Friday's news: Adrian Bayley pleads 'guilty' to murdering Jill Meagher.

1. At a Supreme Court Hearing in Melbourne today, 41-year-old Adrian Bayley pleaded guilty murdering 29-year-old ABC worker Jill Meagher in September last year. He’s been remanded in custody and will reappear at a plea hearing on June 11.

2. It’s been revealed that the 17-year-old girl who told police she was abducted and gang raped on her way home from a party made the story up. In March, the girl’s story of being sexually assaulted by five men in the NSW suburb of Baulkhum Hills made headlines and police set up a strike force to investigate the crime. But in a statement today, police said: “The strike force has now been closed after it was determined the report was fabricated.”

3. Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Foreign Minister Bob Carr will hold talks with senior Chinese leaders today about the world’s growing concern over North Korea after it threatened missile strikes against the US and South Korea. Minister Carr said: “We will talk to the Chinese as the one country that has any influence over the behaviour, over the conduct of North Korea, when I and the Prime Minister are talking with the new Chinese leadership in the coming days.” Almost 7000 Australians are expected to be evacuated from South Korea in the wake of the threats.

4. US president Barack Obama has announced “the next great American project” and it’s a $100 million plan to map the human brain. “As humans we can identify galaxies light years away, we can study particles smaller than the atom, but we still haven’t unlocked the mystery of the three pounds of matter that sits between our ears… So there is this enormous mystery waiting to be unlocked,” the president said.

5. A British man has been jailed for life after he was found guilty of the manslaughter of his six children. Mick Philpott and his wife Mairead allegedly set fire to their home as part of a plot to fame Mick’s ex girlfriend and win back custody of five more of his children. Mairead was given a sentence of 17 years.

6. A school in the US reportedly sent an eight-year-old girl home 24 times in the space of six months because she smelled bad. Students and teachers said they found it hard to complete tasks because of the girl’s “foul” odor, but the girl’s mother told an American news station she had taken her daughter to the doctor and there was nothing wrong. “She’s been to the doctor and it’s not a medical problem. They send her home at least once a month. You go to school to learn, not to be sent home,” Krystal Hensley said.