RUSH HOUR: The stories you need to know today
THE CEO of Snapchat - the favoured sexting app of teens - has showed his own sleazy side in a series of emails about drunken sex and peeing on his girlfriend.
TODAY
• ‘Drunk sex would be good’: Emails written by Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel when he was a university student and frat boy have showed his sleazy side.
• Entertainer Rolf Harris has conceded he admired the bikini of a 13-year-old girl.
• Four of the kidnapped Nigerian girls being held by Boko Haram militants have escaped.
• Cyclist Sue Abbott will be riding without a helmet this afternoon as part of a protest ride against “sexist” bike helmet laws.
10am
That’s it for our Thursday morning live #RUSHHOUR news blog.
You can get across the stories you need to know today below, in the meantime all the latest headlines are right here on news.com.au. See you bright and early tomorrow morning.
9.55am
An Australian woman has been jailed for up to 27 years in Cambodia for attempted heroin smuggling.
Yoshe Ann Taylor, 41, and French woman Charlene Savarino, 19, were arrested at Phnom Penh International Airport with 2.2 kilos (4.8 pounds) of heroin in a backpack in September last year.
9.45am
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has ruled out chasing HECS debts owed by the dead, despite his Treasurer Joe Hockey appearing to back the idea less than an hour earlier.
The prospect of collecting outstanding higher education debts from the dead had been flagged as student fees become an increasingly hot topic.
9.30am
Treasurer Joe Hockey’s student protest days have been revealed in a video filmed in 1987 that ironically shows him arguing against the introduction of university fees.
More than 20 years later and Mr Hockey is now defending the deregulation of university fees that could see costs triple and a reduction in government support.
9.15am
A Chinese general has called the United States the “world’s No. 1 cyber thief” and said its spying agencies should be charged by other countries.
According to Xinhua, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s deputy chief of general staff, said at an international security seminar on Tuesday: “In terms of both military and political intelligence and trade secrets, the United States is the world’s No. 1 cyber thief and its spying force should be indicted”.
It comes after the US announced an indictment against five Chinese military officers on allegations of commercial cyber theft last week.
9am
The true scale of Australia’s obesity epidemic has been laid bare in new research which shows we’re expanding at the same rate as the United States.
The largest increase in adult obesity in the world occurred in Australasia in the past 30 years, according to the damning new league table of world fat rates.
8.45am
A US woman has been arrested after allegedly pushing her wheelchair-bound mother off the curb after a family dinner, citing “52 years of s**t”.
Patricia Tavernier had just celebrated her 52nd birthday with family members at a Florida restaurant, before tipping her mother “head first into the cement”, police said.
8.25am
A US Navy official says that four pings heard in the southern Indian Ocean are no longer believed to be from the black box of missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.
8.20am
Clive Palmer says a secret dinner meeting last night with Liberal MP Malcolm Turnbull, who is a “personal friend”, hasn’t changed his Budget views.
He said the Liberals should be a low-taxing party and said dinner at a Canberra Chinese restaurant had not changed that. “I can’t remember who paid the bill, all I know is I didn’t.”
8.15am
The Australian Crime Commission also took the unprecedented step of issuing a statement late yesterday to quash reports that the student allegedly murdered by ex-detectives Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara was working undercover.
Jamie Gao’s body was found on Monday and he allegedly handed over 3kg of methamphetamine to the detectives, who were reportedly deeply involved in Sydney’s debt collection circles, before he died.
Gao reportedly faced court on kidnapping and assault charges just one week before he was allegedly shot dead by former detectives and dumped at sea.
Detectives are also looking into a possible connection to a massive drug seizure involving Chinese students in Auburn the same day Gao died.
8am
Author and poet Maya Angelou, who rose from poverty, segregation and violence to become a force on stage, screen and the printed page, has died.
The 86-year-old was described as being tall and regal and had a deep, majestic voice. She was one of the first black women to enjoy mainstream success as an author.
7.45am
Four of the kidnapped Nigerian girls being held by Boko Haram militants have escaped, a local education official has said.
Reuters reported that the election commissioner in Borno state - the state where the girls were abducted from - revealed the four had managed to get free but declined to give further details of the escape.
It leaves 219 still missing, according to official figures.
7.30am
CYCLIST Sue Abbott will be riding without a helmet this afternoon as part of a protest ride against “sexist” bike helmet laws.
Ms Abbott is from NSW but was fined $153 in Adelaide for riding without a helmet. She said the laws were “ridiculous” and turned people, especially women, off cycling.
“It is a very sexist law because a lot of women have maintained hairstyles and would end up with helmet hair — and women have told me that’s one of the factors (for not riding bikes)’’.
7.15am
A mass sentencing of 55 people in China’s north-western Xingjiang province has taken place in an open-air trial at a stadium.
About 7000 people and Communist Party officials watched as the people in China’s mainly Muslim Xingjiang were found guilty of terrorism, separatism, rape and murder, according to Xinhua.
Three of the prisoners were sentenced to death for using hatchets and other weapons to murder a family of four last year “using extremely cruel methods”.
7am
Entertainer Rolf Harris has conceded his admiration of the bikini of a 13-year-old girl he later allegedly indecently assaulted during a beach holiday, may have been a sexual reference to her body, a court has heard.
The 84-year-old entertainer in his second day in the witness box was softly spoken, barely audible in part, as he was placed under cross-examination by prosecutor Sasha Wass QC.
That was in marked contrast to his testimony yesterday in which he sang a verse of his hit tune Jake the Peg and mimicked a wobble board sound.
6.45am
The daughter of a fugitive Korean tycoon accused of being responsible for last month’s ferry disaster which claimed about 300 lives, has been detained in custody in France.
Korean authorities want to talk to Yoo Som-Na, 47, in connection with their investigation into the sinking that killed hundreds, most of them schoolchildren.
Judicial sources said a judge had decided against releasing her on bail pending extradition proceedings after arrest on Tuesday, under an international arrest warrant.
6.30am
NSW roared new life in State of Origin last night with an epic 12-8 win in State of Origin I before 52,111 fans at Suncorp Stadium.
The victory is being attributed to Jarryd Hayne on the NSW side and had given the team hope of ending Queensland’s eight-year reign. Queensland blames the result on a loss of cohesion and execution, with half-back Cooper Cronk’s broken arm personifying the cracks in the Maroon’s campaign.
In other bad news, the psychic saltwater croc of Crocosarus Cove was unable to accurately predict the outcome, pointing to a QLD win, and will retain his amateur psychic status.
6.15am
Emails written by Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel when he was a university student and frat boy have showed his sleazy side.
In the emails on published on Gawker, Spiegel urges his friends to ‘f**k b*****s get leid’ and complains that members of another female fraternity are “more frigid than previously anticipated”.
He goes on to write “drunk sex would be a ton of fun right now”.
In another email he tells fellow fraternity brothers to give themselves a pat on the back “or have some girl put your large kappa sigma d**k down her throat”.
He also jokes about peeing on his girlfriend.
“Did I just pee on Lily while assuming the big spoon position?,” he writes.
“Maybe I can blame this on her ... The back of her shirt is soaked. She’s gonna to be super irritated. This is pretty gross.”
6am
Good morning, and welcome to our “headlines in a hurry” morning news coverage. We will be bringing you the best of what’s happening this morning, so you can get across the news quickly.
‘Historic:’ Hanson’s surprise election victory
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party has nabbed a fourth Senate seat, with the party leader praising the “historic result”.
Next step for housing after Rosehill failure
The green light has been given for 1500 new homes near the Sydney CBD days after a “once-in-a-lifetime” $5bn project was shot down.
Woman arrested after alleged stabbing spree
A woman has been charged following an alleged stabbing spree in Victoria which left four men hospitalised.