This picture posted on Twitter claims to prove Jihadi John is alive and well. Source: NewsComAu

10am

That’s it for our live #RUSHHOUR news blog. You can get across the stories you need to know today below or go to news.com.au for the latest headlines.

9.50

For the first time, the Catholic Church in Australia has said that the vow of celibacy may have contributed to child sex abuse by priests.

According to The Australian, the church establishment within Australia has for the first time said that “obligatory celibacy” may have resulted in the abuse of thousands of children.

Members of the Care Leavers of Australia Network outside the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse hearings in Sydney. Source: News Limited

The stunning admission in a report to be released today, sets an international precedent and is in stark contrast to a recent US study that said celibacy could not be blamed for the epidemic of abuse.

MORE: Celibacy vow may have contributed to child sex abuse

9.30

The head of the Central Intelligence Agency has acknowledged some agency interrogators used “abhorrent” unauthorised techniques in questioning terrorism suspects after the 9/11 attacks.

CIA director John Brennan said on Thursday there was no way to determine whether the methods used produced useful intelligence, but he strongly denied the CIA misled the public.

CIA Director John Brennan has address the report detailing torture tactics. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Source: AP

“In a limited number of cases, agency officers used interrogation techniques that had not been authorised, were abhorrent and rightly should be repudiated by all, and we fell short when it came to holding some officers accountable for their mistakes,” he said.

Waterboarding", the practice of torturing prisoners by partially drowning them, was among torture methods used by the CIA. Source: AAP

Brennan said he believed that coercive interrogations had a “strong prospect” of producing false information.

“I tend to believe that the use of coercive methods has a strong prospect for resulting in false information because if somebody is being subjected to a course of techniques, they may say something to have those techniques stopped,” Brennan told a press conference.

AFP

9.00

Audio of the moment a New Zealand tourist plunged to her death from accused killer Gable Tostee’s Gold Coast balcony has been leaked online.

A copy of the recording which runs for more than three hours discovered on Mr Tostee’s phone, was anonymously uploaded to a Canadian file-sharing website, Fairfax reports.

Gable Tostee is on bail awaiting his murder trial over Warriena Wright’s death. Source: Supplied

The recording is expected to be a key piece of evidence in Tostee’s upcoming murder trial, and contains conversations between the Gold Coast man and Warriena Wright, the woman he met up with on Tinder earlier that August night.

The online activity comes as a person claiming to be Mr Tostee has written a lengthy post protecting his innocence over Ms Wright’s death on an online bodybuilding forum.

Warriena Wright fell from Gable Tostee’s Surfers Paradise balcony Source: Supplied

Police have said they are aware of both the recording and the written post, and believe if Mr Tostee was the author of either post, it would not breach conditions of his bail.

Part of Tostee’s bail conditions ordered that he not use social media to contact women that he did not know.

The case is set to head back to court next month.

Read more at the Gold Coast Bulletin

8.40

Well, this is new.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has this morning whipped out the gender card, crying sexism in a bid to defend recent criticisms of his chief of staff Peta Credlin.

“Do you really think that my chief of staff would be under this kind of criticism if her name was P-E-T-E-R as opposed to P-E-T-A?” Mr Abbott told ABC television.

Tony Abbott with his chief of staff Peta Credlin. Source: News Corp Australia

“I think people need to take a long hard look at themselves with some of these criticisms.” Mr Abbott said if people had a problem with his office they should bring the complaints to him.

MORE: Tony Abbott is crying sexism?

8.30

An Australian photographer has made history by selling this black and white print for $7.8 million — making it the most expensive photo ever sold.

Peter Lik’s photograph, ‘phantom’, was taken in Arizona’s Antelope Canyon in the south-western region of the United States. Lik says he is continually drawn to the area — a canyon carved out by natural flowing water over millions of years.

Spectacular spectre ... Phantom by Peter Lik. Source: Supplied

At home ... Lik at the Great Barrier Reef, in far north Queensland. Source: Supplied

The photograph was sold to a private collector, who also bought Lik’s masterworks Illusion for $2.9 million and Eternal Moods for $1.3 million.

Worth it?

8.15

A man accused of stabbing a woman to death in a Rio suburb has confessed to having murdered 42 people, almost all of them women, “for the fun of it”, police say.

The Brazilian man, 26-year-old Sailson Jose das Gracas who police describe as a psychopath, says he became addicted to murder.

Brazilian Sailson Jose das Gracas. Source: AFP

“He wanted to kill women — white women, not black ones. He followed the victims, studying them closely before committing the crimes,” said police commissioner Pedro Henrique Medina.

Gracas says he murdered 37 women, three men and a two-year-old child over a nine-year killing spree, explaining he killed the child because he feared it would cry and attract neighbours’ attention.

“I observed them, I studied them. I waited for a month, sometimes a week, depending on the place. I tried to ascertain where they lived, what their families were like. I kept watch on their houses and then after a while went there at dawn, waited for my chance and entered,” broadcaster Globo’s G1 news portal quoted Gracas as saying.

Gracas explained he started out as a petty thief.

“At 17, I killed the first woman and that gave me a buzz. I kept on doing it and I enjoyed it,” he said.

Gracas confessed to murdering 42 people ‘for the fun of it’. Source: AFP

Gracas said he used a gun in contract killings but strangled his other victims.

He planned his crimes meticulously, wearing a rain jacket to conceal his identity and gloves so as not to leave fingerprints. “When I wasn’t killing someone I got uptight. I would pace up and down at home. Killing calmed me down.

“I’d kill someone and then would think about the victim for two or three months. After that, I’d go off hunting” for another victim, Gracas said.

“I don’t feel remorse — if I go to jail for 10, 15, 20 years, then as soon as I get out I’ll do the same thing all over again.” Under Brazilian law, the maximum prison term is 30 years.

8.00

More than nine months after flight MH370 disappeared on the way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, this is what searchers have found.

The picture was released by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau to show what images search vessels are recording as they scour the southern Indian Ocean.

Synthetic aperture sonar acoustic image of the sea floor gathered by GO Phoenix. Source: Supplied

“The image is a synthetic aperture sonar acoustic image of the sea floor gathered by GO Phoenix,” reads the ATSB’s latest statement.

“This is indicative of the resolution and quality of the data and that it is revealing important detail of the sea floor.”

Malaysia’s Defence Minister being briefed on MH370 search. Source: Twitter

Briefing aboard the survey ship Go Phoenix searching for MH370 Source: Twitter

The Go Phoenix and Fugro Discovery continue to work around the clock intensively scanning the ocean floor, much of it up to 6000m below the water surface.

To date, more than 9000 square kilometres has been searched, representing 16 per cent of the 55,000 square kilometre priority search area.

MORE: First images of what search vessels have found of lost Malaysia Airlines flight

7.30

A parasitic worm from ­Africa that grows up to a metre long has been found inside a Melbourne man.

Doctors at St Vincent’s Hospital found two disintegrated pieces of the worm that burrows into people’s stomachs and makes their feet burn inside the 38-year-old migrant from Sudan, and said they had been there for years.

Doctors at St Vincent’s Hospital found two worm pieces inside the 38-year-old from Sudan. Source: Supplied

Infectious diseases expert Dr Jonathan Darby said the man presented with a large ­abscess on his foot.

An X-ray revealed the two spaghetti-shaped pieces of worm, each a few centimetres long, in the lower calf and foot.

The worm can enter the body when a person drinks water containing its larvae, Dr Darby said, then travels into the intestines moving towards the surface of the skin.

A guinea worm is extracted by a health worker from a child's foot in Ghana. They can usually only be extracted by being slowly pulled from the body. (AP Photo/Olivier Asselin) Source: AAP

Read more at the Herald Sun

7.15

The moment two women punched, bit and spat on a Melbourne bus driver after he asked for their fares has been captured on CCTV.

Two women are caught on camera attacking a bus driver who asked them to pay their fares.

Police are searching for two women who allegedly punched, bit and spat on a bus driver after he asked them to pay their fares.

The two women failed to use their Myki cards when they boarded a bus at the Dandenong Plaza Shopping Centre in Melbourne on Saturday, November 29, the Herald Sun reports.

Police have released an image of the two women they wish to speak to about the attack. Source: Supplied

They allegedly verbally abused the bus driver before attacking him when he asked them to pay after they reached their final destination at Dandenong Station.

Read more at the Herald Sun

7.05

A woman aged in her 50s was shot through her front door in Sydney’s west in what may have been a gang-related attack.

The woman is in Westmead Hospital suffering from a gunshot wound to the stomach and initial inquires suggest bullets were fired through her front door.

Police and emergency services were called to the home in Albert Rd, Auburn about 8.40pm.

Reports suggest the woman, who was home alone at the time of the shooting, could be a relative of key members of a notorious Sydney crime syndicate Brothers For Life.

Police investigate a shooting in Auburn. Pic: Chris McKeen Source: News Corp Australia

6.50

About 10,000 homes remain without power after gales and lightning strikes caused by a “weather bomb” swept the north of the country.

Properties in the Western Isles and Skye have been worst affected by the stormy conditions along the west coast of Scotland.

Dangerous ... a car is brought to a standstill as waves crash over Seaview Rd in Saltcoats, Scotland, on December 10. Source: Getty Images

Get inside! ... people are whipped by strong winds and big waves in Blackpool, England, on December 10. Source: Getty Images

At the peak of the problems yesterday, around 30,000 homes lost electricity, while a further 27,000 were cut off after a lightning strike this morning.

The process behind the storm — rapid cyclogenesis — is known colloquially as a “weather bomb”.

Weather warnings remain in place for much of the UK but the mainland has so far survived relatively unscathed, with the northern isles around Scotland hit the worst.

Coastguards are also warning against people taking selfies in the #weatherbomb.

It’s not worth it! A man photographs big waves on December 10, 2014 in Blackpool, United Kingdom. (Photo by Nigel Roddis/Getty Images) Source: Getty Images

6.30

Police have shot a man in Brisbane after he threatened them with a samurai sword in the latest in a spate of police shootings.

A witness said he saw the man with a samurai sword before he was shot, ­receiving two wounds to his chest and one to a hand, the Courier-Mail reports.

BCM NEWS- Police shooting at Ashgrove _11.12.14- — pic Adam Smith Source: News Corp Australia

BCM NEWS- Police shooting at Ashgrove _11.12.14- — pic Adam Smith Source: News Corp Australia

Ethical Standards officers were investigating what is the latest in a spate of Queensland police shootings, four of which have resulted in fatalities.

Read more at the Courier-Mail

6.15

News of his apparent death came as a relief but a new photo posted to Twitter claims to show Jihadi John, the Islamic State leader responsible for beheading journalist James Foley and other captives, is alive and well.

The masked ‘executioner’ with a London accent was thought to have been injured in a US-led air strike last month.

‘A day with Jihadi John’ A new snap of the ‘masked killer’ was posted online. Source: NewsComAu

A picture posted to Twitter by a fellow radical claiming to show the masked killer claims to confirm he escaped death.

The shot was posted with the caption “A day with Jihadi John — may the eyes of cowards never sleep #IslamicState.”

The British-born killer became one of the world’s most wanted men after he appeared in IS propaganda videos apparently beheading five British and US hostages.

About to be beheaded ... American journalist James Foley with the ‘Jihadi John’ the Islamic State extremist who is about to kill him in Syria. Source: AP

The first of those was US journalist James Foley, whose remains the militant group are allegedly trying to sell to he US government or his family for $1 million.

A source who is a middleman contacted by IS to broker the deal told Buzzfeed that IS is trying to present it as an act of mercy for the family and a “humanity case”, it was reported.

Family offered his headless corpse for $1 million ... US journalist James Foley, pictured in Aleppo, Syria, who was beheaded by the Islamic State extremist group. (AP Photo/freejamesfoley.org, Nicole Tung) Source: AAP