Monday's news in less time than it takes to drink your coffee.

 1. Gammy’s father never looked at him.

The father of abandoned baby Gammy visited him in hospital after his birth — but only interacted with his healthy twin sister, Gammy’s Thai surrogate mother has told Fairfax Media.

She said the boy’s Australian biological parents told her they could not take him because they are too old to care for twins.

Pattharamon Janbua told Fairfax Media the father, who is in his 50s, “came to the hospital to take care of the girl but never looked Gammy in the face or carried him”.

“The twins stayed next to each other but the father never looked at Gammy … not one bottle of milk did he give Gammy,” she said. “I could say he never touched Gammy at all.”

Donations to the fund-raising site to assist Gammy have now topped $200,000.

For more on Gammy read this post here.

2. Israel shells another school

Israel has been condemned after a third deadly attack on a UN school.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the shelling of a Gaza school yesterday that killed 10 people as a “moral outrage and a criminal act”.

Meanwhile the US has also criticised the “disgraceful shelling” and urged Israel to do more to prevent civilian casualties in its war against Hamas militants.

The US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said: ” the United States is appalled by today’s disgraceful shelling outside an UNRWA school in Rafah sheltering some 3,000 displaced persons, in which at least ten more Palestinian civilians were tragically killed.

3. Tribute to Maslin children

The mother of the three Perth children killed on flight MH17 told a memorial service yesterday that her “arms would always be reaching for them.”

Rin Norris broke down in tears as she spoke about their “innocent bodies being shot down from the sky” last month.

Speaking about each of her children, Rin told how her eldest son Mo was known as Mo-Man or ‘The Dude.’

Her ‘princess’ Evie was also known as ‘Sweetpea’ or ‘Evie Girl’ and how one of the many nicknames she had for her youngest son Otis was ‘Oti Bob.’

Mo, Evie and Otis Maslin, aged 12, 10 and eight, died alongside their grandfather Nick on the Malaysian Airlines plane.

A cherished video was played to the Memorial Service showing the children telling their auntie they will see her next year.

4. Commonwealth Games closes

The Commonwealth Games have come to a close with England topping the medal tally. Australia came second, with one of our worst medal tallies since 1986.

As the closing ceremony began, Kylie Minogue posted an image of her preparations for the big event.

5. Ebola fears in US

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has tried to calm fears of an Ebola outbreak as two American aid workers infected with the virus are flown home, sending out the Twitter message: “#Ebola poses no significant risk to US public. Only transmitted by contact with body fluids and only by someone w/ signs of illness.”

CBS News reports the health of Dr Kent Branly, who was brought back to the US for treatment, is improving.

Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the US Centers for Disease Control, told CBS News “It’s encouraging that he seems to be improving. That’s really important and we’re hoping he’ll continue to improve.”

6. Qantas changes flight path

Fairfax Media reports Qantas has changed their policy and decided to re-route flights away from airspace over Iraq.

Two daily flights on the Dubai-London route will instead fly over Iranian airspace.

A Qantas spokesman told Fairfax Media safety was the airline’s first priority, and that it would continue to assess the situation and make any further changes it believed were prudent.

7. AIDS delegates seek asylum

The Age reports at least 25 delegates who attended an International AIDS conference in Melbourne last week intend to seek asylum in Australia after refusing to board their flights home last week.

The men and women are mostly from African countries including Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia.

Heather Holst, chief executive of homelessness service HomeGround, told Fairfax Media the group had no money at all.

It is reported: “it is not yet clear if any of the group are living with HIV, as was the case in 2006 when more than 130 HIV-positive South African women sought asylum in Canada after the Toronto AIDS conference.”

8. Eight-year-old boy dies four days before anyone finds him

An eight-year-old boy has lay dead in his bedroom for four days while his family went on with their lives in the home below.

The boy was tended to by his father, who has now been arrested.

For more read this post here.

9. Conscience vote on same-sex marriage

Reports today suggest a conscience vote on same sex marriage is likely in the next two sitting fortnights of Parliament, in August and September.

The Age reports senior Liberals have requested crossbench senator David Leyonhjelm introduce his draft bill to legalise same-sex marriage.

10. Boy airlifted to hospital

A three-year-old boy has been airlifted to hospital from the NSW north-west after  being found unconscious in his home.

A crime scene has been established at the home in Oberon, southeast of Bathurst.

11. Scott Rush ‘drug parties’

Scott Rush, one of the Bali Nine has been exposed allegedly taking drugs inside his Bali jail cell.

The Herald Sun reports Rush, who has previously claimed he was drug free, was photographed smoking crack cocaine.

The Herald Sun has been told Rush regularly takes drugs at late-night parties in the prison. A source told the paper: “He has been telling people he has been clean of drugs for ages and that just isn’t true.”

“They have drug parties in there every night in the cells and he is always involved.”

12. Quake in China

At least 175 people died after a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck in southwestern China.

More than 180 people are missing and 1,400 injured in a remote area of Yunnan province, where thousands of buildings, including a school, collapsed after the quake.

13. Even one day off can have negative impact: report

Research out today has shown that even one day off school can have a negative impact on students.

The study – to be presented today at the Australian Council for Educational Research’s annual conference — showed that there is no safe level of absence students can get away with before their grades will suffer.

“We were able to show that actually every day counts and days that you’re missing in year 3 and year 5 can detect that all the way through to year 9,” the reports co-author and University of Western Australia Professor Stephen Zubrick told The Sun Herald.

“A 10-day period of unauthorized absence in a year is sufficient to drop a child about a band in the NAPLAN testing,” he said.

‘”For most children, year 1 sets the pattern for what school attendance will look like in the future.”

14. End of written exams?

Handwritten exams may be on the out, with reports suggesting more and more students in their final years are seeking doctors’ assistance after complaining of hand pains when asked to write.

News Limited reports students used to computer-based education both in the classroom and at home are struggling in exams. Dr Rosemary Prosser told News Limited the demise of the three-hour handwritten exam “might come sooner than we think”.

15. Breast cancer link to pill study

A study out today shows a concerning link between birth control pills and breast cancer. With the pill increasing the risk by about 50 percent.

Women who were on a formulation of the pill with an especially elevated level of estrogen nearly tripled their risk of getting breast cancer, and a pill with even a moderate amount of the hormone increased the risk by about 60 percent.

The study, published in the journal Cancer Research, followed 1,102 women diagnosed with breast cancer, most of whom were in their 40s.

It should be noted that the pill with an extremely high level of estrogen is quite uncommon.

16. Marriage makes men fat

It seems that marriage can have a dramatic affect on men’s weight.

The study, by the Institute for Health and Wellbeing at Leeds Metropolitan University, found “being married as opposed to ­single made a significant contribution to body mass index in men”.

They eat more wholemeal bread, buns, cakes and pastries than when they were single.

The study blames wives for making the shopping list.

Married men also drink “significantly more wine” than men who are single and continue with this habit even if they divorce.

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