Information from an Uber driver helped detectives find human remains believed to belong to missing woman Lucinda Williams on the third anniversary of her disappearance.

The remains were discovered today in regional Victorian bushland during a renewed two-day search.

Miller, 24, was last seen on October 16, 2022 after she took a rideshare car home from Melbourne to Neerim South in West Gippsland, regional Victoria, about 11.30am.

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Her death is not being treated as suspicious.

Acting Inspector Paula Linford told reporters the remains still need to be forensically examined however said they are "consistent" with Miller.

Her body was found just 80 metres off the road in thick bushland.

It is still "very very early" days to determine a cause of death, Linford said.

She described Miller as "very unwell".

"That's about all I can say about that," she added.

A member of the public gave police some information and a "new place to start", which led them to look into rideshare data.

An Uber driver then provided new intel to help pinpoint Miller's location.

"At the time, that was what he remembered," Linford said.

"But the new information that we received gave us the new location."

Clothing and a vodka bottle was found in the search.

Police used dogs capable of sniffing out electronic devices in the hope of finding Miller's phone.

However, her phone has not been located.

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About 60 people were involved in the renewed search effort this week.

"Local police would like to extend their thanks to the Neerim South CFA, SES, DEECA and the AFP for their support and assistance," police said in a statement.

Authorities began scouring bushland arond two kilometres north of the original search area around McDougal Road in Neerim South on Monday.

Detectives appealed to anyone who had been walking in bushland around McDougal Road, near the intersection of Whitelaw Track, to come forward.

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A mother who faked her six-year-old son's cancer diagnosis has pleaded guilty to charges linked to the deception.

The 45-year-old woman admitted 11 charges when she appeared in Adelaide Magistrates Court today.

The woman, from the western suburb of West Lakes, was arrested last December and accused of faking her son's cancer to secure $60,000 in donations from the community.

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Prosecutors had alleged that she had been requesting donations through an online fundraising page and the child's school, after putting her son in a wheelchair with bandages to imitate radiotherapy treatment.

In May, all charges against the woman's husband were dropped and her charges were amended to one count of criminal neglect, 56 counts of deception to obtain a benefit and 14 counts of dishonestly dealing with property.

Today, prosecutors told the court the case had been resolved after plea bargain negotiations.

The woman, who appeared in court via video link from the Adelaide Women's Prison, admitted 10 charges of deception to obtain a benefit, totalling $11,500, for amounts ranging from $500 to $3000, between November 21 and December 12, 2024.

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The criminal neglect charge did not proceed and the woman instead pleaded guilty to one aggravated count of acts likely to cause harm to a person aged under 12.

When police revealed the allegations last year, acting Assistant Commissioner John DeCandia said he "couldn't think of a more devious and cruel scheme".

"It's abhorrent that (a person) would seek to profit for their own personal greed and selfishness from such an insidious condition such as cancer which impacts so many families in our community," he said.

Magistrate Patrick Hill remanded the woman in custody to face the District Court on November 28, when a date for sentencing submissions is expected to be set.

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‘My whole life I have learnt to mask the impact of my disabilities.’

The weather bureau issued a major flood alert for a rural village at 9.07am, warning of very high river levels in the afternoon.

About 17 minutes later, the village of Eugowra, in central western NSW, was hit by a destructive flash flood described by survivors as a "wall of water" or an "inland tsunami".

Lifelong resident Diane Smith, 60, and Ljubisa "Les" Vugec, 85, died in the disaster on November 14, 2022, which also resulted in 124 helicopter rescues as locals clung to trees or perched on roofs to survive.

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The vast majority of houses in the village, which has a population of 800, were damaged or destroyed when the Mandagery Creek peaked at 11.02 metres.

An inquest is examining the deaths of Smith and Vugec, along with the lead-up to the disaster, the weather warnings and the scale of the emergency response.

Matthew Collopy, a senior manager from the Bureau of Meteorology, today defended the agency's flood warning that morning as "clear and timely".

The warning issued just before the water rose said creek levels "may reach" 10.5m, leaving room for the possibility of further rises, Collopy said.

The experienced meteorologist, who manages the national warning system from Brisbane, said the flood advice was based on all available data from rain and river gauges, satellites and weather radars.

The bureau did not know until later that two gauges upstream at Toogong and Smithfield had been damaged and were not transmitting data.

There were also no instruments at the creek in the village, he said.

"It should be pointed out that we did not have any data information coming from Eugowra town," Collopy told the inquest at Orange courthouse today.

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There were up to six meteorologists working on the bureau's flood desk the night before the disaster, at a time when there were 43 warnings across Australia and 14 in NSW, the inquest was told.

The Mandagery Creek has since been prioritised for a telemetric gauge under a 10-year federal government program.

Collopy said the telemetric gauge could improve flood warnings, but it was awaiting various state and federal planning approvals.

When Deputy State Coroner David O'Neil questioned the "tardiness" of installing the gauge, Collopy said there were 10,000 flood warning instruments across Australia and only a third were overseen by the bureau.

He said the federal program to upgrade warning systems was a "once in a generation" opportunity.

"Without that funding and efforts, it's been very difficult for the bureau and other agencies to upgrade and maintain this very large network," Collopy told the coroner.

Water NSW maintained the upstream gauges.

Senior technician Andrew Cutler told the inquest it was an ongoing effort to make equipment as robust as possible to withstand extreme weather.

"If we had the budget, we would have started yesterday," Cutler said.

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Ahead of Australia's bushfire season, a landmark report has found bad wildfires are becoming more likely, more severe and burning far more land than they otherwise would have due to climate change.

The second annual State of Wildfires report, released this morning, has painted a bleak picture of the extreme natural disasters at home and abroad.

Researchers from more than 20 countries examined the causes and impacts of bushfires across the planet between March 2024 and February 2025.

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"Our study revealed that an area totalling 3.7 million square kilometres – which is a land area larger than India – was burnt by wildfires globally," Australian co-lead author Dr Hamish Clarke, from the University of Melbourne, said.

"We are witnessing the effects of climate change play out across our world on an extreme scale. 

"Not only is a warming planet creating more dangerous fire-prone weather conditions, but it is also influencing how vegetation grows, dries out and provides fuel for the fires to spread."

The report found 100 million people were affected by fires over the research period, including 200 who were killed by the blazes, and that $US215 billion ($330 billion) worth of homes and infrastructure were put at risk.

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Researchers also concluded that human-caused climate change had made the massive Los Angeles fires 25 times larger than they would have otherwise been, and ravaging blazes in South America's Pantanal-Chiquitano region 35 times bigger.

The impacts also extended to Australia.

"This included over 1000 large fires that burnt around 470,000 hectares in Western Australia, over 5 million hectares burnt in central Australia and major fires around Mount Isa with substantial smoke impacts," Australian co-lead author Dr Sarah Harris, from Victoria's Country Fire Authority, said.

"Here in Victoria, the Grampians National Park saw two-thirds of its park area burned, and the Little Desert fire burned 90,000 hectares in under eight hours."

While the report warned that future bushfires are likely to get even worse due to the warming planet, the authors also said it was possible to take action to avoid the worst outcomes.

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"While the future looks challenging, the report emphasises that it's not too late to act," Clarke said.

"Firstly, we need to take much stronger and faster climate action, including cutting fossil fuel emissions and reducing deforestation and land clearing. 

"Beyond that, there are many things we can do to prepare for and respond to fire risk, from vegetation management to householder preparation and supporting short and long-term disaster recovery.

"As Australia approaches yet another fire season, this global perspective serves as a stark reminder of the interconnected nature of our climate crisis and the urgent need for coordinated global action, bold commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions rapidly this decade."

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Landmark domestic violence legislation has been unveiled in New South Wales, ensuring offenders who murder their partners face the toughest laws in the nation.

The reform comes on the back of tireless campaigning from Tabitha Acret after her daughter, Mackenzie Anderson, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend.

He received a non-parole period of just 15 and a half years.

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"I hope that she'd be proud, because as a mum, there's a sense of such disappointment that I didn't keep her safe. And that's your job as a mum, and I didn't do it," Acret said.

She began relentlessly lobbying the state government after fearing that the sentence that her daughter's killer received would set a precedent for even lower sentences.

"That's when I thought, this is the norm? This is horrific," she said.

Today, her campaigning paid off as NSW introduced the strictest domestic violence laws in the country.

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The state will be the first to legislate a standard non-parole period of 25 years for "intimate partner homicide" – or domestic violence murder – up from the previous 20.

Although the periods are not mandatory, the law will give judges more discretion to set higher minimum non-parole terms.

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"It won't return a murdered loved one to their family, but justice is important," Premier Chris Minns said.

In the past five years alone, 42 women have been murdered by their partner in NSW.

In 2023, the average non-parole period for those killers was just 13 and a half years.

Tyrone Thompson breached an Apprehended Violence Order at least eight times before killing Anderson.

Acret says it should have attracted a mandatory minimum sentence the first time.

"This sends a strong message that AVOs are worth the paper they're written on, because the moment they're not," she said.

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).

CCTV footage has shown the moment a woman was randomly stabbed in broad daylight while walking to work at a sushi restaurant in Melbourne's CBD. 

The 36-year-old had just left her apartment near the intersection of Little Bourke and Spencer streets about 7.40am on October 2 when she was allegedly stabbed by an unknown woman.

Vision showed the alleged offender running up from behind while holding what appears to be a ball in one hand and a knife in another.

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She is seen stopping in front of the woman and stabbing her, before taking off on foot.

The victim told 9News she felt someone tap her from the back and turned around to be stabbed immediately.

Her lung was punctured, and she collapsed in immense pain, before passersby came to her aid and she was rushed to hospital.

She has since recovered but has been left shaken up by the incident and has moved house.

Her family told 9News the attack should not have happened.

"When we receive a phone call from her working place owner, it's quite confusing and shocked at the same time," her brother-in-law Chia Ting said.

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"It's not right. It should be safe to walk along," her sister Ivana Lai said.

Police have arrested a 32-year-old woman from Melbourne and seized a knife.

She has been charged with two counts of intentionally causing injury and one count of committing an indictable offence whilst on bail.

She faced the Melbourne Magistrates' Court the following day and was remanded in custody.

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Emergency services were called to the scene about 7.15pm.

The owner thought the most humane thing to do would be to let the dogs continue.

Officers searched four Ōpōtiki properties as part of an operation targeting drug dealing.