Friday'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. Jayde Kendall murder: school friend charged with murder and misconduct.

A high school friend of Queensland teenager Jayde Kendall has been charged with murder and misconduct with a corpse by interfering.

Yesterday a farmer discovered her body in a paddock near Gatton 13 days since she went missing.

Detectives arrested 18-year old Brenden Bennetts the last person to have seen Jayde alive.

Bennetts’ father told media that the death of 16-year old Jayde had rocked them all.

“We love our son very much,” he said.

“We will continue to support him and we’re sorry for the family and friends and the loss that they have had.”

Jayde was last seen getting into Bennetts’ red Toyota Corolla hatchback after school on August 14.

When she failed to show up for work at McDonald’s that evening her father raised the alarm.

Brenden Bennetts told police he spent a few hours driving around with Jayde before dropping her off in the Gatton area.

He is due to appear in the Brisbane Magistrates Court today.

The Courier Mail reports that he will plead not guilty.

2. Family members pleaded with authorities to remove Nikki Francis-Coslovich from her home.

The Herald Sun reports that the father of two-year-old Nikki Francis-Coslovich, who was found dead in the roof of her Mildura home, had begged authorities to remove Nikki from her mother. Nine days before she was found dead he text messaged a family services worker saying, “I need to get the girls out of that house and fast … I must save my girls b4 its too late. Pls help me.”

Police found the body of Nikki in a roof cavity after noticing fingerprints around a service hatch.

The Herald Sun reports that Nikki’s injuries include blunt-force trauma and significant bruising.

The Age reports that the on-again-off-again partner of Nikki’s mother,  John Torney, was due to face Mildura Magistrates Court yesterday in relation to a criminal matter that does not involve children.

Neighbours had reported that Peta-Ann Francis and John Torney, who lives in a separate house, had a volatile relationship.

Nicholas Coslovich, Nikki’s father was also due to appear at the same court, relating to a court-ordered diversion program.

He told Fairfax Media he was charged in relation to “smacking” Nikki’s oldest sister, an offence that was reported to police through her school.

The Age reports that Mr Coslovich had not been spoken to by police on Wednesday. He said he had not seen the girls for a month as he had been denied access.

Anyone with information is urged to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. 

3. Virginia shooting: news program mourns.

One day after the horrific shooting live to air of a reporter and camera operator in the US state of Virginia the breakfast news team has held a tribute to their colleagues.

The morning news team at WDBJ7 observed a moment of silence on air on exactly 24 hours after Alison Parker and Adam Ward were shot dead on Wednesday.

Just before the tribute, Kimberly McBroom – the host of the show held hands with weatherman Leo Hirsbrunner and presenter Steve Grant, They were joined by a show guest, Dr Thomas Milam, of the Carilion Clinic.

Earlier the partner of Alison Parker, Chris Hurst had spoken of his grief.

“As soon as we confirmed news that she had died, I said that it was going to be important for us to share her story and share the love that she had for this job.

“So I decided that I was OK enough to do the only thing that I know how to do which is to communicate.”

“I will be speaking about our love together, which burned white hot for only a short matter of time, but was a kind of love that I was so privileged and lucky to have had that I need to share that with everyone – to tell people that even if it gets taken away from you, it exists,” Hurst said.

“This station is resilient, her family is resilient, they’re strong, and we’ll be back, folks”

For more read this post here. 

4. Republic not likely any time soon.

The Prime Minister Tony Abbott has indicated that Australia will not be re-visiting the republic issue any time soon.

‘We’ve got, I suppose, bigger things on our minds most of the time,’ Mr Abbott said yesterday.

On Wednesday Joe Hockey launched a cross-party parliamentary group to push for a plebiscite on the republic within five years.

But the PM, a staunch monarchist is not on board.

“I think one of the problems with the republican push is that it seems to … suggest there’s some lack of maturity, some lack of independence in our system,” Mr Abbott told Channel Nine.

“(I) don’t believe that most Australians think that’s the case.”

5. Teenager caught with handgun at Perth school.

A Perth teenager has been found with a gun at school reports the ABC.

A student at a Perth high school has been caught with a handgun, the second such incident in a month.

The Education Department confirmed the latest incident happened on Monday at Gilmore College in Kwinana, after a teenager took the gun to school.

Just last month a 10-year-old boy brought a gun in to Comet Bay Primary School in Secret Harbour “to show his friends”.

Education Department regional executive Margaret Collins said it was of great concern that children could access guns in their community.

“Fortunately in both instances the students brought the guns to school as a curiosity to show friends, rather than for more sinister reasons,” she said.

6. Senior obstetrician told mother whose baby died after traumatic birth she should have smoked 50 cigarettes a day then she would have had a smaller baby.

An inquest has heard that a senior obstetrician told the parents of a baby who died 48 hours after his skull was fractured while being delivered with forceps they should have “smoked to have a smaller baby”.

The doctor, Sharon Oates made the ‘flippant’ remark after the birth of Jenson Barnett in June 2013 at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, Shropshire in the UK.

Doctors had to perform a caesarean after their attempts to help mother Kate Langford give birth naturally failed.

The doctor told the mother “Sorry about your baby, we didn’t anticipate it being as big as it was – it was never coming out of that little bottom.”

And then told Jenson’s parents “you should smoke 50 cigarettes a day so you can have a smaller baby.”

The Daily Mail reports that a disciplinary panel found that Dr Oates would face no action for misconduct, although there had been an ‘error in judgment’.

Last year an inquest heard that Jensen need not have suffered injury if he had been born by caesarian earlier.

7. Ashley Madison hackers “were Australian.”

Security blogger, Brian Krebs who reported on the initial Ashley Madison hack has uncovered evidence that says the hacker could be Australian.

Krebs identifies a hacker calling himself Thadeus Zu on Twitter as the potential culprit.

Krebs details how through a plethora of tweets align Thadeus Zu with the hack.

He says that Zu is an Australian who recently lived in Canada.

Zu has tweeted overnight his denial at having anything to do with the hack.

8. 50 refugees found dead in truck in Austria.

As many as 50 refugees has been found dead in a truck in eastern Austria close to the Hungarian border.

Krone reports that they might have died from suffocation.

The nationalities of the victims were not immediately clear, but Europe has been inundated by a recent flood of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa.

Austrian police say they think the people inside were already dead when the truck crossed into Austria.

Police spokesman Helmut Marban said police stopped shortly before noon Thursday thinking that the parked truck had some mechanical trouble.

Then they “saw blood dripping” from the vehicle and “noticed the smell of dead bodies,” he told Reuters. 

It is thought that they have already been dead for one and a half to two days.

A record number of 107,500 migrants crossed the EU’s borders last month reports the BBC and on Wednesday police counted more than 3,000 crossing into Serbia.

9. Kissing kids on the lips “too sexual”.

A psychologist has said that parents who kiss their children on the lips are sending out the wrong message.

Dr Charlotte Reznick, an American psychologist has told The Sun the act is “sexual”.

She says a kiss on a child’s lips “can be stimulating” and potentially confusing to children.

“If mummy kisses daddy on the mouth and vice versa, what does that mean, when I, a little girl or boy, kiss my parents on the mouth?” she said.

But Sydney-based clinical psychologist Heather Irvine-Rundle said it was a ridiculous claim telling News Limited:

“It’s an outrageous thing to say to parents. It absolutely does not take into account a special relationship that parents have with their children and the non-sexual nature from which that particular behaviour comes.”

Do you have a story to share with Mamamia? Email us news@mamamia.com.au
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