Friday's news in under 5 minutes

1. Rolf Harris trial

The jury in the Rolf Harris trial have returned to the judge with written questions – indicating dissent in coming to a verdict.

The questions they have asked are:

1. Can we discuss legal directions given as there seems some confusion as a juror is making behavioural assumptions which is taken into account as evidence in many counts?

2. We are to judge each count independently — please clarify.

3. Is it allowed to stereotype what the victim should have done prior to an alleged offence taking place in more than one count or using it against them?

4. As opposed to using patterns within counts to help decide an outcome of one count surely it is non advisable to take evidence from one count in the future to judge the count in the here and now NB count 3-9 please clarify.

5. Can the veracity of a witness statement in one count be taken into account when judging the voracity of a witness statement in another count?

The Judge has referred them to various passages in his closing summation. He has asked the jury to reach a unanimous verdict.

Rolf Harris has pleased not guilty to the indecent assault charges leveled against him.

2. Mount Buller tragedy

More details have emerged of the tragic events which led up to the death of a seven-year-old boy at the Victorian ski resort Mt Buller.

The Herald Sun reports the boy wandered off from where he had been playing in the snow with his siblings just minutes earlier.

The boy, referred in an online tribute as “Haadi”, was buried upright under a metre of snow just 40 metres from where he had been playing. His frantic family raised the alarm after they failed to find him and over 20 police, resort management, ski patrollers and local CFA searched using snow probes for 90 minutes.

He was taken to a medical centre, but was unable to be revived. Resort management have issued a warning for people to be vigilant in alpine conditions.

3. MH370 Investigation

Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss announced yesterday that the search for missing plane MH370 will be moved further south off Western Australia after experts identified a new search area.

It is now thought that the plane travelled for several hours on autopilot from the tip of Sumatra.

Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief Martin Dolan said it was likely the switch to autopilot was deliberate. “We would generally expect that if the autopilot is operational, that’s a result of it being made operational … it’s because it’s been switched on,” he said.

Fairfax Media reports that new search will not begin until August as the area had not yet been mapped.

4. Gerard Baden-Clay trial

Accused murderer Gerard Baden-Clay gave evidence yesterday claiming that he did not fight with his wife and that he did not kill her.

The real-estate agent is charged with murdering his wife Allison and dumping her body under a bridge. He has pleaded not guilty.

He said that he was not planning on leaving his wife for mistress Toni McHugh. “We (Alison and I) were planning to spend the rest of our lives together. We were working together on making that a reality after the infidelity that I’d had in the past,” he said.

The Courier Mail reports he said was protective of his “beautiful wife” and that her anxiety increased since the birth of their first child.

Baden-Clay spoke at length about his relationship with his wife in its early days, and claimed that they never had raised voices when they argued.

The trial has now adjourned till Monday, when he will return to the witness box.

5. Zoo kills bear and stuffs it to ‘teach kids a lesson’

A Zoo in Switzerland is facing outrage from animal rights groups after it killed a healthy bear cub — and announced it plans to stuff and display it to teach children that “nature can be cruel.”

The baby brown bear, known only as Cub 4, was euthanized by the Dahlholzli Zoo in the Swiss city of Bern after his father mauled his sibling. The Zoo released images of the bear being put down.

Newspaper Berner Zeitung reported that the zoo had received a flood of public comment after Cub 4 was killed.

A media release from the Zoo said that they considers it central to learning that animals are experienced in as natural a condition as possible, including contact with “animal materials” like hides, bones or fully stuffed creatures.

“An emotional experience takes priority, which brings nature closer to the children with all its facets — ‘nice’ or not — and makes them tangible,” the statement said.

6. Biting baller ban

Luis Suarez, the footballer who bit Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini in the World Cup Uruguay vs Italy clash, has been banned from all football for four months and an additional nine Fifa international matches.

Suarez will miss the rest of the World Cup and the start of the Premier League next season.

7. Jimmy Savile

Warning: This item contains descriptions of horrific abuse and may be distressing for some readers.

Macabre reports of UK entertainer Jimmy Savile interfering with corpses have emerged.

An investigation revealed claims that Savile, a hugely popular radio and TV personality who died in 2001, abused 60 people at the Leeds General Infirmary, Fairfax Media reports.

The claimed incidents, published in the investigation’s conclusion on Thursday, ranged from inappropriate touching to rape and involving victims from children to pensioners.

Investigators were also given “macabre accounts” of Savile “acting unacceptably” with dead bodies in the mortuary of the hospital.

In one case at a hospital in Leeds, where Savile worked for four decades as a volunteer porter and fundraiser, he fondled the breasts of a teenager through her hospital gown as she lay on a trolley following a lengthy medical procedure, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Savile also bragged about having jewellery that he had had made from glass eyes taken from the deceased, witnesses told investigators.

Savile had unrestricted access to the hospital through his work with its charity.

UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt apologised to victims on behalf of the government for not protecting themfrom Savile.

“We let them down badly and however long ago it may have been, many of them are still reliving the pain they went through,” Mr Hunt said.

8. Warning over USB chargers

Authorities have issued a warning over buying cheap phone chargers after a woman was found dead with headphones in her ears and a laptop on her chest. She had sustained burns to her ears and chest.

NSW Fair Trading Commissioner Rod Stowe told Fairfax Media that a number of USB-style chargers, travel adaptors and power boards that did not meet Australian safety standards had been removed from sale at a mobile phone accessory stall in Campsie, in Sydney’s south-west, following the death.

Fair Trading warn consumers who have bought the products to throw them away, they also say that people should also not use any electrical devices while they are plugged in and charging

9. Toddler tried to save mother from being beaten

A shocking video has merged on Facebook and Youtube of a toddler trying bravely to save his mother from being beaten by another woman in Salem in Massachusettes.

The horrific video shows several bystanders watching while the two-year old boy kicks at his mother’s attacker.

Salem Chief of Police John J Pelura III said: “There is a moral and social break-down in the fabric of our society which is clearly evident when a woman gets pummeled in broad daylight in front of her child while a dozen people pull out their phones to record the incident instead of calling for help.”

“There is so little regard for human life — by the actor and the bystanders,” he said, as NJ.com reported.

Warning: the video below depicts graphic violence.

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

10. Mum arrested over refusing to give her baby formula

A mother in the US has been arrested after she refused to give her baby formula as she was concerned it had animal products in it.

The vegan mother’s newborn was severely dehydrated.

For more read this post here.

11. Mother dies two days after giving birth

A UK family have been left devastated after a new mother has inexplicably been found dead in her hospital bed following a routine caesarean section birth.

The Oldham Chronicle reports that Lisa Parkisson gave birth on Saturday – but was found in a pool of blood in her hospital bed on Monday morning.

Her mother told The Mirror that Lisa had an emergency casearean and had complained of an excruciating headache during the birth. The family are demanding answers.

For more on this story, see this post.

12. BRW Rich List

This years BRW Rich list has seen the total wealth on the BRW Rich 200 list reach $193.6 billion this year, up from $176.8 billion in 2013.

There are a record 39 billionaires on the list this year. 14 of them women.

Gina Rinehart is once again the number one richest person with wealth of $20.01 billion, Anthony Pratt second, then James Packer and Frank Lowry.

The youngest is 30-year-old Owen Kerr, the co-founder of online foreign currency dealer Pepperstone – he is worth $250 million.

13. Perth cafe outrage

A Perth café that docked pay if the staff did not get a pork belly dish ‘crispy enough’ has been fined by the Fair Work Ombudsman.

The Subiaco cafe regularly docked the wages of its employees, including deducting $100 each time they were more than five minutes’ late for their rostered shifts.

They were also fined $30 if a tomato was placed in the wrong layer of a club sandwich, $12 for overcooking a waffle and $10 for failure to prepare parsley for the following day.

The Australian reports the staff, mainly from India and Nepal, were once asked to pay up to $1200 each out of their own pockets for in-house cooking demonstrations by the cafe’s head chef.

14. Father told missing son is found, live on air

A father of a boy who went missing for 11 days was told his son had been hiding in his basement live on TV.

More and more young Australian women are contracting HIV, frontline sexual health workers say.

The Guardian reports that sexual health counsellors are calling for targeted awareness campaigns as young women from Australia increasingly contract HIV on gap years and working holidays.

“Because Australia has been quite successful at HIV treatment and prevention, young people are not aware that in many other countries the risks are different,” HIV support organisation Living Positive Victoria’s chief executive, Brent Allan,told The Guardian.

“I work at the coalface of those who have been diagnosed, and when people share their transmission story I am hearing more women saying they are contracting HIV in this way,” he said.

The most recent statistics from the Kirby Institute at the University of NSW revealed the number of HIV infections across Australia rose by 10 percent last year, The Guardian reports.

That statistic represents the fastest increase in about 20 years.

What news are you talking about today?