Thursday's news in under 5 minutes.

We’ve rounded up all the latest news from Australia and around the world – so you don’t have to go searching.

1.  Ruling on Baden-Clay expected today.

The High Court in QLD will announce today if it will allow the Queensland Director of Public Prosecutions to appeal Gerard Baden-Clay’s downgraded manslaughter sentence.

Last year Baden-Clay’s murder conviction of his wife Alison was downgraded to manslaughter after the Queensland Court of Appeal set aside the murder finding saying the Crown had failed to prove Baden-Clay intended to kill his wife.

Baden-Clay’s legal team had argued there was sufficient evidence to prove that he had killed her, but insufficient evidence to prove he had done so intentionally.

The Queensland’s Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) appealed to widespread public condemnation after his conviction was downgraded.

Today the High Court will either grant special leave for the full bench to hear the appeal, refuse the application or ask for further oral submissions before it makes its decision.

It is widely believed in legal circles that special leave to appeal the controversial ruling will be granted today meaning the case will be argued before the full High Court at a later date.

2.  Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull named in Panama Papers.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has become embroiled in the Panama Papers scandal after being exposed as a director for a company that used the law firm.

The Australian Financial Review reports Mr Turnbull was on the board of Star Mining NL, a British Virgin Islands company set up by law firm Mossack Fonseca to develop a gold mine in Siberia.

In late 1993 Mr Turnbull was appointed a director, alongside former NSW Premier Neville Wran, of one of Star Mining’s subsidiaries, Star Technology Service.

Star Technology Service had been incorporated by Mossack Fonseca two years earlier.

When questioned by the AFR a spokesman said the prime minister was not aware the company had been administered by Mossack Fonseca.

The paper reports that is no indication that the prime minister acted improperly.

Mr Turnbull and Mr Wran resigned from Star Mining on September 1 1995 citing work commitments in Australia. They stepped down from Star Technology on September 25.

Iceland’s prime minister, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson was the first political casualty of the Panama Papers after he stepping aside from his office after it was revealed that his family had sheltered money offshore.

According to The Herald Sun the Taxation Office is investigating about 800 Australians in relation to the Panama Papers.

3. 18 people hurt by Thermomixes with at least 83 accidents.

Choice has found that at least 18 people have been injured after using their thermomix.

A “mass incident report” by the consumer group found that Thermomix should have made at least 10 mandatory notifications to the safety regulator over serious injuries caused by the kitchen appliance.

News Limited reports that whether Thermomix made any notifications is unknown as the information is confidential.

Choice has catalogued 83 incidents involving TM31s and four about the newer TM5.

The TM31 has a defect listed with its sealing ring on the ACCC recall site in October 2014 due to the possibility hot liquid or food might splash out of the mixing bowl.

Choice spokesman Tom Godfrey said the company was trying to “downplay the danger”.

“It is deeply concerning that, in a number of cases, when the company was informed of an incident they blamed the consumer by classifying the product’s failure as ‘user error’,” he said.

4. Teachers in fear after principal chased with an axe by students.

A group of teachers and a school principal in a remote town in Cape York have been evacuated en-masse amid fears for their safety.

The principal of the school Scott Fatnowna was confronted by a group of teenagers, one brandishing an axe, on Saturday when he drove to help some colleagues that the group were threatening.

Mr Fatnowna was among 25 education workers from Noel Pearson’s Cape York ­Aboriginal Australian Academy Aurukun campus flown to Cairns after Education Minister Kate Jones ordered their urgent evacuation on Tuesday.

About 1am on Sunday youths were loitering outside the house of a teacher causing a disturbance. Mr Fatnowna came to the teacher’s aide but was assaulted and his car stolen.

The school is expected to re-open next Thursday following a safety review.

5. Man who raped his wife over a pair of wrongly coloured socks has sentence cut.

"The applicant [the guard] became angry because his wife did not have the correctly coloured socks ready for him to wear with his work uniform" Image via Facebook.

A security guard who raped his wife because she did not have the right coloured socks for him to wear to work has had his jail sentence cut by 21 months.

The Court of Appeal yesterday reduced the man’s jail time from 13 years with a minimum of 10 years to 11 years and three months with a minimum of eight years.

The man was jailed in 2015 for a series of rapes.

Fairfax Media reports that the first rape took place in May 2001 when the guard and his wife were living together with their first child in Essendon.

"The applicant [the guard] became angry because his wife did not have the correctly coloured socks ready for him to wear with his work uniform," Justice Ferguson of the Appeals Court said.

"His wife laughed because she did not think that her husband was serious.

"The applicant took his wife by the back of the head to the laundry, pushed her head into the pile of dirty laundry in the washing basket and told her it was her job to take care of the laundry."

The guard then raped his wife as she screamed at him to "stop" and "get off".

The guard went on to rape his wife another five times over the next 10 years.

"There is no doubt that the first three rapes committed by the applicant were committed in circumstances where he exercised his dominion as a husband over his wife and took advantage of their marital relationship," the judge said.

"The last three rapes were committed in circumstances where the applicant took advantage of his wife's willingness to put her children's relationship with their father [after the couple had separated] ahead of her own interests and safety.

"In each instance, the applicant treated the complainant as his property, not as an equal, nor as a person worthy of his respect. That is abhorrent and cannot be tolerated."

The couple divorced in 2012 and the guard had remarried in February 2013 and had another child.

For domestic violence support 24/7, call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732). 

6. Woman in her 70s gives birth to baby boy.

An Indian woman in her 70s has given birth to her first child.

Daljinder Kaur,72, gave birth to a baby boy after two years of treatment using donor eggs at a fertility clinic in northern India.

Kaur said she and her 79-year-old husband Mohinder Singh Gill had almost given up hope of having a child after 46 years of marriage due to infertility.

"God heard our prayers," she told AFP.

"My life feels complete now. I am looking after the baby all by myself. I feel so full of energy. My husband is also very caring and helps me as much as he can."

The baby has been named Arman

Anurag Bishbnoi, an embryologist and owner of the National Fertility and Test Tube Baby Centre in Hishar, has performed successful IVF treatment on several elderly couples.

He said Kaur and Gill had faced several obstacles in their quest to become parents and previously could not afford treatment.

After unsuccessful attempts to conceive, they adopted a boy in the 1980s but he went to the US to study and never returned.

7. Australian students falling behind in maths and science.

The report found that increased spending on education had not led to better outcomes. Via IStock.

A new report has warned that Australian students have fallen behind Asian countries despite record spending on education.

The Australian Council for Educational Research report criticised a widening gap between the performance of rich and poor students.

The author of the report Geoff Masters, chief executive of the Australian Council for Educational Research said that Australia was “drifting backwards”.

"We ignore these warning signs at our peril ... Unless we can arrest and reverse those trends we will continue to see a decline in the quality and equity of schooling in this country," he said.

One in five Australian students failed the minimum standard in maths in the OECD’s 2012 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)

The report found that increased spending on education had not led to better outcomes.

"A decline in outcomes has often occurred in parallel with increased spending," Professor Masters said.

"Money alone is not the answer, but to turn around current trends we may need more money."

The report says fewer Australian students are studying advanced maths and science subjects in high school, while 40,000 teenagers failed the minimum international standard for reading at the age of 15. It says teachers are required to teach too much content in a “crowded curriculum”.

The Age reports that Professor Masters said, "passive, reproductive learning" in schools was also a problem.

8. Pregnancy warning on folate and Vitamin B12.

Pregnant women who take too much folate and vitamin B12 may increase the risk of autism in their babies research has shown.

The controversial research, yet to be peer reviewed, is from scientists from Johns Hopkins University.

They found that taking too many folate supplements may double the chances of a mother’s child developing the developmental disorder, while very high vitamin B12 could triple the likelihood of autism.

The researchers said excessive levels of both nutrients boosted the risk level 17.6 times.

But other experts have said pregnant women should treat the findings with extreme caution.

Senior study author Dr Daniele Fallin, director of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School's Wendy Klag Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities, said: "Adequate supplementation is protective: that's still the story with folic acid.

"We have long known that a folate deficiency in pregnant mothers is detrimental to her child's development. But what this tells us is that excessive amounts may also cause harm. We must aim for optimal levels of this important nutrient."

9. Queen caught on camera calling Chinese officials "very rude."

The Queen has been caught on camera saying Chinese officials were "very rude" during last year's state visit.

The Royal Monarch was speaking to a senior police officer at a garden party in Buckingham Palace when the unguarded comments were recorded.

When officer Lucy D'Orsi told the royal she was Gold Commander during President Xi Jinping's visit, the Queen replied: "Oh bad luck."

Commander D'Orsi continued: "It was, I think the point they (President Jinping and his wife) walked out of Lancaster House and told me that the trip was off that I felt..."

"They were very rude to the ambassador," the Queen said.

"They were, well yes, Barbara (Barbara Woodward, the British ambassador to China) was with me and they walked out on both of us."

"Extraordinary," the Queen replied.

"It was very rude and undiplomatic I thought," the commander said.

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