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. Seven homes lost in Victoria bush fires.

Conditions have now eased in some of the fire-affected areas in Victoria’s northeast with rain falling.

The CFA has confirmed that yesterday’s blaze at Scotsburn destroyed five homes, while two others were partially damaged but deemed inhabitable.

The Scotsburn blaze was downgraded overnight to an advice message.

Emergency warnings were still in place for Leneva and Leneva West, as well as for Yackandandah, Wooragee and Indigo Upper. The emergency warning for Barnawartha, Barnawartha North and Indigo Valley has been downgraded to a watch and act.

The fire has burnt 5,400 hectares.

At one property 7000 sheep were killed in the blaze.

For up to date fire conditions go to the CFA website.

2. Hoax bomb found on Air France plane.

A suspicious device found in the bathroom of an Air France plane has been found to be a hoax.

The Boeing 777 was heading to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris from Mauritius when its pilots requested an emergency landing early Sunday at Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa.

The head of Air France, Frederic Gagey said the device was made of cardboard, paper and a household timer.

“This object did not contain explosives.” he told a press conference.

The plane was carrying 459 passengers and 14 crew members on board.

Six passengers, including the man who alerted the cabin crew to the device are being investigated.

3. Mother jailed after microwaving newborn baby.

A mother has been sentenced to life in prison after putting her one-month-old daughter in a microwave and “cooking” her “until her organs were ‘cooked through”.

The US mother, Ka Yang, 34,  put her baby in the microwave for up to five minutes in March 2011.

She was convicted of first-degree murder and assault of baby Mirabelle Thao-Lo.

The court heard that the little baby had fatal thermal injuries and suffered burns to over 60 per cent of her body and would have “suffered severe pain throughout the ordeal.”

A lawyer acting for the mother said that the mother had an epileptic seizure and didn’t know what she was doing reports The Star.

“Ms. Yang suffers from epilepsy. She had an epileptic seizure. It was not deliberate conduct.”

Yang who has has three other children told investigators that she blacked out while working on her computer in March 2011 and woke up to find her baby injured she then changed her story to say she had a split personality.

4. Schools to target girls in maths and science.

Children in their first year of school will be given science lessons and girls in primary schools will be encouraged to take up maths and science reports News Limited.

Assistant Science Minister Karen Andrews urged parents of girls to forgo the traditional girls toys and instead think about giving them kaleidoscopes and telescopes this Christmas.

Ms Andrews said the Government was working on a plan to develop science lessons specifically for four and five year olds. She said that the government planned to get girls interested in science as early as possible and to keep them engaged through primary and secondary school.

We know that three-quarters of the jobs of the future will require strong science and or maths skills,’’ Ms Andrews said.

“And we know there is a declining number of students in Year 12 doing science subjects or advanced maths.”

She said that after year 5 there was often a switch off by girls.

“Whether that’s because the girls at that point lose confidence in general, I don’t know.

“A lot of it is social encouragement … (and) there’s probably a lot of unintentional bias towards toys that girls and boys are given in their young years.

“Girls are often unintentionally steered towards arts and humanities and boys are more often steered towards maths and science.”

5. Teen is critical condition after party stabbing.

A teenager is in a critical condition and two others are stable after a man attacked partygoers with a knife on Saturday night.

Angelo Amar, 16, was stabbed three times and remains in a critical condition in Royal North Shore Hospital after a 21-year old man said to be ‘crazed’ attacked revelers at the house party.

A 21-year-old man was arrested at Hornsby Police Station yesterday and charged with three counts of wounding a person with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and one count of possessing or using a prohibited weapon without a permit.

6. Protests over the freeing of one of the Delhi juvenile gang rapists.

The youngest rapist in the notorious 2012 Delhi gang rape case has been released from prison.

The rapist, who cannot be named as he was a minor at the time of the crime, was sentenced to a maximum three years in a reform facility in August 2013.

The gang-rape on a bus in Delhi and the subsequent death of the 23-year old woman caused global outrage.

Although the convict is now an adult, he was tried as a juvenile and has served the full sentence allowed.

He has now been handed over to a charity, where he will remain because of fears over his safety.

Four adult convicts in the case are appealing against death sentences. A fifth died in prison.

According to the BBC the release of the man has prompted huge protests – including from his own parents.

7. Warnings over Christmas drones.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority has put out a warning for anyone unwrapping a drone this Christmas with a $9000 fine for breaching safety laws.

“Although recreational drones are small they can cause injuries to people and they can be a real risk to the safety of other aircraft,” CASA’s director of aviation safety Mark Skidmore said.

Safety rules include: keeping a drone in sight, not flying at night, keeping at least 30 metres away from people, buildings and vehicles, and staying below 400 feet.

Drone users are also banned from flying devices near aircraft or over crowds or groups of people.

8. Siberian town wants a cat for their mayor.

A town in Siberia might have a cat as top dog if residents get their way with an 18-month-old Scottish Fold cat, submitted as a candidate for the mayoral election.

The residents of Barnaul in Siberia found the mayoral candidates weren’t quite purr-fect so they found an alternative.

Barsik, an 18-month-old Scottish Fold cat, is running against six human candidates and recently received 5000 votes in an unofficial poll on a regional social media page, Altai Online, on the Russian social site VK.

The administrator of the forum, Altaysky Seyatel, told CNN the votes, which accounted for more than 90 per cent of the poll, were due to “the other candidates not being well known to the citizens of the city”.

“People don’t understand the other candidates’ programs, their motives for the nomination, or what they want to do for the city,” he said.

Another poll on the page identified corruption among local authorities as the biggest problem in Barnaul, something that has apparently troubled residents about other human candidates.

Yevgeny Kuznetsov told The Guardian “People don’t know who to trust any more”.

“They have come to the conclusion that they can’t trust the authorities.”

With a little purr-suasion the town might just see mayor Barsik before too long.

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