Friday's news in 5 minutes.

WARNING: The second story in this post refers to the molestation of children.

1. Strip club waitress sends mysterious final text message before going missing.

A young US woman working as a strip club waitress has been missing for four days after police pulled her over.

Toni Anderson, 20, was last seen by police who pulled her over in her car on the way home from a shift at Chrome, a club on a highway in Kansas City in the early hours of Sunday morning, Fox4 News reports.

Kansas City police initially denied stopping her, but later made a statement to WDAF that she had been pulled over for ‘improper lane change’.

“She stated to the officer that she was almost out of gas. There’s a QuikTrip real close,” officer Darin Snapp said.

“So the officer just told her, you know, ‘there’s a gas station right there,’ gave her a warning for the violation, and watched her actually go to the QuikTrip and that’s the last we have seen of her.”

Police say her credit card was used and that her car’s GPS system stopped working shortly after she arrived at the petrol station.

Local news reports she sent a text to a friend at 4:42am saying “just got pulled over again” – referring to the frequency of the incident occurring.

“She said ‘again’ because she gets pulled over all the time,” her friend, Roxy Townsend, told Fox News.

Ms Anderson’s boyfriend Pete Sanchez, whom she lives with, said she had never dissapeared before and her family were “worried sick”.

“Every time I leave the house, I hope the next face I see in public is going to be her. She’s a great person,” he said.

2. Perth man admits sexually assaulting two young children.

A Perth man has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting two young children in a shocking attack in April last year.

Vincenzo Mule admitted to luring a five-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy away from a North Perth care centre. He then made the children perform sex acts on him and molested the girl.

Mule left the children at Hyde Park, where they were found wandering by a member of the public in the playground, the Courier Mail reports.

That person then alerted the authorities, with the holiday care centre not aware the children were missing.

The 53-year-old initially denied the attack, but changed his plea at the last minute.

Mule entered guilty pleas to three counts of sexual penetration of a child under 13 and two counts of deprivation of liberty.

His sentencing hearing will begin on February 10.

3. Woman, 26, fighting for life after falling from a balcony.

A 26-year-old woman is fighting for life in hospital after falling several metres from a balcony at north shore Sydney suburb.

The woman was rushed to hospital in a critical condition after she sustained serious injuries from a fall from the second story balcony of a building in Lane Cove, Nine News reports.

She was unconscious when paramedics arrived and is now fighting for her life in Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital.

Nine News reports a man is assisting police with their enquiries, but no charges have been laid.

4. Real life “evil stepmother” jailed for treating daughters as slaves.

How sadistic mum treated three girls like slaves and forced them to drink out of the toilet https://t.co/GEEGUMPuXC pic.twitter.com/G421hvWsOp

— The Sun (@TheSun) January 19, 2017

A UK stepmother who tormented her three daughters has been jailed for two years in a case of child abuse much worse than that of the Cinderella fairytale.

Caroline Sharp’s years of abuse were only revealed when one of her stepdaughters told police in 2015, Yahoo News reports.

Between 1975 and 1991 the cruel stepmother “humiliated, belittled and neglected” her one biological daughter and two stepdaughters.

A UK court heard the 65-year-old forced one of the girls to use newspaper for a sanitary pad, drink from the toilet and stop bathing for six weeks.

The girls were also often left to starve over the weekend and were physically punished if they snuck food from the kitchen.

“This was truly the childhood of nightmares. At your hands, they were abused, humiliated, belittled and neglected,” Judge Paul Watson said.

“These children were, in fact, used by you as slaves with no care or affection to be shown to them throughout their childhood.

Sharp was sentenced to two years jail for the three counts of child cruelty.

5. Two missing children found alive and well.

Two young children who were taken from a home west of Brisbane have been found safe and well.

A four-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy were taken from their Fernvale home around 9pm Thursday night, causing police to issue an amber alert, Nine News reports.

The urgent search ended a short time later when Queensland police were able to locate them in the care of a woman who was known to the children.

The 32-year-old woman allegedly took the pair and put them in a white 2014 Hyundai i30 hatchback.

Police have not said if the woman was charged.

6. Cops deployed to arrest beggars in Melbourne for ‘bothering’ Australian Open tourists.

Melbourne’s police will be arresting homeless who are harassing tourists on their way to the Australian Open, according to Victoria Police’s chief commission.

Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said the people camping outside Flinders Street station had targetted the tourists and would deploy more police officers to arrest them.

“They’re not homeless, these are people that are choosing to camp in the city.” Mr Ashton told reporters on Thursday.

“There’s more people around for them to shake down for money.”

A person sleeping by the CBD station told AAP she and others were no threat to tourists.

“We’re not begging and we’re not hurting anyone. What we need is somewhere decent to live – not to be victimised,” Tracy told AAP.

7. Serena Williams hits back at criticism.

Serena Williams called out a journalist for their “not very kind” comments about her performance post-match.

The journalist suggested she had a “scrappy performance” in her match against Lucie Safarova

“I think that’s a very negative thing to say. Are you serious?,” Williams questioned.

The reporter tried to back himself, saying it was just his “observation”, but Williams was having none of it.

“Well, you should have been out there. That wasn’t very kind. You should apologise. Do you want to apologise?”

The reporter responded: “I do. I’m sorry,” and Williams thanked him.

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