Wednesday's news in 5 minutes.

1. 14-year-old Madison got into her bathtub and grabbed her phone. Minutes later, she was dead.

Teen girl from Lubbock, Texas, dies after being electrocuted in a bathtub while using her cell phone. https://t.co/tfip4sJVZ2

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) July 11, 2017

A 14-year-old girl in the United States has died after she used her cellphone in a bathtub, the KCBD News reports.

Madison Coe, from Texas, was taking a bath at her father’s home in the neighbouring state of New Mexico when she was electrocuted.

Her family believes she either plugged in her phone or reached for her phone that was already on charge while she was in the water.

“There was a burn mark on her hand, the hand that would have grabbed the phone,” her grandmother, Donna O’Guinn, told KCBD.

“That was just very obvious that that’s what had happened.”

Her family is now intent on sharing her story to ensure everyone knows the dangers of using electricity near water.

“This is such a tragedy that doesn’t need to happen to anyone else. And we want something good to come out of this as awareness,” her grandmother said.

“We don’t want to lose anybody.”

Madison had just graduated from the eighth grade, and was preparing to begin high school in the new school year.

Her grandmother said she was “sweet to everybody” and “loved life”.

“I call her my shining star,” Donna said.

“She’s just going to be greatly missed by all of us. She has a special place in my heart.”

Madison will be farewelled at a memorial service this Saturday, and a family friend has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help her family with her funeral costs.

2. Former QLD police officer jailed for life for horror attempted murder of his wife and two children.

A former police officer has been sentenced to life behind bars after trying to murder his wife and two children. @BenBMurph #7News pic.twitter.com/Y66GQhawHY

— 7 News Brisbane (@7NewsBrisbane) July 11, 2017

A former police officer who attempted to stab his wife and two children to death at their Brisbane home three years ago is starting his life sentence in prison, AAP reports.

The 44-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, repeatedly stabbed the 39-year-old woman and their children, aged nine and seven, at Carina on February 2, 2014.

The Brisbane Supreme Court on Tuesday heard he began planning the violent rampage after being confronted by his then-wife over his affairs with sex workers, which he at one point funded with her engagement ring.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of attempted murder before Justice Peter Flanagan, who sentenced him to life in prison.

“It is clear that you intended to kill your entire family,” Justice Flanagan said.

The court heard the man, who resigned from the force in 2008 after serving 17 years, had timed the attack in the early hours of February 2 to coincide with police shift changeovers in the hope it would stall their response.

He used two large kitchen knives to stab his wife first, knowing she would be the most difficult to kill, before then attacking his son and daughter.

All three required surgery and have been left with permanent scarring, the court was told.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, the man’s former wife spoke of her children’s trauma and described her bodily scarring as a “road map” of an attack that could never be erased.

“My children will carry this trauma with them for the rest of their lives, lives that I hope will be long despite the attempted efforts of their father to cut them short,” the statement said.

According to 7 News, she said she would always be tortured by the memory of her daughter screaming “please don’t kill me, daddy, I thought you loved me”.

She received 71 wounds while her daughter suffered more than 32.

The man will be eligible to apply for bail in February 2029.

3. President Donald Trump assures his eldest son is a “high-quality person”.

#BREAKING: Trump reacts to Trump Jr. meeting with Russian lawyer: “My son is a high quality person” https://t.co/Td6XOJxiZG pic.twitter.com/MGXrQYHLi2

— The Hill (@thehill) July 11, 2017

President Donald Trump says his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, is a “high-quality person” following disclosures about the latter’s meeting last year with a woman he was told was a Russian government lawyer who might have information incriminating Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

“My son is a high-quality person and I applaud his transparency,” Trump said in a brief statement read to reporters by White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders on Tuesday, AAP reports.

Sanders told reporters that all other questions on the matter should be referred to either his son’s lawyer or the president’s outside counsel.

Earlier Donald Trump Jr tweeted a chain of emails between himself and Rob Goldstone, a publicist who helped to arrange the June 9, 2016, meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya, who says she is a private lawyer and denies having Kremlin ties.

“If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer,” Trump Jr replied in the email exchange after Goldstone said the information offered was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump”.

The disclosures could provide ammunition for US investigators probing whether there was collusion between the Kremlin and Trump’s Republican presidential campaign.

US intelligence agencies have concluded that Moscow sought to hurt Clinton and help Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

Sanders said Trump was “frustrated” by the focus on Russia.

“The president is, I would say, frustrated with the process of the fact that this continues to be an issue, and he would love for us to be focused on things like … the economy, on healthcare, on tax reform, on infrastructure,” Sanders said.

Asked about the fact that the words “perjury” and “treason” were now being used in the public conversation about the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russians, Sanders said: “I think those new words are ridiculous.”

4. Husband charged after he “carefully planned” his wheelchair-bound wife’s murder in a pond.

SA Police charge Peter Dansie with murder of wife, Helen — who was found dead in a Veale Gardens pond in April. https://t.co/kR0LHhpXE4 pic.twitter.com/pnNoQE75iB

— The Advertiser (@theTiser) July 11, 2017

The alleged murder of a wheelchair-bound Adelaide woman, who drowned when she fell into a pond, was a planned and premeditated crime, a court has been told.

Peter Dansie, 67, was refused bail in the Adelaide Magistrates Court on Tuesday after being charged with the murder of his wife, 67-year-old Helen Dansie.

Mrs Dansie died after her wheelchair rolled into the pond in Veale Gardens in April with only her back showing above the water when paramedics arrived on the scene.

Prosecutor Sarah Attar told the court that investigations by police had discounted much of what the dead woman’s husband had told emergency services, including that she was too heavy for him to turn over in the water and that the water was “up to his neck”, AAP reports.

She said police had re-enacted the incident and found it would have been easy to flip the woman over.

Checks also revealed the pond was only 1.1m deep.

Ms Attar said Dansie had also taken a spare set of clothes to the park with him that day, left his watch in his car and had placed his wallet and phone at the base of a tree before going to his wife’s rescue.

She said when police arrested him on Tuesday they found his wife’s ashes still in a container in his car, “covered in general rubbish.”

This was an indication of the disregard he had for his victim, the prosecutor said.

In asking for bail, defence counsel Pat Amey said Dansie suffered from both a heart condition and diabetes and was not a flight risk because of his strong business interests in SA.

But the court ruled against bail and remanded him in custody before a next appearance on September 19.

5. Reports suggest Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed.

ISIS members confirm leader’s death, monitoring group says https://t.co/vQOXZtOMk8 pic.twitter.com/HwL5pZYJsC

— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 11, 2017

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had “confirmed information” that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed.

Russia’s defence ministry said it may have killed Baghdadi when one of its air strikes hit a gathering of Islamic State commanders on the outskirts of the Syrian city of Raqqa, but Washington said it could not corroborate the death and Western and Iraqi officials have been sceptical.

The US-led coalition battling Islamic State does not have concrete information about whether Baghdadi is dead or alive, the senior US general leading the campaign says.

“Despite all the helpful reports to us from every source imaginable, I’m unable to confirm or deny either where he is or whether he is alive or dead. Let me just say for the record my fervent hope is it is the latter,” Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend told a news briefing on Tuesday.

Reuters could not independently verify Baghdadi’s death.

Baghdadi’s death, which has been frequently reported since he declared a caliphate from a mosque in the Iraqi city of Mosul in 2014, would be one of the biggest blows yet to the jihadist group, which is trying to defend shrinking territory in Syria and Iraq.

6. Australia’s ‘celebrity whale’ Migaloo has been spotted swimming off the Gold Coast.

Whale watchers swarmed as Migaloo was spotted off the Gold Coast. @MyleeHogan #Migaloo #7News pic.twitter.com/XfElFvimuK

— 7 News Brisbane (@7NewsBrisbane) July 11, 2017

Australia’s famous white whale Migaloo has swum into Queensland waters as he makes his annual migration towards the Great Barrier Reef.

The humpback was sighted by television crews and whale watchers frolicking off the Gold Coast on Tuesday morning.

Migaloo, which received a Parks and Wildlife escort in 2016 due to the intense media interest, and hundreds of other humpbacks are making their way north to calve and mate in warmer Queensland waters.

“They can’t have the calves in the cold water because they are born with no fat on them,” Sea World Gold Coast marine sciences director Trevor Long told AAP on Monday.

Mr Long has seen the rare white whale many times.

“To be able to see any animal such as Migaloo, it’s like a neon light under water,” he said.

“It’s just amazing.”

The whale was dubbed Migaloo, an indigenous word for white person, after being first seen off Byron Bay in 1991, when he was believed to be between three and five years old.

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