1. A mum faces 130 years in prison after pleading guilty to smothering her two young children.
Trigger warning: This article contains information about child abuse which may be triggering to some readers.
A 30-year-old mother from the US state of Indiana faces up to 130 years in prison after pleading guilty to the murder of her two children.
Amber Pasztor was found last September with the bodies of her two young children – Liliana Hernandez, 7, and Rene Pasztor, 6 – in the back of her car.
Amber did not have legal custody of her children, and abducted them from her father’s home, who was their legal guardian.
When an Amber Alert was issued to find the two missing children, their mother took her children to a restaurant and a park before she smothered them with her hands.
In an exclusive interview with WANE NewsChannel 15 after her arrest last year, she said the Amber Alert had spurred her to murder her children.
“They were in good hands but I don’t think they were safe,” she said.
“My kids are in a better place…they’re in heaven now. They don’t have no worries no more.”
She also said she had “given them a choice”.
“They could live traumatised like their mum or they can go to heaven with God and be better off,” she said.
She believed a Mexican drug cartel was going to find, torture and kill her two children. The body of Amber’s husband, and the father of her two children, Rene Hernandez, was found in a remote area of Indiana in 2010.
Investigators could not determine his cause of death as his body had been “torn apart by feral dogs”.
Amber claimed he had been “hacked to pieces” by a Mexican cartel.
Amber lost custody of her children two years ago due to supposed substance abuse issues and threats against the children’s wellbeing.
Amber has also allegedly admitted to shooting and killing her neighbour, 66-year-old Frank Macomb, so she could steal his car to abduct her children. His death is still being investigated, and charges are yet to be filed.
She pleaded guilty but mentally ill last Thursday for her children’s murders, and faces 65 years in jail for each child. She is due to be sentenced on June 29.
2. British PM says ‘enough is enough’, as 12 are arrested in connection to London terror attacks.
Prime Minister Theresa May says Britain must be tougher in stamping out Islamist extremism after attackers killed at least seven people by ramming a van into pedestrians on London Bridge and stabbing revellers in nearby bars.
After the third militant attack in Britain in less than three months, May said Thursday’s national election would go ahead.
But she proposed regulating cyberspace and said Britain had been far too tolerant of extremism.
“It is time to say enough is enough,” the Conservative leader said outside her Downing Street office, where British flags flew at half-staff.
“We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are,” May said, adding that Britain was under attack from a new breed of crude copycat militants.
One French national and one Canadian were among those killed. At least 48 people were injured in the attack. Three Australians are among the injured.
Police shot dead the three male assailants in the Borough Market area near London Bridge within eight minutes of receiving the first emergency call shortly after 10pm.
Mark Rowley, head of counter-terrorism police, said eight officers had fired about 50 bullets to stop the attackers, who appeared to be suicide bombers because they were wearing what turned out to be fake suicide vests.
“The situation these officers were confronted with was critical: a matter of life and death,” Rowley said.
“I am humbled by the bravery of an officer who will rush towards a potential suicide bomber thinking only of protecting others.”
A member of the public received non-critical gunshot wounds during the incident, he said.
London police arrested 12 people in the Barking district of east London in connection with the attack and raids were continuing there, the force said.
3. A man has died after crashing his car into a Melbourne childcare centre.
A man has been killed when he crashed his car into a Melbourne childcare centre after taking off when police tried to pull him over.
Officers tried to intercept the car at Tarneit at 4am on Monday, but when they turned on their flashing lights, they saw a flash inside the car which then crashed into the building.
Police tried to help the man, who managed to get out of the burning car, but were forced back by the flames. The man died at the scene.
The Professional Standards Command will investigate the incident.
The owner of the childcare centre Ian Johnson said staff would normally arrive at 6.15am with children starting from 6.25am.
“There’s no children involved and the families involved, that’s the most important thing,” he told Nine.
“Two hours later, we would have maybe 20 or 30 people in the childcare centre at the time.”
4. Wonder Woman just had the biggest opening weekend ever for a female director.
Wonder Woman has had a record-breaking weekend at the box office, scoring the biggest opening weekend ever for a film with a female director.
CNN Money reports the film – the first major superhero movie to be led by a woman – exceeded expectations at the box office during its opening weekend, bringing in an estimated US$100.5 million in North America alone.
The previous record holder, Fifty Shades of Grey, brought in US$85.2 million during its opening weekend in 2015.
More than half – 52 per cent, to be precise – of the film’s audience was female.
Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at comScore, told CNN Money that he hoped the record-breaking weekend would shatter the belief that female-led and female-directed films were not in demand.
“Any ridiculous notion that a woman may not be suited to direct a big budget superhero movie is hopefully once and for all shattered,” he said.
5. Young boy seriously injured after he was trapped underneath a quad bike in Victoria.
A nine-year-old boy has been seriously injured after he became trapped underneath a quad-bike he was riding on a rural Victorian property, Nine News reports.
The boy was on the bike while towing a trailer on a farm in Milawa around midday yesterday.
Police say the vehicle rolled and the nine-year-old became trapped underneath it, causing serious injuries. It’s believed he suffered burns and injuries to his abdomen.
He was airlifted to Royal Children’s Hospital in a serious, but stable condition.
6. The private photos and details of 500 women have been leaked from a Sydney plastic surgery clinic.
The confidential details of up to 500 female patients have been leaked following a privacy breach by a Sydney cosmetic surgery clinic, The Daily Telegraph reports.
The names, home addresses, Medicare numbers and medical histories of the women – some of them teenagers – were posted online by The Cosmetic Institute in Bondi Junction.
Before and after photos of breast enhancements, and intimate photos of patients posing in swimwear, were also uploaded.
Twenty-year-old Wollongong teacher, Jessica Clough, said she felt “violated” after learning her private details and photos could be accessed online.
“It is supposed to be private and confidential information and they have breached our privacy in the worst possible way,” she told The Daily Telegraph.
A Queensland doctor contacted the media after noticing the data uploaded by patients – who submitted the information and photos via an online form – was being automatically stored on the site and could be accessed by anyone.
The clinic owner, Andrew Gill, told The Daily Telegraph he had disabled the website after becoming aware of the privacy breach.
The Privacy Commission has urged women who fear their details were leaked to call the hotline on 02 9258 0066.
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