1. More than 80 bushfires are still burning across the state of NSW.
A man in his sixties has been confirmed dead after staying back to defend his property at Munmorah, north of Sydney. It is currently estimated that over 200 properties have been destroyed, the majority in the state’s Blue Mountains.
Two girls, aged 12 and 13, have been accused of trying to light a fire in Bonnyrigg reserve in Sydney’s west. Police investigations are currently underway.
The Red Cross has issued an urgent call for donations. You can donate by clicking here.
2. The Bandidos bikie gang looks set to disband in the wake of new Queensland anti-bikie legislation. The Brisbane branch handed in their colours yesterday after submitting formal letters of resignation to the gang’s American “mother chapter.”
The new laws introduced by Premier Newman ban the gang from meeting at their clubhouses, with a minimum penalty of six months in jail.
3. A 17-year-old girl American girl has been hospitalised after store security in a Victoria’s Secret outlet discovered that she was carrying a foetus in one of her shopping bags. The girl and her friend were being handcuffed for suspected shoplifting when the discovery was made. While the girl originally stated that the foetus had been stillborn, police now believe that the baby was born alive and asphyxiated.
4. There have been protests on the streets of France following the deportation of two teenage migrants. The socialist government has been condemned by large numbers of student protesters following their decision to deport a 19-year-old Armenian uni student and a 15-year-old Kosovar schoolgirl, who was pulled off a school bus by police so that she could be sent back to Kosovo.
5. Two boxes of body parts have been removed from the Westgate Mall in Kenya as the cleanup after the shopping centre’s terrorist attack continues. Sixty-seven people died in the attack orchestrated by Somali Islamist militant group, al-Shabab. It is currently unclear as to whether the body parts belong to attackers or civilians.
6. A new study has revealed that children are able to tell if someone is faking emotions from the age of 18 months. The study, conducted by researchers from Concordia University in Canada, showed that toddlers were able to recognise that something was amiss when an adult’s emotions did not match an event taking place, for example, an adult behaving in a sad manner after receiving a desired object.
7. Malala Yousafzai has met the Queen at Buckingham Palace. The 16-year-old Pakistani girl, who was shot by the Taliban for attending school, was a guest of honour at a Commonwealth reception for youth and education.
Despite giving a series of poised performances on TV shows in the past month, the Nobel Prize nominee was reduced to giggles when Prince Philip made one of his trademark corny jokes. The Queen’s husband said: “Most parents want their children to go to school to get them out of the house!” Oh, Prince Philip…
