Wednesday afternoon's news in under 5 minutes.

We’ve rounded up all the latest stories from Australia and around the world – so you don’t have to go searching.

1. Government stepping up measures to prevent child pornography.

The federal government is putting pressure on phone and internet companies, to retain search data to help fight online child pornography.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott wants to expand the government’s retention of data —  capturing people’s internet activity and search history — which is vital in combating internet crimes and other illegal activities, including terrorism and child abuse.

“We know that access to metadata has played a role in preventing and investigating terrorism offences. But it’s also vital to investigating major crimes that destroy lives in this country,” Mr Abbott’s office told Fairfax Media.

“And no crime is more abhorrent than crimes against children.”

The step is part of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s national security reforms, to be unveiled next week.

Related content: Watch: How to keep your kids safe online.

2. Two teenage girls stabbed their friend, claim “slender man” made them do it.

Trigger warning: this post deals with murder and other topics which may be distressing to readers.

Two teenage girls have told a United States court Slender Man — a fictional online character — made them attempt to murder their friend.

Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier stabbed their friend 19 times in an attempt to kill her in August last year, claiming they did it because Slender Man would kill their families if they didn’t.

As news.com.au reports, when detectives questioned Weier about whether she really believed Slender Man would kill her and her family, shes said:  “Well, yeah. He’s six to 14 feet tall, has no face and always wears a red tie. I was really scared. He could kill my whole family in three seconds.”

Today a Wisconsin court was shown sketches of the Slender Man character in Geyser’s journal, as well as mutilated Barbie Dolls depicting the wounds the girls would later inflict on their friend, Payton Leutner.

The courts are currently deliberating on whether the girls are competent to go to trial, and if they should be tried as adults.

Read more: They became obsessed with a fictional character. So they decided to kill their friend.

In August 2014, Geyser and Weier invited Leutner (all 12-years-old at the time) to a sleepover, before luring her into the woods in a game of hide and seek. The girls proceeded to stab Leutner 19 times and left her to die. Fortunately, Leutner managed to crawl to the nearby road and survived the vicious attack.

3. The rise and fall of the selfie stick: banned from another art gallery.

The National Portrait Gallery is the latest Australian institution to ban the “selfie stick” from its halls.

According to the ABC, the gallery banned the prop over concerns regarding the protection of its artworks and safety of its patrons.

The unlikely phenomenon is a hit with travellers, attempting to take photos of themselves in front of the world’s most famous attractions.

The National Gallery of Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria have also banned selfie sticks, as has the US-based Metropolitan Museum of Art.

4. Tony Abbott urges Indonesian government to remember the Tsunami when considering sentence for Bali 9.

By ABC News

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has urged Indonesia to remember the contribution Australia made to the tsunami relief effort and to spare the lives of two Australian drug smugglers facing the firing squad.

Mr Abbott said it was an encouraging sign that Indonesia had delayed moving Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran to their place of execution, but that it was not an indication of any serious prospect of clemency.

Mr Abbott said Australia had helped Indonesia in the past and hoped Indonesia would reciprocate.

“When Indonesia was struck by the Indian Ocean tsunami Australia sent a billion dollars’ worth of assistance,” he said this morning.

“We sent a significant contingent of our armed forces to help in Indonesia with humanitarian relief.”

Chan and Sukumaran’s Indonesian lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis said Mr Abbott’s point should be taken into consideration.

“Indonesia probably don’t see this [tsunami relief support] as related to the matter of law enforcement, but I believe it has to be taken into consideration,” Dr Lubis told 702 ABC Perth.

This article originally appeared on the ABC and was republished here with full permission.

5. Kristen Bell is our latest pro-vaccination hero.

The Veronica Mars actress has weighed in on the vaccination debate, in the wake of the outbreak of measles in the US.

Kristen Bell, a mother of two children with husband Dax Shepherd, told The Hollywood Reporter:

“When Lincoln was born [in March 2013], the whooping cough epidemic was growing, and before she was 2 months old, we simply said [to friends], ‘You have to get a whooping cough vaccination if you are going to hold our baby,’ she said.

“It’s a very simple logic: I believe in trusting doctors, not know-it-alls.”

According to news.com.au, 121 Americans have now contracted measles in the most recent outbreak which is believed to have started at Disneyland.

Related content: surprising anti-vaxxer celebrities.

Bell joins other notable pro-vacc ambassadors, including Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jennifer Lopez, and President Obama.

6. South Australian school suspected of eating contaminated frozen berries

By ABC News

South Australian schools and childcare centres may have served frozen berries contaminated with hepatitis A to children, the Education Department says.

The department said principals and directors at nine potentially affected sites were notifying parents.

One childcare centre, understood to be the McKay Children’s Centre at Penola in the state’s south-east, feared smoothies reportedly made with a frozen mixed berry pack were served to children as part of their afternoon snack.

Letters have been sent to parents of the children notifying them of the possible risk.

The centre’s director declined to comment on the situation.

The department said the advice followed fromPatties Foods Limited recalling Nanna’s Mixed Berries and Creative Gourmet Mixed Berries (frozen) from Coles, Woolworths, IGA and other independent supermarkets nationally due to a potential hepatitis A contamination.

This article originally appeared on the ABC and was republished here with full permission.

7. Two-mouthed fish found in Lake Bonney South Australia.

A local fisherman has uncovered a bony bream with two mouths in Lake Bonney, South Australia.

The commercial fisherman, Garry Warrick, said he caught the unusual fish in the lake or one of the surrounding creeks.

“Both mouths are actually joined together,” he told ABC.

“The top one opens and closes but the bottom one looks permanently open. Other than that, it looks like a normal fish.”

Mr Warrick has worked as a commercial fisherman for 30 years and catches an estimated 100 tonnes of carp and bream every year.

What news are you talking about today?