NEWS: 7 things to to talk about today.

1. Women in Paris are finally allowed to wear pants – legally. The French Government has overturned a 200-year-old law that forbid women to wear trousers and required them to seek permission from police if they wanted to “dress like a man”. To overturn the law, the Minister of Women’s Rights argued it did not align with modern French values.

2. Peter Brett Cowan will go on trial for the abduction and murder of Queensland teenager Daniel Morcombe in 2003. Following a committal hearing that’s lasted almost three weeks, Mr Cowan was formally charged by the court. Judge Brendan Butler said: ”I am of the opinion the evidence is sufficient to put the defendant on trial.”

3. Olympic swimmer Eamon Sullivan was fined $1000 in a South Australia court because of his drunken behaviour at a bucks party last October. The 27-year-old apparently “borrowed” a motorised scooter from an elderly man, mounted the pavement and hit a chair – injuring two people.

4. An update on the drugs in sport scandal. The Australian Crime Commission has released a report which states that banned substances have infiltrated every level of Australian sport. Mamamia will be bringing you a post from the Minister for Sport, Kate Lundy, later this morning.

5. Departing Labor MP Chris Evans has criticised his party’s culture of leaking information to the media. In an interview with the ABC, Evans told his colleagues to “shut up; just shut up”. “No party can succeed if it’s got people talking to people like you, offering negative views,”  he said.

6. Residents in a Japanese town want the local council to cover a replica statue of Michelangelo’s David with a pair of underwear. An Okuizumo town official said: “They are statues of unclothed humans, and such pieces of art work are very rare in our area. Some people apparently said the statues might not be good for their children.”

7. In a move to protect unborn babies, The Queensland Police Union wants to implement tougher laws on women who drink alcohol and take drugs while pregnant. In a submission to the state’s child protection inquiry, union chief Ian Leavers wrote: “Those children also deserve a right to full life and health and should not be disadvantaged simply because of the actions or inaction of their birth mother…. The state must have the ability to intervene and protect the unborn child when its mother refuses, or is incapable or unwilling, to do so.”