Friday afternoon'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. Woman adopted out to paedophile has case rejected by child sex abuse royal commission.

Trigger warning: This post contains details of child sexual assault.

A victim of child sexual abuse is calling on the Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse to include adoption agencies.

A woman named as Carla was sexually abused as a child by her adoptive father, but says the Royal Commission has rejected her application for a hearing.

“They said my abuse occurred within the family, not an institution,” Carla writes alongside her petition.

However, Carla believes the adoption agency that placed her in the care of this man should be held responsible.

“The social worker provided the courts with a glowing recommendation of my paedophilic ‘dad’ – sentencing me to years of disgusting and unrecoverable sexual abuse,” she writes.

“Innocent children placed in the custody of society’s worst predators – all because adoption institutions are failing to check the safety and background of guardians properly – this needs to be heard by the Royal Commission, urgently.”

Carla has started a petition calling for the cases of adopted children to be heard by the Royal Commission.

It currently has over 8,700 signatures, with a goal of 10,000.

Related content: The land of limbo. Aussie foster kids wait five years for adoption.

2. Cave men and women were equal, study finds.

New research has found pre-historic tribes held men and women to equal esteem, and both sexes had an influence on where the group lived and who they lived with.

The study conducted by anthropologist Mark Dyble, challenges the idea that gender equality is a modern concept.

“There is still this wider perception that hunter-gatherers are more macho or male-dominated,” Dyble told The Guardian. “We’d argue it was only with the emergence of agriculture, when people could start to accumulate resources, that inequality emerged.”

Dyble says the latest findings suggest that equality between the sexes may have been a survival advantage and played an important role in shaping human society and evolution.

3. Britain’s youngest mum pens a novel about her childhood.

Britain’s youngest mum has written a novel about her abusive childhood.

Tressa Middleton was raped at the age of 12 by her 16-year-old brother, and fell pregnant.

While at the time she maintained the child was a product of a drunken liaison with another teen, it came out two years later that her brother was the father.  He was subsequently jailed for four years for the offence.

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She gave her child up for a adoption but now, at the age of 22, Tressa has written a novel — in which she wrote that her daughter is “never far from her thoughts.”

She also encouraged other victims of abuse to come forward.

“If anything like this happened to you as a young girl you must speak out,” she told British morning show, ITV.

4. Survey reveals Australia’s dream employer.

Australians have named mining giant Rio Tinto as their most sought-after employer, despite the company cutting back staff.

The study of 12,000 Australians, conducted by online professional networking platform LinkedIn, found that workers still had an eye on the resources sector as the number one destination for jobs.

Google ranked in second place, followed by BHP Billiton and Microsoft.

Banks, airlines and technology companies featured heavily on the full list of 30 companies.

5. NSW towns covered in spider webs.

It’s raining spiders in the New South Wales Southern Tablelands — covering fields in a white sheet of cobwebs.

One resident from Goulburn told the Sydney Morning Herald it was like his house had been “abandoned and taken over by spiders.”

“The whole place was covered in these little black spiderlings and when I looked up at the sun it was like this tunnel of webs going up for a couple of hundred metres into the sky,” Ian Watson told SMH.

According to scientists, the “flying” technique in which spiders cast a silky web which carries them through the sky is a common migration habit.

Hail in Sydney. Meh. It rained spiders in Goulburn this month via @ingating http://t.co/XZVXME4X23 pic.twitter.com/BqjmOT7Wht

— Eryk Bagshaw (@ErykBagshaw) May 14, 2015

6. Man, 73, faces court charged with shooting murder.

By ABC NEWS

A 73-year-old man has appeared in a Hobart court charged with murder after the shooting of a woman on a main Hobart road on Thursday afternoon.

Klaus Dieter Neubert, from Lymington, has been charged with the murder of 37-year-old Olga Neubert.

Related content: 25 Australian women have died in alleged domestic violence incidents this year.

He has also been charged with causing grievous bodily harm to Josephine Ramos Cooper by shooting her in her hand.

Neubert also faces several firearms offences, including possessing a shortened firearm and possessing a loaded firearm without a licence.

There was no plea and he was remanded in custody until June 4.

This article was originally published by ABC News.

7. Jayant Patel barred from medical practice in Australia.

Former Bundaberg surgeon Jayant Patel has been barred from practicing medicine in Australia, a court has decided.

Mr Patel was jailed for killing three patients but was released after a successful appeal in the high court.

ABC News reports Queensland’s Civil and Administrative Tribunal handed down its judgment this morning, finding Mr Patel lied to be registered in Queensland and hid matters which questioned his suitability.

8. Budget 2015: Paid parental leave scheme will not be amended; PM’s office confirm Abbott misheard question.

By ABC NEWS

The Prime Minister’s office has moved to clarify Tony Abbott’s comments about the Government’s planned changes to the Paid Parental Leave scheme, which appeared to confirm the stricter requirements would only apply to public servants.

The Coalition wants to tighten the rules so new parents can no longer claim paid leave from both their employer and the Government, something several ministers have described as “double dipping”.

Labor criticised the policy and warned it would impact on low income workers who have bargained away other entitlements for better parental leave arrangements.

Tony Abbott was asked directly in this morning’s media conference whether the Government was “considering amending your paid parental leave proposal to prevent only public servants from accessing both schemes?”

Mr Abbott replied: “Well, yes we are”.

“The point I keep making about this year’s budget is that it’s measured, responsible and fair and what’s fair about Commonwealth public servants getting two lots of paid parental leave from the taxpayer,” he said.

However, the Prime Minister’s office says Mr Abbott misheard the question and there is no change to the policy that was put forward in the budget.

A version of this post originally appeared on ABC News.

9. Darling Downs teenager flees country, joins Al Qaeda affiliate says Australian Federal Police.

A Darling Downs teenager has been radicalised and joined a terrorist group in Syria, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) has confirmed.

The AFP says the 18-year-old fled Toowoomba last month and is believed to have joined the Al-Nusra Front, the official Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda, and several Islamist factions.

In March, Al-Nusra Front forces captured the Syrian city of Idlib, the second provincial capital to fall into rebel hands during the civil war of more than four years.

The AFP said he concocted a story to trick his family into allowing him to leave.

His family is said to be distraught and is trying to convince him to come home.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said it highlighted the importance of funding for security agencies.

He said the Government was taking strong actions to protect Australians from being radicalised.

“It’s so important for us to have the strongest possible police and security agencies here to guard against anyone who has been radicalised and potentially brutalised by the propaganda and brainwashing of this death cult,” he said.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the news was concerning.

“We need to make sure that disengaged youth are not being subjected to encouragement from terrorist organisations,” she said.

“As a state and as a country we need to do more.”

Islamic Council of Queensland spokesman Ali Kadri said the council was surprised by the man’s actions.

“We were quite surprised about such a young person taking drastic action and joining a foreign war,” he said.

Mr Kadri said many young Muslim men in Australia feel disenfranchised and the community and governments need to work together to engage with them.

“The Prime Minister or the top ministers attacking Muslims makes them feel more marginalised and alienated,” he said.

“I would request politicians to watch what they say and be measured in their statements and not just make dog whistle political statements and address the issue at its core.”

Last month former Queensland doctor Tareq Kamleh appeared in an Islamic State propaganda videorevealing he had travelled to Syria to work for the terrorist organisation.

He urged other Australian medical professionals to do likewise.

A version of this post originally appeared on ABC News.

10. Sydney street evacuated after reports of a bomb scare.

A man has been arrested and a Sydney street blocked off by NSW police.

Phillip Street has been blocked off and 7News reports several floors of 52 Martin Place — a building which houses the NSW Premier — have been evacuated.

SBS News reports a NSW Police spokeswoman said a man was in custody, but it was not believed to be a “terror related” incident.

7News reports the man was a Thrifty van driver.

The spokeswoman could not confirm reports of a bomb threat.

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