Wednesday's news in under 5 minutes.

We’ve rounded up all the latest stories from Australia and around the world – so you don’t have to go searching.

1. Australian cattle bludgeoned to death with sledgehammers in Vietnam.

Sickening evidence has emerged of Australian cattle in Vietnam being slaughtered with sledgehammers.

Animals Australia spokeswoman Lisa Chalk said Vietnam was currently the second-largest export market for Australian cattle, with 178,000 animals exported there in 2014.

“The industry has called what is happening in Vietnam ‘growing pains’,” Ms Chalk said.

“Most people would disagree. It’s horrific and preventable suffering.”

Ms Chalk said that the vision was so shocking Animals Australia had not publicly released it at this time.

She told Fairfax Media that an ESCAS (Export Supply Chain Assurance System) complaint had been lodged with the Department relating to the “horrific sledgehammering to death” of Australian cattle in Vietnam.

RSPCA Australia called for the live export trade to Vietnam to be suspended.

“Where is the government in this? What new twist on this appalling cruelty will it take to make Minister Joyce step up and take action?” spokeswoman Elise Meakin said.

The Minister responded to News Limited saying “The department has been closely monitoring the ESCAS system in Vietnam since March and is working with industry to ensure any problems are rectified, and that the stringent animal welfare standards required are maintained.”

He said that there were already three reviews underway.

A spokesman told Fairfax Media.”The Australian government remains totally committed to the live export trade, and when problems arise we deal with the specific problems – we don’t shut down an entire industry.”

2. Man released without charge after woman’s murder.

A man has been questioned by police and released without charge after the death of a woman on Sydney’s northern beaches yesterday.

NSW Ambulance were called to the townhouse on Warringah Road at Forestville about 11:45am yesterday and found a woman with a large wound to her neck.

The 68-year-old woman died at the scene.

A 77-year-old man was arrested at the scene and taken to Dee Why police station where he was questioned by police.

He was released overnight without charge pending further inquiries.

If you need help for domestic violence: 24/7, call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732). 

Police are urging anyone with information that could assist investigators to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

3. Gerard Baden-Clay appeal date set.

Gerard Baden-Clay’s lawyers will appeal against his conviction asking for a whole new trial.

His appeal has now been set down for August 7th.

The news of the court date has been welcomed by the family of Allison who say they want the process to finally end.

His lawyers will argue the murder verdict was “unreasonable” and a “miscarriage of justice.”

They will also argue the presiding judge erred by leaving it up to the jury to decide if Baden-Clay attempted to disguise marks on his face by making razor cuts.

4. Same-sex marriage bill just a handful of votes away.

Fairfax Media reports that parliament is only a handful of votes away from passing same-sex marriage legislation. Australian Marriage Equality figures show that Parliament needs just four more votes to pass a bill in the House of Representatives.

In the Senate it is calculated a bill could pass with a majority of one.

Wayne Swan who opposed same-sex voting against the reform when it came before Parliament in 2012 has said now that he was wrong about it and he had found it “increasingly difficult” to reconcile his views about same-sex marriage with his support for economic and social equality.

“I’ve come to the conclusion that, basically, I was wrong,” he said.

AME says there are 72 lower house MPs who would vote for same-sex marriage, four votes off the 76 required to pass a bill.

Australian Marriage Equality national director Rodney Croome said the” small number of Coalition members publicly in favour of same-sex marriage was the tip of an iceberg of support”.

“Given a cross-party free vote, the reform has a good chance of passing,” Mr Croome said.

5. Measles warning for Brisbane.

There has been a measles warning in Queensland after an ambulance officer was infected with measles.

The 32-year-old man is in hospital in a serious condition after he was diagnosed.

Chief Health Officer Dr Jeanette Young said they do not know how he contracted the disease.

They are seeking anyone who came into contact with him while he was infectious between May 10 and 18. This includes staff and patients who were at Lady Cilento or Princess Alexandra hospitals on May 11 or Princess Alexandra, Greenslopes Private Hospital and QEII on May 12.

The paramedic also visited Morton Island between May 14 and 18.

6. Students say school made them have vaginal probes.

Two Florida college students have sought damages after they say they were forced to submit to vaginal probes as part of a medical training program and were threatened with blacklisting and their grades reduced if they declined.

The lawsuit claims that Florida’s Valencia State College “browbeated” students who did not consent to the exams.

The plaintiffs say that a second-year student who was nicknamed the “TransVag Queen” explained to them that students should undergo transvaginal ultrasound procedures to become better sonography technicians.

“During orientation, the clients were told that these were voluntary procedures. However, as time went on, it became very clear that they were not voluntary,” Christopher Dillingham, a civil rights attorney in Winter Park, Florida, told NBC News.

The students claim that they had the probes regularly by other students, including by a male student even though there were anatomically correct simulators on which they could practice.

“In some cases, the student would have to sexually ‘stimulate’ Plaintiffs in order to facilitate inserting the probe into Plaintiffs’ vaginas. Plaintiffs experienced discomfort and embarrassment each time they had to endure this forced probing of their sexual organs.”

But the students claim they were told they needed to participate.

“The college’s instructors retaliated against them by saying they would reduce their grades, they would blacklist them within the medical community, and they would not be able to get a job,” Dillingham said.

7. Bakery guilty of discrimination over refusal to make pro-gay marriage cake.

A Christian-owned baking company, which refused to make a cake carrying a pro-gay marriage slogan, has been found guilty of discrimination after a landmark legal action at Belfast County Court in Northern Ireland.

Judge Isobel Brownlie said it was “direct discrimination and there is no justification for it” after Asher Cakes’ decision not to bake a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto “Support Gay Marriage”.

The judge rejected the bakers’ argument that making the cake was showing support for same sex marriage.

“Baking the cake was merely obeying the law and providing the plaintiff with a service.”

8. Prince Charles shakes hands with Gerry Adams.

Prince Charles has become the first British royal to meet Irish republican leader Gerry Adams.

The historic meeting took place at the National University of Ireland’s campus in Galway on the west coast of Ireland.

There had been suspicions – rejected by Adams – that he was involved in the death of Charles’s beloved great-uncle and mentor Earl Mountbatten in 1979 by the IRA. It was the first time Adams has met a senior member of the royal family.

9. Taronga Zoo’s new arrival.

Taronga Zoo is celebrating the birth of a new baby gorilla, but the gorilla’s mum is keeping the new arrival so close that no one knows the sex of the little one since it was born a week a go.

Mum, Frala, 33, has given birth six times already.

The baby is the second gorilla born at the zoo in seven months, both sired by silverback Kibali. Staff are waiting till the suss out the sex of the baby until they give the new gorilla a name.

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