1. Logie goes to Scott Cam.
At last night’s 56th Logies in Melbourne, Scott Cam was awarded the Gold Logie for Most Popular TV Personality, with Asher Keddie taking home both the Outstanding and Popular Actress awards.
Chris Lilley won Most Popular Actor for his series, Ja’mie, Private School Girl.
Nine News, NSW Bushfires won the Most Outstanding News Coverage and the ABC’s Foreign Correspondent report titled, Prisoner X, won Most Outstanding Public Affairs Report.
2. ‘Hijacking’ culprit to return to Australia.
The man accused of a hijacking scare aboard a Virgin flight to Bali on Friday will return to Australia this afternoon, where the authorities will decide whether to charge him.
Matt Lockley, 28, of Queensland was released late on Sunday by Indonesian authorities.
He released a statement to the media saying, “This has been a huge misunderstanding. I had a panic attack and I just wanted to use the toilet and I made an accident by knocking on the cockpit door.”
3. Father dead and daughter in critical condition.
A five-year-old girl is in a critical condition and her father is dead after the ultralight plane they were travelling in crashed into a home south-east of Melbourne just after 5.30pm yesterday.
The father was an experienced pilot.
4. John XXIII and John Paul II become Saints.
Pope Francis has held a joint canonization making John XXIII and John Paul II Saints before a crowd of more than 5,000 priests and over 1,000 bishops, leaders and other dignitaries from more than 90 countries, including Francis’s papal predecessor Benedict XVI.
More than a million people filled the streets of the Vatican to witness the event.
5. Mushroom poisoning.
Three people remain in hospital after being poisoned by mushrooms they consumed.
ACT Health last night cleared Woolworths of responsibility for the mushrooms saying that while its investigation with ACT Policing attributed the poisoning case to death cap mushrooms, it had found no evidence they had been sold by the Dickson store.
6. Controversy over breastfeeding mum.
A mother who has spoken openly of how she breastfeeds her five-year-old daughter is making waves in the UK.
Sharon Spinks’ openness about her continued breastfeeding has caused wide-spread controversy with social media divided on the benefits of breastfeeding the schoolgirl.
For more, read this post here: “The mum who breastfeeds her five-year-old in public comes under fire”.
7. Banks accused of illegal activity.
A report released today accuses Australia’s big 4 banks of land grabs, child labour and illegal logging.
The Oxfam report, Banking on Shaky Ground, points to cases in Cambodia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Brazil where Australia’s biggest banks, National Australia Bank (NAB), Commonwealth (CBA), Westpac and ANZ have funded companies accused of improperly or illegally acquiring land from local people.
8. Perth mum sues over birth.
A Perth mother has launched legal action against the Health Minister Kim Hames, saying that her son was left with brain damage after she was forced to deliver him naturally despite him showing obvious signs of foetal distress.
News Limited reports that Kate Ferrier’s son Jacob weighed 5.38kg when he was born. She says that the hospital only performed a C-section when it became an emergency, insisting she could deliver him naturally.
She claims that the birth caused hypotonic cerebral palsy in her son.
Now four, he will need therapy for the rest of his life.
9. Father pushes son off skateboard ramp.
A father in the US has been widely condemned for pushing his son off a skateboard ramp.
The video, which has gone viral, sees a father kicking the young boy when he won’t launch off the ramp.
The man who shot the video told The Florida Times Union that he approached the father and asked him why he did it.
“He said, ‘Because he needs to learn’. I was like, ‘Pushing him down is not teaching him how to drop in’. And then he said, ‘Do you think you can raise him better than me?’ and I said yes.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2YAH797CKs
10. Holocaust ‘most heinous crime’ of modern history, says Palestian President.
The Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, has called the Holocaust “the most heinous crime” of modern history and expressed his sympathy for the victims.
In his statement, Mr Abbas “expressed his sympathy with the families of the victims and many other innocent people who were killed by the Nazis”.
“The Holocaust is a reflection of the concept of ethnic discrimination and racism which the Palestinians strongly reject and act against.”
His comments were the strongest that he has made publicly on the Holocaust.
11. How to have a high achieving child
A study has shown that if you are female and the first born in your family you are likely to be the most successful.
The research carried out by the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex also said that parents were more likely to have high achieving children if they leave a gap of at least four years between each child.
According to the research, the probability of attending further education for firstborns is 16 per cent higher than their younger siblings while girls are four per cent more likely to have further education qualifications.
Researchers said the reasons could simply be that parents give more time to first borns.
10. Geoff Huegill and wife charged with drug possession.
Former Olympic swimmer Geoff Huegill and his wife Sara Hill have been charged with drug possession.
Nine News has reported that the couple was arrested at Sydney’s Royal Randwick Racecourse on Saturday and have been given a notice to appear in court on May 14.
Huegill and Hill were reportedly in possession of a small quantity of white powder, which police believe was cocaine, Fairfax reports.
Huegill has previously admitted that during a break from swimming in the mid-2000s, he used party drugs and suffered from depression.
The couple has a daughter, Mila, who was born in 2012.
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Top Comments
I'm sorry; but I have long failed to see the point of charging people with minor drug offences. So Geoff Huegill and his wife had a small amount of a recreational drug that they were planning on using themselves. Is being caught with such a minimal amount of an illegal substance really cause to arrest them both, drag their names through the mud, ruin future career prospects, and cost the taxpayers a large amount of money to take them to court only to have a judge most likely roll their eyes due to the fact that they are faced with horrific crimes daily and someone having a tiny bit of cocaine is an actual waste of precious court resources and time??
In the grand scheme of crimes out there, taking a small amount of a party drug is a speck of dust in a giant hall of crap. It is also something that a huge proportion of the general population has engaged in at some point. That doesn't make it right, and it doesn't mean that it should just be allowed; but I question the scale of the response. What would have been better? Okay, how about kicking them out of the venue, issuing them with an official warning and an on-the-spot fine that can also be paid off with community service? Put something back into the community rather than costing taxpayers more by sending them to court. If they are repeat offenders that have been warned multiple times; THEN take them to court. I really do object to damaging people's lives and prospects over one silly mistake by escalating everything so much the first time around.
We need to be realistic. When I was younger I attended a lot of music festivals. I saw a lot of police with sniffer dogs. They caught a lot of young people taking some party drugs and sent them to court.
Did they save lives? No, I don't think so. Most people at the festivals still took drugs. Occasionally something went wrong; but I think that having an increased medical presence there as well as good information and support services available helped much more than any possible preventative effect the sniffer dogs might have had. Contrary to preventing drug taking, the presence of sniffer dogs often prompts young people to take all of their party drugs at once in order not to get caught with them - which is much more dangerous and led to the death of one girl in Perth.
Did they catch any major drug dealers? Not to my knowledge, and I'm pretty sure the media would have covered that. The drug dealers are smarter than that and have ways of getting around the sniffer dogs most of the time.
Did they stop the drug trade? Nope. Did catching recreational users lead to being able to get information on drug dealers? No. Recreational users are not the key to finding king pins.
Did they get lots of worthy convictions? Nope. My old flatmate is a barrister and she's told me stories of courtrooms flooded with minor drug users after festivals. Of judges who are incredibly frustrated by having their dock overloaded with these cases which are just so minor and ridiculous in the grand scheme of things. With a decent lawyer, most will get off - but at a significant cost to themselves and the judicial system. Others will have their lives forever changed and their records marked because of a few party drugs at a festival when they were young.
I think we need a drastic re-think of how our law enforcement and legal systems approach and punish recreational drug use. There are different kinds of drug use and different levels of drugs. Cocaine and Ecstasy are not on the same level as Ice and Heroin. Taking a small amount of drugs at a party every now and then is not the same as having an addiction. We need to examine the differences here and think of better ways to deal with people like Geoff and Sara.
That mom, hmmm. She knows this is never going away because of the internet, and embarrassing for her child when the child gets older, right? So she's not thinking of her daughter's self-worth. And she does know that it's difficult to regain her own health and healthy weight if she's still making milk? At age 5 i don't know what benefits would come from breastmilk. It takes calcium away from the mom, etc. It's just, strange. If she really wanted to keep going she should take care of her own health and nutritiion and just pump & sell the milk, and let her daughter grown up.