suggest that somehow our officers could see into the future based on this single interaction. In truth, on August 12, no one could have predicted the tragedy that would occur weeks later and hundreds of miles away, and the City of Moab will ardently defend against this lawsuit," the city said.

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There is a severe weather warning for south-east Australia today, with damaging wind gusts of up to 100km/h forecast in multiple states.

The Bureau of Meteorology warned a "vigorous cold front" is expected to bring damaging winds, widespread showers and hail.

There are severe weather warnings for parts of New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT.

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A wind speed of 94km/h was recorded at 8.49pm yesterday at Nowra on the NSW South Coast and similarly damaging gusts are likely for parts of the Snowy Mountains and southern parts of the ACT over coming hours.

In eastern Victoria, a 139km/h wind gust was recorded at Wilsons Prom Lighthouse at 4.17am today, the bureau said.

The state's Gippsland region should expect winds of about 90 km/h, with showers or thunderstorms likely to develop in the late evening today and continue through early tomorrow morning.

In Melbourne, the State Emergency Service responded to more than 100 request for help as the wild winds swept across the city.

The bureau issued a gale warning for the following parts of Tasmania: Far North West Coast, Central North Coast, Upper East Coast and Lower East Coast.

The strong winds are also making temperatures feel much cooler.

Melbourne has a forecast top of 13 degrees today, but with the wind-chill factored in the 'feel like' temperature should make it 10 degrees or less.

Temperatures will get even colder during the week in the Victorian capital as winds turn more southerly after the passage of the cold front. Melbourne's top should reach just 12 degrees tomorrow.

– With Weatherzone





Immune system changes, blood clotting, and molecular alterations are all factors scientists say we need to understand as the new space race continues.

New studies have looked at the changes undergone by an all-civilian crew aboard a SpaceX voyage, as well as astronauts who had spent 180 days to a year on the International Space Station.

"Spaceflight is known to induce molecular, cellular, and physiological shifts in astronauts and poses various biomedical challenges to the human body," the authors said in a release.

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"As more people venture into space, understanding the health risks associated with space exploration is key for the preparation of long-duration, lunar, and potentially Martian missions.

"However, current frameworks for aerospace medicine lag behind advances in precision medicine on Earth, which highlights the need for the rapid development of space medicine databases, tools and protocols."

Studies found that even short-range spaceflight resulted in "broad-ranging molecular changes".

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"Although more than 95 per cent of markers were found to return to baseline in the months after the mission had ended, some proteins, genes, and cytokines appear to be still activated in the recovery period after spaceflight and persisted after flight for at least three months," the authors said.

But the short-range flights, such as the three-day SpaceX mission in Inspiration4, "did not pose a significant health risk for the crew".

The researchers also reported that females returned to baseline faster for gene expression changes and chromatin states.

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Also, they found that fibrinogen and IL-8 are also affected in a sex-specific manner, indicating that blood clotting and immune system regulation were important for future studies on precision astronaut medicine .

"Leveraging the datasets, tools, and resources in SOMA (Space Omics and Medical Atlas) may help to accelerate precision aerospace medicine, improve health monitoring and risk mitigation, and provide baseline data for upcoming lunar, Mars, and other space missions," the authors said in the release.

See the research online here.

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Laced with one of the hottest chillies in the world and topped with a real scorpion, it's being called Australia's hottest burger.

The "Scorpion Death Wish" is so hot, you need to sign a waiver to get your hands on it. 

9News Queensland reporter Pat Heagney did just that and ended up with a faceful of tears, a glass of milk and a round of applause. 

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"We had to have it lab tested in Thailand to make sure it was safe," Burger Urge chief commercial officer Tom Webb told 9News.

" … It certainly is Australia's first scorpion burger and probably the first scorpion burger on earth."

Des and Charlie, two of Brisbane's bravest, were the first to put their taste buds to the test at Burger Urge in the inner-north suburb of Windsor.

They were "nervous but excited" but the burger bested both of them.

The burger has a salad base, two beef patties, Moruga Scorpion chilli purée, the "Death Wish" sauce and is of course topped with the giant Asian forest scorpion.

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It's hard to get an idea of just how hot it is without doing some calculations.

On the Scoville scale, measuring chilli heat, Sriracha sauce is about 2500 units, Tabasco is 5000 and jalapenos clock in at up to 8000.

Thai chilies can hit 50,000-100,000 while the much-feared ghost pepper can top out beyond 1 million.

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Burger Urge says the sauce alone on the Scorpion Death Wish hits 2 million, with the total burging burning in at a terrifying 2.3 million units.

The burgers are available nationwide only this Saturday and next Saturday.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has confirmed China's premier will visit Adelaide in a matter of days, sparking hopes the city will get the go-ahead for new pandas to replace existing duo Wang Wang and Funi, who are due to depart when Adelaide Zoo's lease for them ends in November.

Since their arrival in 2009, the two pandas have captured the hearts of South Australians and tourists alike, becoming iconic figures at the Adelaide Zoo.

Their impending departure has disappointed visitors, but the possibility of new pandas taking their place has emerged as a glimmer of hope for the zoo. 

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Deputy Premier Susan Close remained tight-lipped about the matter when asked today.

"I'm not going to say anything before an official announcement but we all know how much South Australians love their pandas," she said.

Meanwhile, Albanese confirmed Premier Li Qiang's upcoming visit to Adelaide, hinting at the potential for panda diplomacy during the trip. 

"My government is pro-panda. We like panda bears, and so do Australians, I reckon," he said.

9News understands Li is set to attend a lunch at Adelaide Zoo, with talk of the pandas on the menu.

Adelaide Zoo said it had no update regarding the future of pandas, but was encouraged by ongoing discussions with the China Wildlife Conservation Association.

This article was produced with the assistance of 9ExPress.