Monday'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. PM refuses to confirm or deny whether Indonesian people smugglers were paid to turn back a vessel.

There are growing calls for the Prime Minister to answer questions on whether the federal government is paying people smugglers to turn back asylum-seeker boats.

Australian Greens leader Richard Di Natale said payments to people smugglers by the Australian government effectively puts Australia in the people smuggling business.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has hit back however telling The Australian that Indonesia was to blame for failing to enforce sovereignty over its own borders.

Ms Bishop said, “I look forward to hearing the full ­results of Indonesia’s investigation of the people-smuggling crimes committed in Indonesia.”

“The best way for Indonesia to resolve any concerns it has about Operation Sovereign Borders is for Indonesia to enforce sovereignty over its borders.”

Her comments come just a day after Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi sought an explanation from Australia’s ambassador Paul Grigson over the claims,

2. Mother slammed as totally irresponsible by police.

A mother will appear in court today after being involved in a high speed police chase with her children, aged just 3-months old and 14-months old. The woman has been branded as “disgusting” by police.

The 33-year-old mother had her two children in her car when she allegedly hit five cars in a high-speed pursuit in western Sydney on Saturday night.

The woman has been charged with several offences including driving while unlicensed, speeding, reckless driving, negligent driving and failing to stop during a police pursuit (Skye’s Law).

Sky News reports that Inspector Ken Hardie from Liverpool police described the woman’s actions as ‘totally irresponsible’.

“I can’t believe that a woman with such young kids, who she only gave birth to not long ago, would act in that sort of manner.”

3. Rachel Dolezal to make a statement today.

Rachel Dolezal, the 37-year old US leader of the Washington chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People whose parents outed her as primarily European, rather than partly African-American as she had claimed for decades, will make a statement today about her claims.

Dolezal took to social media over the weekend stating that people should respect her decision about whether she “wants to be black or white”.

Her father, Lawrence, told The New York Post last week. “Rachel is a master artist,” he said. “And so she’s been able to disguise herself and make her appearance look like any ethnicity.

The part time professor in the Africana Studies program at Eastern Washington University said she will make a statement at a Monday night meeting of the NAACP group.

“As you probably know by now, there are questions and assumptions swirling in national and global news about my family, my race, my credibility, and the NAACP,” Dolezal’s  said in a message “I have discussed the situation, including personal matters, with the Executive Committee.

“I support their decision to wait until Monday to make a statement. The Executive team asked that I also release my response statement at the same time, which will be during the 7-9 p.m. monthly membership meeting.”

4. Ted’s back!

A very happy owner in Melbourne has been reunited with missing Schnoodle puppy Ted.

A wide social media campaign was launched after Ted was dog-knapped from his Windsor home on June 4.  

It’s believed thieves took the 15-week old during a burglary.

Owner, Ally Munro said she saw the puppy peeking into the back window of her home last night. She thinks the thieves that took him returned him.

5. Mum slept while toddler boys wandered in park.

Police yesterday released the image of two young boys found wandering a park in Geelong dressed only in nappies.

The two boys aged 18-months old and 2-years were found by concerned members of the public in Stead Park about 3pm on Sunday.

The boys were dressed by the locals before police released an image of them in an attempt to find their relatives.

Police finally located their mother who had fallen asleep on the couch when the boys made their escape.

“The police found the door to the home unlocked and a woman asleep on the couch who did not know where her children were,” a police spokesman said.

“It looks like the mother nodded off at some point in the afternoon and the boys took a stroll to the park together.”

News Limited reports that the single mother was a stay-at-home mum and did not appear to be affected by drugs or alcohol when she was found by police.

6. Bill Shorten back ahead as preferred leader.

A Fairfax-Ipsos poll has shown that the government’s refusal to legalise same-sex marriage has seen Labor leader Bill Shorten regaining his edge over Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister.

Labor is ahead in the two-party-preferred vote standing at 53 per cent to 47 per cent for the Coalition.

The poll showed that seven out of 10 voters disagree with Mr Abbott’s refusal to legalise same-sex marriage, and only 29% of capital city residents believe housing is affordable for prospective first home-buyers.

7. Flooding causes zoo animals to escape in Georgian city.

Heavy flooding in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, has killed at least 12 people and seen an unknown number of animals escape from a zoo.

A hippopotamus was cornered in one of the city’s main squares and subdued with a tranquilizer gun.

Bears and wolves are among the animals who fled from their enclosures amid the flooding from heavy rains and high winds.

Residents have been warned to stay indoors until the animals are subdued.

8. Doctors calling for an end to the “inhumane” mandatory detention of asylum seekers.

Writing in the Australian Medical Journal Professor Nicholas Talley, the president of The Royal Australasian College of Physicians, has called once again for doctors to hold policymakers to account for the mandatory detention of children in offshore detention centres.

“The evidence is in, and it’s irrefutable – Australia’s detention of asylum seekers is harmful to both adults and children,” writes Professor Nicholas Talley.

He urged his colleagues to lobby their local MPs.

“We suggest public views are fed by fear and systematic exposure to misinformation about ‘illegals’ and ‘queue jumpers’,” he said.

“Detained children experience significant language and developmental delays, sleep and behaviour disorders, mental health conditions and inadequately treated physical health conditions at greater rates than refugee children who are not detained.”

The mental conditions include post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidality.

“There are no circumstances, from a health perspective, in which conditions in detention are acceptable.”

9. Parents use swimming pool as daycare.

Police have issued a warning for parents to pull their head in after reports that a public swimming pool is being used as cheap daycare.

Yesterday The Sunday Telegraph reported that police said children as young as six were being left unattended at the Hornsby Aquatic Centre, on Sydney’s far north shore.

In one case, reports the newspaper, officers were left minding a six-year-old for six hours.

Senior Constable Paul Cleary said “I can only conclude they are going shopping and rather than have their kid tag along with them, they are dropping them off there, before picking them up later on.”

Parents that do leave their children however are not facing criminal prosecution.

“From a legal standing, it is not the same as leaving a child in a car on a 40-degree day while you spend two hours in the casino, where you have got limited air in the car and there is the potential for the car to be stolen,” Sen Const Cleary said.

Police cannot charge offenders because the children are not in “imminent danger.”

Instead they are referred to Family and Community Services.

10. Philae Lander wakes from hibernation. Scientists everywhere jump up and down with joy.

The European probe that made a failed bouncy landing on a comet last year, and then slipped into a silent hibernation, is alive again and phoning home.

The Philae comet lander, which dropped onto Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from the Rosetta spacecraft last November, beamed an 85-second wake-up message to Earth via Rosetta yesterday.

It was the first signal from Philae in seven months since the probe fell silent on Nov. 15 after its historic comet landing.

“Philae is doing very well,” Philae project manager Stephan Ulamec of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), said in a statement. “The lander is ready for operations.

Over the last seven months scientists in Europe have hoped that once the comet approached closer to the sun Philae might receive enough sunlight to wake itself up.

And it seems that Philae is well and truly up and working.

The probe tweeted:

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