Thursday's news in under 5 minutes

1. Harley Hicks appeals sentence

Harley Hicks – who was jailed after beating 10-month old Zayden Veal-Whitting to death in his cot – has lodged an appeal against his life sentence.

In sentencing Hicks last month, Victorian Supreme Court Justice Stephen Kaye described the killing as a “totally and utterly evil crime”.

The Bendigo Advertiser reports that Hicks is arguing his non-parole period is manifestly excessive because of his age. He has claimed that there are risks to him in custody and that the killing was spontaneous. His lawyers say the sentencing judge “erred by aggravating the sentence upon a finding of the absence of remorse”.

Mamamia has previously reported on this story here.

2. Call for a specific spouse abuse court

The Australian reports that Federal Circuit Court chief judge John Pascoe has called for an alternative court to deal with family law cases involving extreme domestic violence.

The judge believes that the current system is not the right place for women who have been badly abused.

He told The Australian that the current formal, adversarial court environment “did not encourage maximum disclosure by women who had suffered domestic violence.”

“Part of the tragedy for battered women in particular is often they are very reluctant to disclose (what has happened to them),” he said. “We have an adversarial system, where each person is entitled to hear the evidence of the other, and some women feel very, very threatened by that.”

3. Four children killed in Gaza

Four children playing on the beach in Gaza City have been killed in an Israeli raid, bringing the death toll in the conflict to 213.

The boys, aged 9 to 11, died yesterday when a shell from an Israeli gunship exploded near them. CNN reports that an Israeli official said the shelling was another example of Hamas using civilians as human shields.

“What they are deliberately doing is seeking to kill as many Palestinians as possible in order to yell to the world to, ‘Help us,'” Israeli Cabinet member Naftali Bennett told CNN.

A Hamas official called the shelling by an Israeli gunship a “war crime”. “Those children were not firing rockets, they were just playing,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zhuri said to media.

4. Teenager cyber bullied to death

A teenage boy has committed suicide after a video went viral of him allegedly masturbating in a school toilet. His parents are now suing the school over his death for $1 million.

For more read this post here.

5. Time Warner takeover

Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox is reportedly taking over Time Warner in a deal which would create the world’s biggest media company. The combined company would be worth over $170bn.

The Australian reports that Time Warner have rebuffed a $US80bn takeover bid from Fox but it is only the opening act in this takeover.

6. Australian soldier dies

An Australian soldier has died after falling in a crevasse during a training exercise in New Zealand.

The soldier fell more than 30m on Mt Cook. Fellow soldiers tried unsuccessfully to revive him.

7. Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton has appeared on The Daily Show in the US and answered questions about her presidential ambitions.

Host Jon Stewart said: “I think I speak for everyone when I say that no one cares, they just want to know if you’re running for president.”

He then asked her aptitude tests with questions for “picking out her future career”. Questions like: Would you prefer to work in an office or from home? Do you like sitting in traffic or causing it? What shape would you like your office to be?

Clinton’s answer to that question? “I think that the world is so complicated, the fewer corners that you can have, the better”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gEUrhnriV0

8. Julian Assange

A Swedish court has upheld an arrest warrant against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for alleged sexual assault.

Assange fled to the Ecuadorean embassy in June 2012 after losing a protracted legal battle to avoid extradition to Sweden for questioning. The ruling means that the WikiLeaks founder will remain in the embassy.

9. Mysterious crater

A mysterious crater, baffling scientists has been discovered in a remote location in Siberia. The crater thought to be around 80m wide. That means it is so wide a helicopter could fly in it without touching the sides.

It has been spotted in a remote Siberian location ironically known as the “End of the World”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCvE3THgtuM

10. Loom band dress

A dress made entirely out of loom bands has sold for an astonishing £170,100. ($310,000)

Kathryn Burnand from the UK carefully wove together 24,000 bands over three-and-a-half weeks to create the dress. She hoped to make around £90 to refund her outlay for 40 bags of 600 loom bands.

The auction ended yesterday.

11. HIV diagnosis 20 year high

A survey has shown that HIV diagnoses have reached a 20-year high in Australia.

The Annual HIV Surveillance report produced by the University of NSW’s Kirby Institute shows that one in seven people with the virus do not know they have it.

It says on average, about one child each year for the last decade has been born with HIV in Australia, having acquired it from their mother.

12. Teen “too fat” for instagram

A US teenager is taking on Instagram after they removed her images deeming they violated community standards.

The 19-year-old who was a part of a positive body movement #bodylove posted a she took of herself in a bra and “boy-style” shorts.

Samm Newman told NBC4i that the modest polka dot underwear covered her: “I’ve seen [lingerie] pictures like that all over Instagram.”

“’I didn’t find the bra at all inappropriate,” she said saying “there are accounts dedicated entirely to lingerie shots of slimmer women”.

Instagram has since apologised, saying it “wrongly removed content and worked to rectify the error as soon as we were notified”.

13. Should schools be expected to teach this?

It seems some parents expect schools to provide toilet training, speech development and teach children basic manners, according to the QLD State Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek.

In a Budget Estimates hearing he raised the issue “Many people have the expectation that children are going to come to school and they’re going to be taught all of the things including speech – something as basic as speech – and manners and toilet training; that’s not schools’ responsibility,” he told The Courier Mail.

Queensland Teachers Union President Kevin Bates told The Courier Mail that an increasing use of technology as babysitters was contributing to children starting school with speech problems.

14. Call for nationally consistent school starting age

There has been a call for a nationally consistent school starting age. Tasmania has begun the push with the Tasmanian Principals Association President David Raw saying it is irrational to have an Australian curriculum but not a common starting age.

“They ensured 15 hours of kinder for everyone but didn’t look at a common starting time. It’s a bit like having different railway gauges in different states, a legacy of federation,’’ Mr Raw told The Mercury.

Australia has some of the youngest school starting ages in the world – in Europe it is common for them to begin after they turn six.

What news are you talking about today?