The embattled AUKUS pact was given renewed hope after US President Donald Trump offered a peachy endorsement during Anthony Albanese's White House visit.

One labelled a "terrible deal" by former PM Malcolm Turnbull, the AUKUS partnership has hung in the balance while optimism the US government will actually deliver nuclear submarines to Australia began to fade.

Albanese's mission to extricate a verbal agreement from Trump has been hailed a success – now questions linger over what it means for our sovereign military capability.

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"There shouldn't be any more clarifications because we're just going full steam ahead building," Trump told the PM in a surprisingly full-throated assurance.

"We have the best submarines anywhere in the world and we're building a few more, under construction.

"Now we're starting, we have it all set, with Anthony we've worked on this long and hard and we're starting that process right now and I think it's really moving along really rapidly, very well."

However, any celebration about the future success of AUKUS may be premature, nuclear policy specialist and UNSW honorary professor Wayne Reynolds told 9news.com.au.

"All I've heard is Trump saying, no, AUKUS is going to go ahead full speed. Well, why shouldn't it?" Reynolds said.

"These submarines are Virginia class. There is no technology transfer. We're spending billions.

"They've got a base in Western Australia, which we're largely funding. They're rotating their submarines, and they've got us locked into an American strategy with respect to China.

"Why would you say no?"

Australia has already forked out $1.5 billion in the AUKUS pact, with another $1.5 billion to go in 2025, to acquire nuclear-powered but conventionally armed submarines.

A fresh Pentagon promise of a ghost fleet has given some much-needed fuel to a spluttering fire.

But Reynolds said the bigger question the Australian government needs to answer is how US-led submarines can fit into our long-term defence strategy.

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"I think there are legitimate questions about not only the affordability, but the capability," Reynolds said.

"Are these submarines the right answer? The question would be, well, where's [our] sovereign capability if the Americans decide to go on the attack?

"I think that needs to be investigated."

The next crucial step should be clearly defining Australia's role once the submarines are delivered in the early 2030s, Reynolds said.

Particularly, he warned, with our strategy on China.

"Most people in the defence industries here, they're still scratching their heads about, well, what's our role?" Reynolds added.

"If there is a war with China, if, are we in a position to utilise our submarines?

"If we've got American equipment, we are under American command."

Back in Canberra, Richard Marles was noticeably excited by Trump's assurance.

If he still had any doubts – the defence minister hid them well.

"You can touch, feel and see AUKUS occurring. AUKUS is happening," Marles said in Adelaide on Tuesday.

"The remarks from President Trump last night are certainly the words that we've been looking for and affirmation from the Trump administration of their enthusiasm for the AUKUS endeavour."

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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed what he gifted US President Donald Trump during his crucial visit to the White House.

Albanese travelled to Washington for his first face-to-face meeting with Trump since he began his second term as president on January 20.

It is customary for leaders to exchange gifts during state visits.

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During a press conference yesterday, Albanese said he gifted Trump a submarine model — a not-so-subtle nod to the AUKUS pact, which Trump confirmed will go "full steam ahead" after months of speculation that the US may not honour the agreement. 

He also gave First Lady Melania Trump jewellery and their newest granddaughter Uggs.

"We had a gift for Melania. We had jewellery, we had a submarine model for the President, and we had some Ugg booties for the president's newest granddaughter to come along, and I'm sure they will be very well received," he said.

Albanese did not share what he received from Trump, saying it will take a while for the gifts to go through all the proper checks.

"I'll probably get whatever has come to us in about three years and six months after it goes through all the security things and (Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet), all of that," he said.

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During Albanese's final meeting with former president Joe Biden at his personal home in 2024, he gifted him a leather Royal Australian Air Force jacket with his name on it.

He received a framed artwork depicting Delaware landmarks in return.

Australia is not traditionally a gift-giving country, but gifts can be exchanged as a show of good manners, goodwill and respect for other countries' customs. 

The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has strict rules for official gifts to avoid any potential conflicts of interest.

All gifts go through a security screening. 

Albanese can only accept gifts valued at $750 from other governments and must declare gifts that exceed that limit on the public register.

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If he wishes to keep a gift that is over the allowable limit, he must pay the difference.

Gifts received while he is overseas on official government business are deemed to be property of the Commonwealth. 

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A man previously charged with kidnapping and murdering a little girl more than 50 years ago has been named for the first time in NSW parliament.

Cheryl Grimmer, a UK-born toddler, vanished from outside a shower block while on an outing with her family at Fairy Meadow Beach in the Illawarra, NSW.

Her disappearance has never been solved and a coronial inquest in 2011 found that she was likely dead and urged police to reopen the case.

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Investigators discovered records of a police interview in 1971, in which a 17-year-old boy allegedly admitted to police he had abducted and killed the girl.

Because of his age at the time, he has only been identified by the pseudonym "Mercury" until today, when Legalise Cannabis MP Jeremy Buckingham revealed his name in parliament.

Parliamentary privilege means MPs cannot be sued or prosecuted for what they say in parliament, though the house as a body may take action against MPs deemed to have abused privilege.

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9news.com.au is unable to reveal the identity of the man named by Buckingham because the media organisations are not protected by the same privilege.

No charges were laid during the Grimmer investigation in 1971, as police were unable to verify the details of the alleged confession and concluded it was false.

A renewed investigation saw Mercury arrested in 2017 and taken before the courts.

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He pleaded not guilty to Cheryl's abduction and murder.

However, the alleged confession was ruled inadmissible as evidence by the judge, who said that Mercury was a minor at the time and had not had the benefit of a parent or guardian present when the alleged confession was made.

The prosecution ultimately dropped the charges against Mercury, who is now in his 60s.

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Australia's birth rate "crisis" made headlines when the Bureau of Statistics revealed it had fallen to its lowest level ever recently – supposedly well below "replacement" rates at 1.48.

But a focus on that number serves only to obscure the bigger structural issues in Australia's demographics and spread "doom and gloom", some experts say.

Glenn Capuano from data insights company .id said Austalia's birth rate had been falling fairly steadily since it peaked in 1961 at 3.54, and hadn't been above 2 since a brief rally in 2008-2009 attributed to the government's baby bonus.

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It's a trend mirrored around much of the world, Capuano said, but it's not predicted to fall much further.

The biggest focus for demographers right now is the ageing of first-time parents – 32.1 years for mums and 33.9 years for dads.

Cost-of-living pressures, the receding prospect of home ownership, education and the desire to establish a career are pushing the timeline back for starting a family.

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And breaking down demographics at a local level bears this out, with more children being born, and earlier, in more affordable regional areas and the outer suburbs of big cities.

"They're areas where you can, presuming you're a decent salary, afford housing," Capuano said.

Migrants to Australia, usually stereotyped – sometimes negatively – as having larger families, are also bucking the trend.

Capuano said birth rates to couples resident in but not born in Australia were actually lower than those of Australian-born couples.

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He said these trends meant Australia needed to consider how it could support new families – and how the country should look at immigration.

"If you have a look at these birth rates, population decline sets in at around 2050," Capuano said.

That's when deaths per year begin to outnumber births per year.

"We want to avoid a situation like they have in Japan, where they're losing one million people more a year than are being born," he said.

'Doom and gloom'

Emeritus Professor of Demography Peter McDonald from the Australian National University points to flaws in the methodology used to calculate Australia's birth rate, saying Australians, as in citizens, had one of the highest birth rates in OECD countries.

He points to the "impossible scenario" of births in Victoria rising 9400 in 2024, while falling nationally by 4100.

"According to Births Australia 2024, from 2023 to 2024, the number of births in Victoria increased by 9400 while, in the rest of Australia, the number of births fell by 4100.

"This does not reflect reality because the births data are births by year of registration, not by year of occurrence," he said.

"Registrars in NSW and Victoria very often do not process the births that have occurred in sufficient time for them to be included in the ABS stats for a year, but then excess births are recorded in the following year when the registrations catch up."

The ABS noted the same phenomenon in its report.

"Births Australia 2024 shows that the average number of births that women have had by age 50 was most recently 2.02 and this number has been flat for the past five years," McDonald said.

"This, termed cohort fertility, is a better way to measure fertility because the annual number, the total fertility rate (TFR), is affected by the delay of births, most of which take place at a future time."

He said another reason for the falling TFR was a surge in Australia's "temporary" population, such as international students, whose fertility rate was "close to zero".

"As an indication of this effect, the TFR in 2024 was 1.64 for Australia women and 1.25 for overseas-born women. A rate of 1.64 is one of the highest in the OECD countries," he said.

"The result is that Australia is one of the youngest countries in the OECD and, while we are ageing and will continue to age, the rate and final level of population ageing is much more manageable than it is in most OECD countries."

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has announced new sanctions against Russia's two biggest oil companies and blasted Moscow's refusal to end its "senseless war" as US-led efforts to end the war floundered and the Ukrainian president sought more foreign military help.

The sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil, as well as dozens of subsidiaries, followed months of bipartisan pressure on President Donald Trump to hit Russia with harder sanctions on its oil industry.

"Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire," Bessent said in a statement. Given Russian President Vladimir Putin's "refusal to end this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia's two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin's war machine."

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Bessent said the Treasury Department was prepared to take further action if necessary to support Trump's effort to end the war.

"We encourage our allies to join us in and adhere to these sanctions," he said.

Bessent made his comments as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was in Washington for talks, and was preparing to meet President Donald Trump at the White House.

Wave of attacks on Ukraine

Russian drones and missiles blasted sites across Ukraine overnight, killing at least six people, including a woman and her two young daughters.

The attack came in waves throughout the night and targeted at least eight Ukrainian cities, as well as a village in the region of the capital, Kyiv, where a strike set fire to a house in which the mother and her six-month and 12-year-old daughters were staying, regional head Mykola Kalashnyk said.

At least 29 people, including five children, were wounded in Kyiv, which appeared to be the main target, authorities said.

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Russian drones also hit a kindergarten in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, later Wednesday when children were in the building, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

One person was killed and six were hurt, but no children were physically harmed, he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said many of the children were in shock.

He said the attack targeted 10 separate regions: Kyiv, Odesa, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia, Cherkasy and Sumy.

Russia fired 405 strike and decoy drones and 28 missiles, mainly targeting Kyiv, Ukraine's air force said.

Peace efforts stall

US President Donald Trump's efforts to end the war that started with Russia's all-out invasion of its neighbour more than three years ago have failed to gain traction.

Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin's refusal to budge from his conditions for a settlement after Ukraine offered a ceasefire and direct peace talks.

Trump said Tuesday that his plan for a swift meeting with Putin was on hold because he didn't want it to be a "waste of time".

European leaders accused Putin of stalling.

Zelenskyy said Wednesday that Trump's proposal to freeze the conflict where it stands on the front line "was a good compromise" – a step that could pave the way for negotiations.

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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the planned summit requires careful preparation, suggesting that laying the groundwork could be protracted.

"No one wants to waste time: neither President Trump nor President Putin," he said.

In what appeared to be a public reminder of Russian atomic arsenals, Putin on Wednesday directed drills of the country's strategic nuclear forces.

Zelenskyy urged the European Union, the US and the Group of Seven industrialised nations to force Russia to the negotiating table.

Pressure can be applied on Moscow "only through sanctions, long-range (missile) capabilities and coordinated diplomacy among all our partners," he said.

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Zelenskyy credited Trump's remarks that he was considering supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine for Putin's willingness to meet.

The American president later said he was wary of tapping into the US supply of Tomahawks over concerns about available stocks.

Russia has not made significant progress on the battlefield, where a war of attrition has taken a high toll on Russian infantry and Ukraine is short of manpower, military analysts say. Both sides have invested in long-range strike capabilities to hit rear areas.

Ukraine says it hit key Russian chemical plant

The Ukrainian army's general staff said its forces struck a chemical plant Tuesday night in Russia's Bryansk region using British-made air-launched Storm Shadow missiles.

The plant is an important part of the Russian military and industrial complex, producing gunpowder, explosives, missile fuel and ammunition, it said.

Russian officials in the region confirmed an attack but did not mention the plant.

Ukraine also claimed overnight strikes on the Saransk mechanical plant in Mordovia, Russia, which produces components for ammunition and mines, and the Makhachkala oil refinery in the Dagestan republic of Russia.

The Russian Defence Ministry said its air defences downed 33 Ukrainian drones over several regions overnight, including the area around St Petersburg.

Eight airports temporarily suspended flights because of the attacks.

Sweden mulls sending fighter jets to Ukraine

Zelenskyy arrived on Wednesday in Oslo, Norway, and after that flew to Stockholm, where he and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson signed an agreement exploring the possibility of Ukraine buying up to 150 Swedish-made Gripen fighter jets over the next decade or more. Ukraine has already received American-made F-16s and French Mirages.

Also today, Trump is expected to hold talks at the White House with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

The military alliance has been coordinating deliveries of weapons to Ukraine, many of them purchased from the US by Canada and European countries.

More international economic sanctions on Russia are likely to be discussed Thursday at an EU summit in Brussels.

On Friday, a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing – a group of 35 countries that support Ukraine – is to take place in London.

Russia's long barrage

Moscow's overnight attack also targeted energy infrastructure and caused rolling blackouts, officials said.

Russia has been trying to cripple the country's power grid before winter sets in.

"We heard a loud explosion and then the glass started to shatter, and then everything was caught up in a burst of fire. The embers were everywhere," Olena Biriukova, who lives in a Kyiv apartment building, told The Associated Press.

"It was very scary for kids."

Two people were found dead in the Dnipro district of the Ukrainian capital, where emergency services rescued 10 people after a fire caused by drone debris hit the sixth floor of a 16-story residential building, local authorities said.

And in Kyiv's Darnytskyi district, emergency services responded after drone debris hit a 17-story apartment block, causing a fire on five floors. Fifteen people were rescued, including two children.

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Woody the robot has been unveiled at Silverdale Shopping Centre in Sydney's west, where it's intended to help making shopping easier for customers.

"You might need an extra hand to hold a bag, to guide you to a store, it can speak multiple different languages," BellBots creator Andrew Bell said.

Standing at one-and-a-half metres tall, the shell of the robot is made by the Chinese company Unitree, with Woody's AI software created by Bell.

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"We could have up to 20 robots in one shopping complex, and if it's not being booked, it's roaming."

Bell aims to launch the bots in shopping centres next year, and businesses are excited by the prospect.

"I was wondering as well if they can answer questions, like if they need help with pain killers, it can give them advice," pharmacy worker Mariam Alhayaley said.

"It doesn't go on holidays," shopping centre owner Bruno Lopreiato said.

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"I'd love to have him so he can take the coffees out and speak to the customers and greet them," cafe owner Heena Nanda said.

Experts have warned that customer privacy is a potential downside to AI software.

"They hear you, they see you, they process your information," Professor Sanjit Roy, from Edith Cowan University, said.

"I would be concerned what information this robot is collecting during the interactions."

Bell says the public has nothing to fear as he turns his focus towards his next project, a robot dog to assist firefighters. 

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The director of the Louvre Museum has acknowledged a "terrible failure" at the Paris monument after a stunning daylight crown jewel heist at the world's most-visited museum, and said she offered to resign but it was refused.

The Louvre reopened earlier on Wednesday (Wednesday evening AEDT) to long lines beneath its landmark Paris glass pyramid for the first time since one of the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world with its audacity and scale.

In testimony to the French Senate, Louvre director Laurence des Cars said the museum had a damaging shortage of security cameras outside the monument and other "weaknesses" exposed by Sunday's theft.

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Under heavy pressure over a theft that stained France's global image, she testified to a Senate committee that she submitted her resignation but that the culture minister refused to accept it.

"Today we are experiencing a terrible failure at the Louvre, which I take my share of responsibility in," she said.

The thieves slipped in and out, making off with eight pieces from France's Crown Jewels at the world's most-visited museum — a cultural wound that some compared to the burning of Notre-Dame cathedral in 2019.

The Sunday raid — steps from the Mona Lisa and valued at €88 million ($157.5 million) — has put embattled President Emmanuel Macron, Des Cars and others under fresh scrutiny.

It comes just months after employees went on strike, warning of chronic understaffing and under-resourced protections, with too few eyes on too many rooms.

Crowds bunched at the barriers as they were being removed on Wednesday, a coda to frantic forensic work and staff briefings that had taken place. Inside, the scene of the crime — the Apollo Gallery housing the Crown Diamonds — stayed sealed, a folding screen obscuring the doorway at the gallery's rotunda entrance.

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Disbelief among visitors

Three days on, the jewels remain missing and the thieves are still at large — and reactions are divided.

"For a place like the Louvre, it's unfathomable," said Amanda Lee, 36, an art teacher from Chicago.

"I heard it took under four minutes. How is that possible here, with no police in sight?"

Others were unperturbed.

"We told the kids it's a history lesson. The Apollo Room is shut, but we saw the masterpieces," said Claire Martin, 41, a French lawyer from Versailles visiting with her two children during a school holiday.

"We came for the art," she said. "The police can deal with the thieves."

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France acknowledges failings

Authorities say the thieves spent less than four minutes inside the Louvre on Sunday morning (evening AEDT): a freight lift was wheeled to the Seine-facing façade, a window was forced open and two vitrines were smashed.

Then came the getaway on motorbikes through central Paris. Alarms had gone off, drawing agents to the gallery and forcing the intruders to bolt.

As it reopened, the Louvre declined questions from The Associated Press to detail any reinforced protocols. It said no uniformed police were posted in the corridors. With school holidays swelling demand, the day was fully booked and access limited.

"I didn't notice extra security — guards as always, and no police inside. It felt like a normal day," said Tomás Álvarez, 29, a software engineer from Madrid.

The loot

The thieves made away with a total of eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to 19th-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense.

They also made off with an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte's second wife, as well as a reliquary brooch. Empress Eugénie's diamond diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch — an imperial ensemble of rare craftsmanship — were also part of the loot.

One piece — Eugénie's emerald-set imperial crown, with more than 1300 diamonds — was later found outside the museum, damaged but recoverable.

Fears the jewels will be destroyed

Prosecutor Laure Beccuau valued the haul at about €88 million, a "spectacular" figure that still fails to capture the works' historical weight.

She warned the thieves would be unlikely to realise anything close to that sum if they pry out stones or melt the metals — a fate curators fear would pulverise centuries of meaning into anonymous gems for the black market.

Beccuau said expert analyses are under way; four people have been identified as present at the scene, and roughly 100 investigators are mapping the crew and any accomplices.

The heist has intensified scrutiny of the Louvre's security.

Culture Minister Rachida Dati drew fire on Tuesday after telling lawmakers there had been no security failings.

Questions about Louvre's security overhaul

All this comes after Macron announced new measures in January for the Louvre — complete with a new command post and expanded camera grid that the culture ministry says is being rolled out.

It also raises hard questions, including whether Sunday's breach is tied to staffing levels, and how uniformly the upgrades in the overhaul are being applied.

"It's a scandal of planning," said Luca Romano, 52, a civil engineer from Milan visiting Paris with his wife.

"If you can plant a freight lift at a palace and no one stops you, that's a system failure."

Protection for headline works is airtight — the Mona Lisa is behind bulletproof glass in a climate-controlled case — yet the break-in exposed seams elsewhere in a 33,000-object labyrinth. For many French, the contrast is a public embarrassment at the landmark.

It touches a raw nerve: the issue of swelling crowds and overstretched staff.

In June, a staff walkout over overcrowding and chronic understaffing delayed opening. Unions argue that mass tourism leaves too few eyes on too many rooms and creates pressure points where construction zones, freight access and visitor flows intersect.

On Wednesday, the Louvre's other star attractions — from the Venus de Milo to the Winged Victory of Samothrace — were open again. But the cordoned-off vitrines in the Apollo Room, guarded and empty, told a different story: one of a breach measured not just in minutes and euros, but in the fragility of a nation's patrimony.

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A police officer facing court over the alleged assault of former Greens candidate Hannah Thomas has been hit with a fresh charge.

Thomas was facing partial vision loss and underwent several surgeries after suffering facial injuries during an arrest at a demonstration outside SEC Plating in Belmore in Sydney's south-west in June.

A 33-year-old senior constable attached to a specialist command in the South West Metropolitan Region was charged with assault causing bodily harm about a month ago.

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He was today additionally charged with recklessly causing grievous bodily harm and issued a notice to appear at Bankstown Local Court on November 18. 

The senior constable is being managed in the workplace, and his employment status is under review.

The NSW Police Professional Standards Command is investigating the incident.

A critical incident investigation, with oversight by the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission, is also ongoing.

Thomas, who challenged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for his seat of Grayndler at the federal election this year, was one of five people arrested and charged after police tried to move on protesters.

Police, however, dropped their charges against her in court last month.

She has launched legal action against NSW Police, alleging assault and battery, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, misfeasance in public office and collateral abuse of process.

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A woman has been taken to hospital after her car collided with an army truck north-west of Brisbane this afternoon.

Emergency services were called to reports that a car had collided with a military vehicle on Samford Road near Baden Lane in Ferny Hills just before 3.30pm.

A woman in her 60s was taken to hospital with minor chest injuries.

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The force of the smash caused the army truck to roll onto its roof. All defence personnel escaped without physical injury.

The collision closed Samford Road in both directions for multiple hours, causing serious traffic delays for motorists travelling through the major thoroughfare.

Traffic was slowly beginning to trickle through the road as of 6pm (AEST).

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The woman was found dead at her address in the Manawatū town last week.