Thursday's news in under 5 minutes

BREAKING:

The World Anti-Doping Agency has banned the wife of former Australian pole vaulter Steve Hooker from competing for two years.

Ekaterina Kostetskaya, who is a 1500m runner, was reportedly found to be guilty of the “use/attempted use of a prohibited substance/method” at an event on August 30, 2011. 

Kostetskaya won’t be able to compete until January 2015.

Hooker and Russian-born Kostetskaya met at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

1. Toni McHugh under fire for magazine interview

A controversial story in the upcoming edition of The Australian Women’s Weekly which features an interview with the mistress of Gerard Baden-Clay is coming under heavy social media fire.

In it Toni McHugh tells The Australian Women’s Weekly that she had planned a future with Baden Clay – including dreaming of sharing custody of Allison and Gerard’s daughters.

Toni McHugh told The Australian Women’s Weekly she wanted to set up a home with Gerard. “I thought we would all get to the point where we all, you know, shared custody, like adults and got on.”

The magazine, which goes on sale tomorrow features a glamorous looking McHugh who says she feels no responsibility for what happened to Allison, she claims she should not feel responsible for how awful Allison was made to feel in her marriage.

” I can’t be held personally responsible,” she says “If it wasn’t me, it would have been another woman.”

She tells the magazine that she feels like “”Australia’s Monica Lewinsky”.

The magazine has been under intense attack on its Facebook page from women over the article with many calling for all women to boycott this edition.

In response to the furor AWW put out a statement saying

“ Thank you for your feedback regarding our story on Gerard Baden-Clay’s mistress, Toni McHugh, in the August issue of The Weekly available tomorrow. Allison Baden-Clay’s murder has left a family in mourning. As her father, Geoffrey James Dickie, told the court in his victim impact statement:

“She tried hard to save her marriage. Finally, in the end, she paid the ultimate price for her marriage and the love of her three daughters”.

We have included the details of the trust fund in the magazine and thought we should do the same on Facebook as we can all help those little girls by donating.

BSB: 084 737 Account Number: 943 084 078

2. Ebola crisis

The Liberian government has closed all schools across the country and placed a number of communities in quarantine to attempt to halt the worst Ebola outbreak on record spreading across West Africa.

All non-essential government workers have been placed on 30-day compulsory leave.

Meanwhile in the UK a crisis meeting has been called to discuss the issue with a senior minister saying that the risk to the UK was very serious.

One person who had flown into the UK from Africa has been tested for Ebola, the Department of Health ministry confirmed, but the tests proved negative.

2. Gaza casualties

In the latest round of violence 108 Palestinians have died overnight in airstrikes and shelling across Gaza.

Meanwhile the UN has condemned the Israeli shelling of a Gaza school being used as a shelter as a “universal shame” and a “serious violation of international law.”

20 people were killed and 90 injured.

The UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krahenbuhl has called on the international community to act to end the “continuing carnage”.

He said “Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgraced. I call on the international community to take deliberate international political action to put an immediate end to the continuing carnage.”

3. MH17 crash site

For the fourth day Australian police have been denied access to the MH17 crash site.

This comes amidst rumors that there the pro-Russian rebels have “booby trapped” the area with landmines.

The Daily Mail reports that Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said the rebels “ have brought a large number of heavy artillery there and mined approaches to this area. This makes impossible the work of international experts trying to start work to establish the reasons behind the Boeing 777 crash.”

4. No appeal for Rolf Harris

In the UK jailed entertainer Rolf Harris’s five year and nine month jail sentence for sex offences will not be referred to the Court of Appeal for being unduly lenient, the Attorney General’s office has said despite over 150 complaints that it was too lenient.

The BBC reports that a spokesman said “The judge made some of the sentences consecutive to reach the total sentence, but he could not simply add up sentences on individual counts; the overall sentence had to be just and proportionate to the overall offending.”

5. Mum arrested for letting son walk to park

A mother has been arrested after letting her son walk to the park alone. The case has caused much debate in the US over when a child should be allowed such independence.

The boy – aged seven – was allowed to walk the 800m journey to the local park – his Mum says it takes about 15 minutes for him to walk there. He had a mobile phone with him for her to call him on.

She was arrested and charged with child neglect after a passerby saw the boy alone.

The mum, Nicole Gainey told WPTV “I’m totally dumbfounded by this whole situation. I honestly don’t think I was doing anything wrong. I was letting him go play.”

6. OMG.. I think I am being kidnapped.

The very last SMS sent by a 14-year old murder victim – “Omg… I think I am being kidnapped.”

The 14-year old was found dead found hours later.

Police now zero in on a suspect.

For more read this post here.

7. Comm Games coach sacked

The Commonwealth Games has been married in controversy after Athletics Australia suspended its head coach Eric Hollingsworth over his comments slamming Sally Pearson only hours before she was due to defend her gold medal for the 100m hurdles.

Eric Hollingsworth said Pearson had been a bad example to younger athletes by not appearing at the team camp in Gateshead last week.

8. Richard Dawkins rape tweets

Scientist Richard Dawkins has come under a “tsunami of hate” on Twitter after he attempted to make what he said was a logical point by describing some rapes as “worse” than others. His first tweet said “X is bad. Y is worse. If you think that’s an endorsement of X, go away and don’t come back until you’ve learned how to think logically.”

He then substituted rapes and padephilia for X and Y tweeting:

He said he was trying to demonstrate the point that while one type of offence was worse than another, it didn’t mean he condoned either.

He eventually was forced to issue a statement on his blog “”The very idea of classifying some rapes as worse than others, whether it’s date rape or stranger rape, is unconscionable, unbearable, intolerable, beyond the pale, taboo. “There is no allowable distinction between one kind of rape and another.”

9. Woman shot for not wearing veil

A Somali woman has been shot dead for refusing to wear a veil according to the BBC.

The woman, Ruqiya Farah Yarow is believed to have been killed by gunmen from al-Shabab, an extremist group in the country attempting to establish an Islamic state.  BBC Somalia analyst Mary Harper suggests that rogue militants within the group may have been responsible for Yarow’s death

10. Kyle in trouble for fat shaming new Mums

Radio shock jock Kyle Sandilands is under fire for fat shaming pregnant women and new mums in a promotional video for Kiss FM.

In it he tried flower arranging to give to new mothers in a maternity ward but he says “There you go Mums, you’ve got some flowers had a baby, now all you have to do is three years on the treadmill to get that pre-baby body back in shape,” he says “And let’s face it, most of you are going to fail at that, but good luck trying. Because life is about trying, not about being thin, although thin is better.”

11. Black cats don’t look good in selfies

The public are abandoning black cats in droves and refusing to adopt them from shelters – and the reason, well according to the UK’s RSPCA – it is because they do not look good in selfies.

A UK Animal charity told The Telegraph that there had been a 65% in the number of black cats it took in each year between 2007 and 2013. “

We had some photos of a single eight-week-old tabby kitten on our Facebook page and received around 30 calls in two days from people keen to adopt him,” a spokesman told The Telegraph “We had maybe one call in relation to the black kittens which were posted for rehoming on the same day.

12. UK model says she was gutted to be having a boy

Inflaming controversy even more the UK model who has sold seats to her impending birth of her baby has said that she was “gutted” to find out she was having a boy. The controversial celebrity already has two sons.

She told The Mirror “The evening I found out the sex of the baby was when I lit up my first cigarette… “I knew it could harm my child but it didn’t stop me. Deep down I know I wouldn’t be smoking or drinking if I knew I was having a girl.”

She said she is now smoking 20 a day.

13. Rape victim told to stay quiet or rapist would come back for her mother

A woman who was raped multiple times was told by her rapist to not tell anyone or he would come back and rape her mother.

The ACT Supreme Court heard yesterday from the victim’s mother who told the court that she no longer felt safe in her home. 27-year-old James March has pleaded guilty to the attack, during which he broke into a granny flat in the backyard of the family home and repeatedly raped the victim.

She said that rape victims were often made to feel like they were to blame, unlike crimes such as king hits which attract vast media attention.

He will be sentenced this morning.

14. Morning sickness is good

In news that might just make you queasy thinking about it turns out that morning sickness may be beneficial.

A Canadian study published in the journal Reproductive Toxicology has shown that women who suffered morning sickness have lower rates of miscarriage.

It also found that babies born to mothers who had morning sickness were less likely to have birth defects, be born prematurely, or be small or have a low birthweight. They were also smarter – scoring higher on IQ tests when aged between three and seven years.

15. Toddler-killer sentenced to 27 years’ jail

A Sydney truck driver has been sentenced to 27 years in jail, with a non-parole period of 20 years, for beating his two-year-old stepson to death.

The toddler’s extended family was in tears when the court was told the defenceless child would have been in pain, the ABC reports.

Gregory Wayne Hill, 39, was meant to be looking after the child while his mother was at TAFE on March 3, 2008, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. But he delivered brutal blows to the child’s head and abdomen – which reportedly caused a “massive fracture.”

Hill then failed to seek help for hours — and when paramedics eventually arrived, they were unable to revive the child.

The child died later in Campbelltown Hospital, Fairfax Media reports.