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Wednesday's news in 5 minutes.

1. US mother sentenced to 15 years jail for having sex with two teenage boys.

A married mother-of-two in the US has been sentenced to up to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to criminal sexual conduct for having sex with two teenage boys.

Brooke Lajiness, 38, from Michigan told authorities she attracted the boys’ interest by sharing naked pictures of herself on Snapchat. Soon after, she began showing up at their parents’ houses late at night to engage in sexual acts in her car, MLive.com reports.

“This has been the biggest regret of my life,” Lanjiness told the court. “My family means everything to me, and I’ve caused them great pain for these regretful choices I have made.”

She has been sentenced to up to 15 years in prison, MLive.com reports, with a non-parole period of four years and nine months.

To read more of this story, click here.

2. Measles outbreak warning in Perth school attended by 200 unvaccinated children.

The West Australian Heath Department is desperately trying to stop the spread of measles after a possible outbreak at a Perth public school attended by up to 200 unvaccinated children.

A high school student from the Perth Waldorf School – a Steiner school in Bibra Lake – was infected with measles while holidaying in Europe, ABC reports.

He was diagnosed back in Australia and there are now fears he may have spread the infection to fellow students. There are 400 pupils at the school, and as many as half are unvaccinated.

“The school is to exclude all exposed unvaccinated contacts from attending school until there is no longer a risk of them developing measles and exposing additional school children,” a statement from the WA Health Department said.

“Measles-mumps-rubella vaccine is available for free to anyone not already vaccinated aged 19 years and under through the National Immunisation Program.”

3. Commonwealth Bank bosses lose millions in bonuses over alleged breach of anti-money laundering laws.

Commonwealth Bank executives will be hit in the pocket over the bank’s alleged breaches of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws, with chief executive Ian Narev and others losing their bonuses.

CBA said its board still has full confidence in Mr Narev but short-term incentives for the CEO and other executives will be cut to zero to demonstrate “collective accountability” for what it has said was an IT error, AAP reports.

Mr Narev was paid $1.43 million in short-term cash bonuses in the 2015/16 financial year, when CBA handed out a total of $8 million in short-term cash bonuses to the CEO and 11 executives.

“The board recognises heightened public interest in executive remuneration, particularly having regard to the civil penalty proceedings initiated last week by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC),” CBA chairman Catherine Livingstone said in a statement.

To read more of this story, click here.

4. T-shirts slammed for trying to “reclaim” the swastika symbol.

A clothing design company has been slammed for trying to “reclaim” the swastika as a symbol of peace by selling T-shirts and jumpers branded with multi-coloured swastikas through a US retailer.

KA Designs – a company with the self-professed tagline “questioning boundaries” – tried selling a line of ‘The New Swastika’ products through retailer TeeSpring.

“The swastika is coming back, together with peace, together with love, together with respect, together with freedom,” a Facebook video from KA Designs promoting the products says.

The response has been swift and severe, with The Israeli Jewish Congress labelling the concept “obscene and disgusting”.

The T-shirts have since been taken down, with TeeSpring issuing an apology for the incident.

To read more of this story, click here.

5. Woman receives death sentence for killing 10-year-old cousin by locking her in a box.

Jurors in the US have sentenced a woman to death in the killing of a 10-year-old cousin who was locked in a small plastic storage box and left to die as punishment for stealing an ice pop.

Phoenix, Arizona, woman Sammantha Allen, 29, will become the 55th woman on death row in the US after the jury reached its verdict on Monday.

Jurors had been deliberating since Wednesday on whether to send Allen to death row or spare her life in the 2011 killing of Ame Deal. She was convicted of first-degree murder and four counts of child abuse on June 26.

To read more of this story, click here.

6. A third of Australians are suffering from depression or anxiety, new research shows.

Australia has scored poorly in a report on the nation’s mental health which found 39 per cent of participants were depressed and another 37 per cent were anxious, AAP reports.

The report, called Australia’s Biggest Mental Health Check-in, involved 3102 people aged between 18 and 89, including employees at corporations such as Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Wesfarmers.

“Alarmingly, the check-in revealed nine-in-10 participants exhibiting symptoms of a severe mental health illness, were neither undergoing, nor yet to receive, treatment,” project creator and psychologist Peta Slocombe said.

“Life is evidently much harder for many Australian adults than what it should be.”

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Top Comments

Cath Fowlett 7 years ago

I wish they'd stop calling this the lucky country. It was, but things have changed. The stats on depression say it all.

WTH is going on with these women in the news more and more, having sex with teen boys? I don't get the attraction at all.