Morning!
After surviving the maelstrom that was Monday (was yours as hectic?) we’re hurtling into Tuesday at full speed. Where does the time go? Is there any way to retrieve it? What if we wear special time retrieving gloves? No?
Bother.
Well, here’s one way we CAN help. By saving you time on getting across the news you need to know about. It’s a little bit of everything, just enough to get you across the line.
Go, be newsy!
Friends close to former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown have revealed sister papers of the News of the World The Times and The Sun obtained medical records of his son shortly after he was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis in 2006. Also, the family of murdered girl Milly Dowler, whose phone was hacked when News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks was editor of the newspaper, have said she should do the honourable thing and resign. The tampered phone of the then missing girl led her parents to believe she was still alive when she had, in fact, been murdered. This on the same day that Rupert Murdoch took Rebekah Brooks out to meet with his son James telling reporters ‘she is’ when asked who his top priority was. Police are rumoured to be lining up an interview with Ms Brooks, but as a witness and not a suspect at this stage. There are also reports the phones of 911 terror attack victims were hacked. If you want to get the context on all of this, check out our cheat sheet.
2. Kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard speaks about 18 years in captivity
She’s spoken for the first time about how she was kidnapped as a school girl, the repeated rapes, the pregnancy and the birth of her daughter at age 14. She later had a second daughter. Jaycee (pictured) described the pregnancy as something that helped her cope. To survive. Her kidnapper Phillip Garrido was sentenced to 431 years in prison. His wife Nancy received 36 to life.
3. Astronauts turning urine into drink.
And no, Bear Grylls isn’t up there with them. The Atlantis shuttle crew are trialling a machine that recycles the humidity from their breath and even from their urine. Typically, NASA has called it the ‘forward osmosis bag’ because they like fancy words. The International Space Station already has this functionality, but the new baggies don’t take power to do the job. Hmm, tasty urine baggies. So, err, does this mean in space everybody can taste your stream? Sorry.
4. Have Queensland researchers developed a malaria vaccine?
Researchers in Queensland will announce this week they have developed a vaccine that is expected to protect against all known strains of malaria, which kills about 1 million children each year. The announcement will be made at Griffith University’s Institute for Glycomics’ Laboratory of Vaccines for the Developing World. The vaccine, which uses tiny doses of the malaria bug ‘put to sleep using a unique chemical treatment’ will begin phase 1 human trials and testing soon.
5. Man who raped stepdaughter was suffering from ‘sexsomnia’, cleared.
She was 16-years-old and he came into her bedroom at night, forcing her to have sex with him before leaving and going to make a cup of tea. The court later found him not guilty because he was unaware of his actions. Asleep. Stephan Davies says he does not remember the night at all. The girl, Kirsty Merriman says she is plagued with nightmares and waived her right to anonymity to speak about the case. A director of the Edinburgh Sleep Centre testified at the trial that sexsomnia was a part of sleepwalking, which affects about 4 per cent of adults. Wow.
6. $22b worth of gold and gems found in Indian temple
Praise be! A temple vault in southern India has been opened to reveal a vast fortune of gems, gold and statues. The vault contained about one tonne of gold coins – some dating back 400 years – sacks of diamonds, a gold statue of Hindu God Vishnu covered with ‘priceless’ gems. There is still another vault yet to be opened. How did we miss this? There is debate about where the haul should be spent, on the temple or on ‘public good’ like education. Time will tell. In the meantime, wow.
7. Melbourne schoolboy wants the right to play netball on girl’s side
He already does, and has done so for two years but now Danny Loats’ opponents have pulled support. Danny’s family have lawyered up and are taking the case to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights commission with a conference scheduled today.
Top Comments
My husband has been asleep and tried to do the wild thang with me. It was...well, interesting. He woke up at the climactic moment. He's also had an entire phone conversation with me while asleep and had no knowledge of it the next day. The rape thing seems weird to me, because you'd think she'd be fighting him off etc, but the above experiences with my husband make me wonder.
Sexsomia? What a cop out. How can they even prove that at the times that she raped her he was suffering from sexsomia? Once again the justice system fails. How brave for that young girl to waive her right to anonymity.
Jaycee Dugard... boy what do I say. I feel so sorry for her - having a child on her own in the backyard at 14! How do you even survive something like that? I just can't believe the amount of times the police came to Garrido's house and never found her.... that's just unbelievable.
I watched a snipet of the interview with Jaycee's mum. It made me tear up when she said she didn't kiss Jaycee goodbye on her way to work the morning she was kidnapped. The amount of guilt this poor woman must have carried with her for 20 years. No matter how horrible the circumstances were at least she's been reunited with her daughter... so many other cases either remain unsolved or they bury their children.
I truly do not know what is worse.
I know it's terrible isn't it! Watched the whole interview this morning, I was in tears and disbelief the whole time. How could they have missed so many opportunities to save her! Must get that book!
Although it is horrible what happened to that young girl, if it was proven in a court of law that he had no knowledge of what he was doing - and thus, no intent (which you need to be guilty of an offense: mens rea + actus reus +causation = guilt) then why should he be punished for it?
The justice system has not failed at all. Where is the justice in jailing an innocent man? It's like that old maxim goes - it is better to let 100 guilty men go free than to lock up 1 innocent man.
I understand what you're saying. I just don't know how they prove this kind of thing... that poor girl has endured so much.
I don't like that old saying... sure 1 innocent man shouldn't be locked up but I don't feel comfortable knowing 100 guilty men go free. For instance, I think Casey Anthony is guilty... different cases (and countries) of course but Keli Lane's case was similar and she has been locked up.
I wonder how they found Keli to be guilty without a body. I guess we'll never know and after reading about it for years and two books later I'm still not any closer.