NEWS: 7 things to talk about today.

1. An 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast off the coast of Soloman Islands yesterday, killing at least five people. The earthquake caused 1.5m tsunami waves which hit the coast of pacific islands, including the Solomons, Vanuatu and New Caledonia.

2. Monopoly fan? Hope your favourite playing piece wasn’t the iron. After a month-long online poll, Monopoly creator Hasbro has announced it will replace the iron with a cat-shaped piece.

3. Dumped ALP Senator Trish Crossin has done a tell-all interview with News Limited papers about what happened the night Julia Gillard informed her she was being replaced by Nova Peris. Apparently Gillard wanted to install an indigenous woman as part of her legacy as Prime Minister. Gillard reportedly told Crossin “I’m offering you nothing.”

4. A nine-year-old in Mexico has given birth to a healthy baby girl via C-section. The father is reportedly a 17-year-old boy who fled when he found out about the pregnancy. Local authorities are searching for him because they believe it’s a case of “rape of child sexual abuse”.

5. The story of Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart, will be told in a six-hour mini series. The series will be based on Rinehart’s biography Gina Rinehart: the Untold Story of the Richest Woman in the World, which is written by Adele Ferguson. When asked who would play Rinehart in the series, Ferguson said: ”It’s far too too early to say, it will be a very challenging role.”

6. It’s been revealed that Essendon Football Club players may have been forced to take injections – against their will. They were told it was “club policy”. The revelations come in the wake of news that the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority is investigating the club after members admitted they did not know what was in supplements given to players. It’s possible the supplements contained banned performance-enhancing substances.

7. An all-girl rock band in Kashmir, comprising of three teenage girls, has been forced to break up after a cleric issued a fatwa (a legal pronouncement). After they participated in a public music concert, the cleric labelled the girls performance as “a shameful act” and ordered them to break up. They were also attacked by Muslims for daring to play in front of men.