Wednesday's news in under 5 minutes.

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

 1. Baby killer Harley Hicks appeals sentence.

Harley Hicks, the Bendigo man who beat 10-month-old Zayden Veal-Whitting to death in his cot with a copper-wire baton while high on ice during a June 2012 burglary, will learn this morning if his appeal to have his sentence reduced was successful.

Hicks is currently serving a 32-year jail term for the murder.

His lawyer argued that he should have a reduced sentence as his crime was not premeditated and Hicks had a traumatic upbringing.

When sentencing Hicks last year for the crime the judge said, “You crushed his skull, and savagely beat him with at least 30 blows. It is almost unthinkable that any human being could have carried out the sickening crime that you have committed. What you did was totally and utterly evil.”

The appeal judges will hand down their decision at 10am.

Casey Veal, Zayden’s mother has previously written of his violent murder for Mamamia.

2. Death of US Aid worker confirmed.

The US has confirmed the death of US Aid worker Kayla Mueller.

Last week Islamic State said 26-year old Mueller was killed in a Jordanian airstrike on IS-held buildings in Syria.

US President Obama confirmed her death saying “It is with profound sadness that we have learned of the death of Kayla Jean Mueller.”

The parents of Mueller released a statement saying “We are heartbroken to share that we’ve received confirmation that Kayla Jean Mueller has lost her life,”

“Kayla was a compassionate and devoted humanitarian. She dedicated the whole of her young life to helping those in need of freedom, justice, and peace.”

Mueller’s family released a handwritten letter that they say she wrote while in captivity in spring 2014.

She wrote” I have been shown in darkness, light + have learned that even in prison, one can be free. I am grateful. I have come to see that there is good in every situation, sometimes we just have to look for it. “

For more read this post here.

 3. Sydney shooting investigation.

A critical incident team is investigating a shooting in Sydney where police shot and killed a 22-year-old woman armed with a large kitchen knife  in the Sydney suburb of West Hoxton.

It took place on the street near a Hungry Jacks restaurant in full view of several witnesses.

Police tried to taser the woman and used capsicum spray on her before a male officer shot her in the chest.

 4. 11-year old girl charged with murder of a two-month old.

An 11-year old girl in the US has been charged with the murder of a two-month old girl that her mother was babysitting.

The girl, from the state of Ohio allegedly beat the baby during the night and woke her mother to show her the infant’s badly beaten body.

The 11-year old’s mother immediately called paramedics but the baby, named as Zuri Whitehead, was unable to be revived.

BuzzFeed reports that the girl is being held without bond and was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

AP reports that Police Chief Randy Ice said the 11-year old showed no remorse.

“I’m not sure she appreciated the gravity of what she did,” he said.

 5. PM to deliver Closing the Gap speech this morning.

The Prime Minister will deliver his annual Closing the Gap Report this morning in parliament, saying that in many areas we are failing.

“It is profoundly disappointing that most Closing the Gap targets are not on track to be met,” Mr Abbott says in the report.

“Despite good intention and considerable investment by successive governments, the disparity in outcomes remains.”

The promise that by 2013 95% of indigenous four-year-olds in remote Australia will have access to early childhood education has failed with only 85% enrolled.

The ABC says that the report will shows progress is slowing in some areas and “stagnating in others.”

From the ABC “The life expectancy figures have only improved slightly over the past year, the early childhood target was not met, and there has not been any overall progress to halve the reading and numeracy gap for Indigenous students.

No progress has been made on halving the gap in Indigenous employment outcomes, but the Government has argued that is because figures have not been collected during the period of measurement.

The Coalition has pointed to some of the more positive data, showing more Aboriginal students are staying until Year 12 and steps to prevent infant deaths are working.”

For more read this ABC post.

 6. Sad news on Bobbi Kristina.

There are reports that Bobbi Kristina, 21, the only child of Whitney Houston and singer Bobby Brown who has been in a medically induced coma since she was found unresponsive in a bathtub will be allowed to die today.

TMZ is among several sources who say the only daughter of Whitney Houston will have her life support switched off today – the 3rd anniversary of her mother’s death.

7. Georgina Bartter’s best friend charged over her murder.

The best friend of Georgina Bartter, the 19-year old who died of a suspected drug reaction from taking ecstasy at the Harbourlife festival at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair near Sydney Botanical Gardens on November 8 last year, has been charged with supplying the ecstasy pills that led to her death.

Rebecca Hannibal, a former student from the same school as Georgina attended was charged in December with supplying the ecstasy.

Fairfax Media reports that she bought the drugs from a man who was then arrested last weekend after an ongoing police investigation.

Matthew Forti was granted bail on Sunday.

Rebecca Hannibal pleaded not guilty to her charges.

Both will appear in court at a later date.

8. Anwar Ibrahim: Malaysian opposition leader loses final appeal to sodomy conviction, sentenced to five years’ jail.

By ABC

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has lost his final appeal against a conviction and been sentenced to five years in jail for sodomy.

Malaysia’s Federal Court in Kuala Lumpur upheld the charge and sentence against Anwar over the accusations which date back to 2008.

Last year, the Court of Appeal found the 67-year-old guilty of sodomising a former political aide Mohamad Saiful Bukhari Azlan.

He has denied the charge and claimed it was politically motivated.

Anwar told the ABC’s PM program he was “disgusted” with the Malaysian judiciary.

“They had the opportunity to redeem themselves and correct their injustices but instead they choose to go to the dictates of their political masters, their partners in crime for the murder of the judicial institution and integrity,” he said.

“They have sold their souls to the devil and are bartering their conscience for material gain and comfort.

“So I am braced for the realities, but I’m not deterred – I will continue my struggle for democracy, freedom and justice.”

Anwar has already spent six years in jail for corruption, and said going to prison again would be difficult.

“This is as tough on me as it is for my children, for my family, for my friends,” he said.

“But this is a small sacrifice I have to pay for the price of freedom and justice and to encourage Malaysians to continue to support this struggle.

“You tend to dismiss the spirit and the will of the Malaysian people, who want change, who want democracy and freedom, who are tired of corruption, racism, religious bigotry.”

The conviction disqualifies Anwar from political office and contesting the next election that must be held by 2018.

Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop said Australia was disappointed by the decision to dismiss Anwar’s final appeal.

“We are deeply concerned by the severity of the sentence and we have made our concerns known to the Malaysian government,” she said in a statement.

“As a friend of Malaysia, Australia encourages the Malaysian government to consider the impact of recent decisions, including the Anwar verdict and the retention of the Sedition Act, on its international standing and its commitment to human rights.”

South Australian Independent senator Nick Xenophon, a friend of Anwar, said the Malaysian opposition leader told him after the ruling he would fight the conviction.

He said Anwar told him he wanted the world to know what was happening in Malaysia.

“This is the end of the line,” Senator Xenophon told ABC News 24.

“Effectively this will knock out Anwar from contesting the next election… but also it’s the effect that it will have on the opposition.

“International human rights groups, international groups of jurists, the International Parliamentary Union, have all said that these charges are trumped up, they’re flawed, they’re politically motivated.

“It is truly a travesty of justice.”

Senator Xenophon said he would speak with representatives from the Commonwealth in relation to the case.

“This is nothing short of an outrage and for Anwar Ibrahim, a man who is highly respected in the region, who has a strong record of fighting for democratic rights for Malaysians and more broadly,” he said

“He is a good friend of Aung San Suu Kyi… and he was a good friend of Nelson Mandela, [and] we must keep fighting for this man.

“Australia as a close friend of Malaysia needs to be outspoken in terms of what’s occurred.”

This originally appeared onand has been republished with full permission. 

 9. Is your smart TV spying on you?

There are concerns over Big Brother Watching You after it has been revealed that smart TV’s have the ability to transmit “personal or other sensitive information” to a third party when the television’s speech command function is in use.

reports that Samsung TV’s now come with a warning “Samsung’s warning appears in a supplement to its smart TV privacy policy.”

“Some voice commands may be transmitted … to a third-party service that converts speech to text or to the extent necessary to provide the voice recognition features to you,” it says.

“In addition, Samsung may collect and your device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with voice recognition features and evaluate and improve the features.

“Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of voice.”

10.  Saudi women don’t drive so they don’t get raped.

A Saudi historian has told an interviewer that women who drive in countries such as the United States don’t care if they’re raped and that sexual violence “is no big deal” to them.”

Saleh Al-Saadoon, a Saudi Arabian historian was explaining why he says the need for Saudi Arabia’s ban on female drivers is justified.

As The Huffington Post reports he claims women in other countries can be raped when a car breaks down, but not in Saudi Arabia.

“They don’t care if they are raped on the roadside, but we do,” Al-Saadoon said on Saudi Rotana Khalijiyya TV.

“It’s no big deal for them beyond the damage to their morale,”

“In our case, however, the problem is of a social and religious nature.”

11.  Australia to take to the stage at Eurovision

SBS has announced that the successful candidate, who is yet to be selected, will compete as a once-off wildcard entry in the finals.
Organisers have stressed this is a one off event.. unless…. WE WIN….

12. Two men arrested in a counter-terrorism raid.

Two men have been accused of preparing a terror act to be carried out in Sydney in the name of the Islamic State (IS) militant group.

New South Wales police said they believed the pair had been planning an imminent deadly attack.

The men, aged 24 and 25, were arrested in Sydney’s west in a counter-terrorism raid on Tuesday and have been charged with undertaking acts in preparation or planning for a terrorist act.

NSW Deputy Police Commissioner Catherine Burn said police acted quickly to prevent what they believed was an imminent terrorist attack.

“The type of act that we will allege that was going to be undertaken is consistent with the messaging coming out of IS,” she said.

“I would like to however reassure the community that we are of the view that there is no further imminent attack relating to these two men.”

It is alleged that a number of items were found in the Fairfield home raided by police.

“When we did the search of the premises, a number of items were located, including a machete, a hunting knife, a home-made flag representing the prescribed terrorist organisation IS, and also a video which depicted a man talking about carrying out an attack,” Deputy Commissioner Burn said.

“We will allege that both of these men were preparing to do this act yesterday.

“The concerning thing about this clearly is that this represents the nature of the environment that we currently face. This is indicative of the threat that we now have to live with.

“We believe that the men were potentially going to harm somebody, maybe even kill somebody, and potentially using one of the items that we identified and recovered yesterday, potentially a knife.”

The two men will appear in Fairfield Local Court later today.

The arrests were made by the Joint Counter Terrorism Taskforce, which has been investigating Australians suspected of plotting terrorism attacks on home soil, or Australians with links to overseas terrorists.

The taskforce has arrested about a dozen people, including 22-year-old Omarjan Azari who has been accused of plotting a campaign of random beheadings of members of the public in Sydney and Brisbane.

Azari remains in jail.

This post originally appeared on ABC News and has been republished with permission.

What news are you talking about today?