Wednesday’s news in 5 minutes.

Video via CNN

1. A woman’s Fitbit helped police arrest her husband for her murder.

A man has been arrested and charged with the murder of his wife after her fitness tracker helped poke holes in his story, CNN reports.

Richard Dabate told police a masked intruder broke into the Connecticut home he shared with his wife, Connie, on December 23, 2015. He said he was tied up and tortured, and when his wife came home, she was shot and killed.

He said he had left for work in the morning, before he returned home between 8:45am and 9am when he realised he’d forgotten his laptop.

Richard then said he heard a noise upstairs, where he spotted a 6’2″ man with a “camouflaged suit with a mask” in his home. At 10:11am, after the alleged intruder fled the scene, Richard called 911.

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By then, he told police, his wife Connie was already dead.

Investigators found no evidence of any forced entry into the couple’s home, and found that nothing in the house had been stolen. Police then seized the couple’s cell phones, computers and house alarm logs, as well as Connie’s Fitbit, to help with their investigations.

Police found Connie logged a total walking distance of 370m between 9:18am and 10:05am on the device, a time period in which Richard had told police his wife had already been killed.

Police say her Fitbit logged more than 300m of movement than she would have walked if Richard’s story was to be believed.

Richard later admitted to having an affair with a woman he had impregnated. He also attempted to make a claim on his wife’s life insurance just five days after the incident.

Police have now charged him with murder, tampering with evidence and providing a false statement.

He is due to enter a plea during his next court appearance, which is scheduled for April 27.

2. Malcolm Turnbull is “delighted” to meet Donald Trump for the first time next week.

US President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will come face-to-face for the first time since that fiery January phone call rocked the allies’ relationship.

Mr Trump will host Mr Turnbull next week on the USS Intrepid, the decommissioned World War II aircraft carrier that is the centrepiece of Manhattan’s Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.

The May 4 event will be held to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea.

Mr Turnbull said he was “delighted” to be meeting with Mr Trump and attending the Battle of the Coral Sea commemorations in New York, AAP reports.

“My meeting with President Trump will provide an opportunity to reaffirm our alliance and the United States’ engagement with the Asia-Pacific,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.

“It closely follows my visit to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and comes at a time when our region faces a serious threat from a reckless and dangerous regime in North Korea.”

US Vice President Mike Pence, on his recent Australian tour, and other Trump administration officials have worked to soothe the relationship after the January 28 phone call abruptly ended when Mr Trump told Mr Turnbull it was “the worst call by far” on a day of conversations he had with world leaders.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer went out of his way on Tuesday to warmly announce the meeting.

 

“The President looks forward to meeting the Prime Minister and showcasing the enduring bonds, deep friendship and close alliance the US has with Australia,” Mr Spicer said.

Mr Trump was upset during the January 28 call by the asylum seeker deal Mr Turnbull negotiated last year with then US President Barack Obama.

Mr Trump reluctantly agreed to go ahead with the deal as long as the refugees undergo “extreme vetting”.

3. Ten years after Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, London police say her case may never be solved.

Almost a decade after three-year-old Madeleine McCann vanished, London police are still following critical lines of inquiry but say they might never solve the case.

McCann disappeared from her bedroom on May 3, 2007 during a family holiday in Portugal, while her parents were dining with friends at a nearby restaurant in the resort of Praia da Luz.

Despite a massive international search and media coverage, her fate remains a mystery.

“Sadly investigations can never be 100 per cent successful,” said London Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley. He said police had no definitive evidence as to whether Madeleine was alive or dead.

Her parents, Kate and Gerry, said the 10-year anniversary was a “a horrible marker of time, stolen time”, AAP reports.

In the 10 years since McCann vanished, the media has suggested a host of explanations for her disappearance, ranging from a burglary gone wrong to abduction by slave traders.

Madeleine’s parents were named as official suspects by Portuguese police four months after the disappearance but in 2008 were cleared.

The McCanns and friends who were with them on the night Madeleine went missing later won large payouts from newspapers over stories that they were involved. Another Briton was awarded STG600,000 ($A1 million) in damages over false allegations he had abducted the girl.

“We are bracing ourselves for the next couple of weeks,” the McCanns said.

“It’s likely to be stressful and painful and more so given the rehashing of old ‘stories’, misinformation, half-truths and downright lies which will be doing the rounds in the newspapers, social media and ‘special edition’ TV programmes.”

The Portuguese closed their inquiry in 2008. London police launched a review of the case in 2011 after the McCanns wrote to then British Prime Minister David Cameron.

“Where we are today is with a much smaller team focused on a small number of remaining critical lines of inquiry that we think are significant,” Rowley said.

“If we didn’t think they were significant, we wouldn’t be carrying on.”

4. The last male white rhino, desperate to find love, has turned to Tinder.

Like many guys using the Tinder dating app, Sudan loves the outdoors and travels widely. The catch: he’s the world’s last male white northern rhino and desperately needs to mate.

“I don’t mean to be too forward, but the fate of my species literally depends on me,” reads his profile.

“I perform well under pressure. I like to eat grass and chill in the mud. No problems. 6 ft tall and 5000 pounds if it matters.”

Conservationists are hoping that Sudan’s Tinder profile will help them raise enough money for $US9-million ($A12 million) fertility treatment as all attempts at getting him to mate naturally have failed, AAP reports.

Scientists would use Sudan’s sperm to fertilise an egg from one of the two last northern white rhino females: 17-year-old Satu or 27-year-old Najin. The embryo will be implanted in a surrogate southern white rhino, a far more common species.

“We tried everything to get them to mate naturally,” said Elodie Sampere, the marketing manager at Kenya’s Ol Pejeta conservancy, where all three white rhinos are accompanied by 24-hour armed guards.

“When he first tried to mount the girl, the rangers guided him … but it is difficult with a rhino,” she said.

“We removed them from a zoo environment, which was not conducive to natural instincts, and put them in a semi-wild environment. There were a couple of matings, but it never resulted in a pregnancy.”

Poachers sell northern white rhinos horns for $US50,000 per kilo, making them more valuable than gold or cocaine, and his keepers fear that Sudan, who at 43 is ancient for a rhino, may die or be killed before they can raise enough money.

 

A swipe right on Sudan’s Tinder profile – available in 190 countries and 40 languages – directs users to the Ol Pejeta donation page.

Just hours after he went online, the number of hits was so high that the Ol Pejeta website crashed.

5. Young woman fighting for life with severe burns after horrific domestic violence attack by her boyfriend.

A young woman is fighting for her life in a Melbourne hospital after suffering serious burns to her face and body in a suspected attack by her boyfriend, AAP reports.

The 20-year-old Hobart woman was flown to The Alfred hospital late on Monday night after she was injured by fire in a shed at a Chigwell home.

A 34-year-old man was arrested for assault following the incident.

Detective Inspector Craig Joel told AAP an accelerant of some type, such as petrol, had been used in the attack.

He said the results of chemical testing are not yet known.

The Alfred said the woman remains in a critical condition.

The man also suffered burns to his body and was being treated in the Royal Hobart Hospital under police guard.

If you or someone you know is in need of help, please call the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800 RESPECT. In an emergency, dial triple zero.

6. ‘Trip of a lifetime’ turns to terror after toddler accidentally pours boiling kettle on himself.

The Hall family were meant to be on a trip of a lifetime, driving across Australia.

But just weeks into their journey, their trip has come to a horrifying end after 17-month-old Hunter accidentally pulled a boiling kettle off a stove and suffered severe burns to his body.

On March 26, the little boy pulled open the caravan’s oven door and knocked over a kettle full of boiling water, in an accident his mother says will “affect his whole life”.

“He learned to walk three or four steps three days before the accident. Before the accident he spoke all the basic words…but now all he could do is grunt,” she told 7 News.

Hunter only returned to eating and drinking normally just four days ago, but his mother said he was still not able to talk.

The 17-month-old has undergone four skin grafts to his head, chest, right leg and foot and the sole of his left foot since the accident. He will need ongoing treatment until he stops growing at the age of 18 or 19.

The family hopes Hunter will be able to have as normal a life as possible, and have set up a GoFundMe page to help with his ongoing medical costs.

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