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Saturday's news in under 5 minutes.

 

We’ve rounded up all the news you need to know today, so you don’t have to go searching.

1. Daniel O’Keeffe farewelled at funeral.

Geelong man Daniel O’Keeffe, who went missing in mid-2011 and whose remains were found under his family home last month, has been farewelled at his funeral.

Dan’s father Des O’Keeffe yesterday delivered a moving eulogy for his son.

“Dan was always and always will be my main man,” Mr O’Keeffe said, according to the Courier Mail. “Losing him is beyond words.”

The service was held at St Mary’s church in Geelong.

Daniel O'Keeffe's parents, Lori and Des, talking to the media in previous weeks.

The remains of the young man were found between a wall of the house and a solid limestone rock by his father on 21 March.

Dan had been suffering from depression and anxiety before his disappearance on 15 July 2011. Police are not treating his death as suspicious.

If you or someone you know is suffering from depression or anxiety, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14. 

2. “Hotties of Melbourne Uni” Facebook page removed.

A controversial Facebook page, “Hotties of Melbourne Uni,” has been removed from the popular social media platform following a massive petition to have it taken down.

According to Triple J’s Hack program, the page was removed this week - but it was not clear whether the page’s anonymous administrators or Facebook removed the page.

The page, which featured photos of Melbourne University students posted without their consent, prompted about 23,000 people to sign a Change.org petition advocating for its removal. The University of Melbourne has also said it has been asking Facebook for a year to take the page down.

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Similar pages for other local universities such as La Trobe and RMIT are still active on Facebook, Hack reports.

3. Student sues over game of “British Bulldog”

A Melbourne student is suing a school for injuries he allegedly suffered while playing the schoolyard game British Bulldog.

Lachlan Sweetman-Wood, now 18, claims he was knocked out in year 7 after being tackled by a year 11 boy during a game at Mornington Secondary College in 2011, the Herald Sun reports.

The teenager, who has since moved schools, claims he suffered a broken collarbone, scarring and injury to his lower back.

He is being represented by personal injury firm Slater + Gordon.

4. Misleading “free range egg” supplier ordered to pay $300,000.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has won its case against a misleading egg supplier.

Free Range Egg Farms has been ordered to pay $300,000 penalty for misleading shoppers by wrongly promoting its eggs as “free range”.

The Federal Court found that Free Range Egg Farms contravened the Australian Consumer Law by representing to consumers that the eggs were produced by hens that moved about freely on an open range.

As the ACCC showed in court, this was not the case. In fact, some of the eggs came from a farm where hens did not actually venture outside until they were 14 months of age, Fairfax Media reports.

5. The Catholic Church defends priest who likened paedophiles to adulterers.

The Catholic church in Melbourne has defended comments by a parish priest that likened paedophile priests to biblical adulterers, The Guardian reports.

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The comparison, made by Father Bill Edebohls at St Mary’s church in Melbourne on Palm Sunday and reprinted in full in the newsletter of a Catholic primary school, replaced an adulterous woman shown mercy by Jesus in a gospel story with a priest accused of paedophilia.

But the Catholic church in Melbourne has defended the priest's homily, The Guardian reports.

Shane Healy of the Catholic archdiocese of Melbourne told The Guardian that Edebohls was “absolutely not” comparing paedophilia to adultery, but that “lazy people who didn’t go to the trouble of reading the thing fully might very well land there."

6. 60 Minutes mother pleads with husband to drop charges in exchange for custody.

The mother involved in the 60 Minutes Lebanon fiasco has pleaded with her estranged ex-husband to drop the child abduction charges in exchange for custody of their children.

ABC News reports that Faulker has asked husband Ali el-Amien to drop the abduction charges against her - and has promised that in exchange, she will give up sole custody granted to her by the Family Court in Australia.

Faulkner did not register the Australian Family Court's ruling in Lebanon. She was then arrested on April 6 in the Middle Eastern country - after featuring in a 60 Minutes episode in which a "child abduction recovery agency" attempted to snatch her two children back off the streets of the country's capital, Beirut.

Ms Faulkner and members of the 60 Minutes crew, including reporter Tara Brown, have been charged with kidnapping and remain in Lebanon.

7. Church told Qantas and SBS to stop supporting gay marriage, too.

The Catholic church lobbied the gay chief executives of both SBS and Qantas to stop publlicly supporting same-sex marriage, Fairfax Media reports.

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The Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney contacted Qantas CEO Alan Joyce, as well as SBS CEOMichael Ebeid, urging them to reconsider their public support of gay marriage.

Alan Joyce. Photo: Getty

Both companies were among hundreds of Australian companies - including Mamamia - that supported the Australian Marriage Equality campaign last year. Shortly after that campaign, Fairfax reports, the Catholic church addressed letters to many of the organisations involved, asking them to reconsider.

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Earlier this week, The Australian revealed that telcoms giant Telstra had backed down on its public support for marriage equality. That controversial decision followed  lobbying by the Catholic church's Sydney archdiocese.

8. Mental health concerns over cannabis.

Mental health experts have warned that the mental health risks associated with cannabis are severe enough to warrant a global public health campaign, The Guardian reports.

Drugs experts from UK, US, Europe and Australia have warned that, although the vast majority of people who smoke cannabis will not develop it, frequent use of cannabis can increase the risk of psychosis in certain, vulnerable people.

Public health warnings over the drug have, until now, been limited - partly because there have always been uncertainties over whether it truly contributes to mental illness. But many researchers now believe the evidence for harm is strong enough to issue an awareness campaign, The Guardian reports.

9. Belgium minister quits over security lie allegations.

Belgium's transport minister, Jacqueline Galant, has quit following accusations she lied about a report that criticised security at Brussels Airport well before last month’s ISIS attacks.

Galant had previously claimed before parliament that her office had not been aware of a critical report, which was sent in March 2015 by EU officials, news.com.au reports.

Opposition parties said they had emails undermining Galant's claims.

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