Monday's news in under 5 minutes.

Breaking:

A girl abducted in 2009 has been reunited with her mother.

Cara Cox, 13, was abductedby her dad Aaron Cox from her mother Jodie Borchert in Florida.

Cara, whose parents were separated, disappeared after Borchert dropped her daughter off at Cox’s for a weekend visit.

The National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in the US received an anonymous call on May 12 saying Cara was in Mexico.

Volusia County Sheriff deputies then worked with the US Marshals Service, local prosecutors, Mexican authorities and an international-fugitive task force for five days to find the girl.

They eventually located her in remote mountains in Hidalgo state, Mexico, where she and her father were living by fake names.

1. Opinion Poll

The Fairfax-Nielsen monthly poll has shown that the budget has propelled the Prime Minister into uncharted waters with his personal approval rating plummeting by 21 points.

Labor leader Bill Shorten has an 11-point advantage as preferred Prime Minister, 51 per cent to 40.

“Mr Abbott trails the Opposition Leader as preferred Prime Minister after just eight months in office, faster than any of his predecessors with the exception of Paul Keating, who started out behind,” Nielsen pollster John Stirton told Fairfax Media.

The ALP has a 12 per cent point lead at 56/44 according to the poll.

2. Protests over Federal Budget

Tens of thousands of people have marched around the country in protest of last week’s budget.

Around 15,000 marched in Adelaide, 10,000 in Melbourne and 8,000 in Sydney for ‘March in May’.

Several arrests were made during the protests.

3. Rolf Harris trial

An Australian woman – now in her 40s-  who claims Rolf Harris sexually assaulted her as teenager will give evidence this week.

Harris is on trial in the UK for indecently assaulting four girls between 1968 and 1986.

He denies all 12 charges.

The woman, who spoke of the alleged assaults to media last year, claims that when she was 15, a youth theatre group she was a part of had dinner with Harris at a London pub.

She says he put his hand under her skirt and touched her crotch area over her tights.

He denies the incident.

She will take the stand this week.

4. Melbourne parents claim autistic school locked children away

News Limited report that parents of children at Marnebek School in Cranbourne East have come forward alleging the school locked autistic children in a darkened room as punishment.

Two parents are pursuing legal action over the claims.

The Herald Sun reports that terrified children were often put in a time-out room, as well as being physically restrained when they wouldn’t sit still and locked in an outdoor courtyard alone.

According to the newspaper, “Cranbourne mother Rebecca Cobb, 37, said she found her tear-stained autistic son, then nine, lying on the floor of the bare room with a bloodied nose.”

The school and the department have denied the parents’ allegations.

5. Mothers unite against major retailer.

A Facebook post and online petition demanding safer areas for women to tend to their babies at a major retailer is going viral.

The post refers to an incident last Thursday where a mother spied a man entering a breastfeeding cubicle at Westfield Chatswood in Sydney.

The man then began to peer at other mothers feeding their babies in privacy from under the curtains.

The woman says she started screaming at the offender and security was alerted.

She says she called Westfield security to check if they had reported it and to her ‘surprise’ they said they would not be following it up with the police.

The mum – who wishes to remain unnamed – says she rang the police and reported the incident herself.

Her fear is that the man could strike again.

Other women have now commented on Westfield’s Facebook page, demanding it put women’s safety first and have started an online petition calling Westfield to act.

Westfield has responded to the allegations on their Facebook page saying: “Our policy is to always notify police of incidents, which took place. However, the guard did make an error in communicating our process to the customer, which was immediately corrected by his supervisor, and we are continuing to work with the police. Our management team is working on ensuring our policy is correctly followed and communicated to customers in the future.”

6. North Korea apartment collapse

A 23-storey apartment building, which accommodated close to 100 families, has reportedly collapsed in North Korea.

According to AFP, North Korea’s state media has reported an “unimaginable” accident which has resulted in an unspecified number of casualties.

They say it is rare for North Korea to report negative news, which even included apologies from top state officials for the accident at the partially constructed apartment building.

It is common in North Korea for people to move into partially constructed buildings.

7. Family Day Care fees

There are reports today that family day care could see fee rises of up to $35 a week, after federal funding cuts.

Last week’s budget foresaw a $157 million saving by tightening eligibility for the Community Support Program, which provides funding to help small family day care operators with administration and quality control.

Family Day Care Australia has told The Age that this change will have a ”dramatic and direct” effect on operating costs with fees to rise $35 per week or $1,700 a year.

8. 10-year-old raped by an 8-year-old boy while his sister held her down.

A primary school student has allegedly been raped by an eight-year-old boy while the boy’s sister held her down.

KFOR-TV in Oklahoma in the US reports that the 10-year-old girl was attacked by the brother and sister when she went to the toilet.

“The little boy pulled his pants down and then pulled her pants down.” The girl’s mother told KFOR-TV.

She says a female classmate held her down while that little girl’s eight-year-old brother raped her.

The police were called and the girl was taken to hospital where a rape exam was conducted.

9. Olympic Medalist’s daughter dies

The two-year-old daughter of Olympic silver medalist Jai Taurima has died after a long battle with leukaemia – just days away from her third birthday.

The news was announced on Facebook over the weekend.

“This morning (Saturday) at 12.30am Indie Rose Taurima grew her angel wings and went to heaven. She was lying in mummy’s arms pain-free and slipped away in her sleep. Love you baby girl.”

Indie Rose had been diagnosed with infant acute lymphoblastic leukaemia when she was just three months old.

Her father rose to prominence during the Sydney Olympics when he won a silver medal for long-jump.

10. Dad’s AVO

A father has filed for a restraining order against a five-year-old boy who has been bullying his six-year-old daughter.

The dad, from Wisconsin in the US, says the boy made his daughter’s life “a living hell”.

For more, read this post here.

11. Allergy Mystery

Figures from the Bureau of Statistics have shown that many more boys than girls suffer from peanut allergies or intolerances.

It was revealed that around 71,000 boys, aged between two and 18, have a peanut allergy or intolerance compared to 39,000 girls.

Doctors say they cannot explain the reasons why.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the biggest increase in allergies in the past 15 years had been in peanuts and tree nuts.

“Twenty years ago, we hardly ever saw a child with a peanut allergy, maybe one every year. Now, we see 900 to 1,000 kids each year,” Robert Loblay, the allergy unit director of Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, told Fairfax Media.

He said that the significant gender difference was a ‘mystery’.

12. Motorbike arrest

A man has been arrested for riding his motorbike drunk with a two-year-old boy believed to be his son under his arm and no lights on.

The Sydney man was arrested on Saturday night.

“This is one of the strangest and most dangerous acts of driving and endangering a child’s life I have ever heard of in 35 years,’’ Assistant Police Commissioner John Hartley told News Limited.

“It’s unbelievable to put a two-year-old’s life in jeopardy this way.”

13. Should there be paid menstrual leave in Australia?

In South Korea, the policy has been accused of being an example of ‘reverse sexism’; while feminists in Russia condemned a Russian lawmaker who proposed their own version of the law, because they felt it patronised women.

The debate has been ignited on blogs in Australia, the UK and the US, with social commentators wondering whether such policies do more harm than good. Katy Waldman on Slate asks, “Does the time off have to perpetuate weird myths about our traumatic, crazy cycles — or can it just cut us some slack when we feel drained and low? The problem is that it does both…”

What do you think – would it be sensible for Australia to adopt paid menstrual leave?

14. Hitler featured in anti-Muslim propaganda on the side of buses.

An anti-Muslim blogger in the US has purchased billboards on the sides of Washington DC Metro buses, which feature pictures of Adolf Hitler and call for an end to ‘all aid to Islamic countries’.

The American Freedom Defense Initiative’s billboards feature a picture of Hitler meeting with anti-Jewish Islamic leader Haj Amin al-Husseini with the text, “Islamic Jew-hatred: It’s in the Quran.Two-thirds of all US aid goes to Islamic countries. Stop Racism. End all aid to Islamic countries.”

Blogger Pamela Geller, who runs the organisation, previously purchased advertising space on public transport that read, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilised man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad.”

Executive Director Nihad Awad of the Council on American Islamic Relations said, “This is a propaganda campaign designed to incite hatred against American Muslims and this campaign has been based on false information, taking things out of context from the Quran.”

Several metro riders reportedly called the billboard racist.

What news are you talking about today?