RUSH HOUR: The stories you need to know today
WHEN a group of friends rented a property just outside Paris on Airbnb, they couldn’t believe what they found in the garden.
- Airbnb users find dead body in the backyard
- Irish priest caught doing cocaine in ‘Nazi room’
- Optus denies it plans on cutting 1000 jobs
- New laws and penalties for cyclists come into effect in NSW
Good morning, and welcome to our headlines-in-a-hurry news coverage. We bring you the morning’s biggest stories so you can get across the news quickly.
10am:
That’s it for our live #RUSHHOUR news blog. You can get across the stories you need to know today below or go to news.com.au for the latest headlines.
9:35am:
The parents of a man who was killed along with his wife on their honeymoon have expressed outrage that their son’s killer was allowed to release a rap song from inside prison.
Kaniel Martin, 28, was one of two men who killed British couple Ben and Catherine Mullany during a botched robbery attempt in Antigua in 2008.
Martin is now in prison where he recently won a talent contest for his prolific rapping, the BBC reports. His latest music video has been released online, however the victim’s parents have expressed dismay.
“I can’t believe he was allowed to do this — it is not something that could happen here in this country,” Ben’s mother Marilyn Mullany said.
“It’s awful, I wish Ben was here to write a song,” she added.
'Disgust' at killer's rap videohttps://t.co/swf2yTHo9l
— BBC Wales News (@BBCWalesNews) February 29, 2016
Kaniel Martin murdered Swansea's Ben and Catherine Mullanyhttps://t.co/2okoG57tq3
9:15am:
US Secretary of State John Kerry kicked off a round of strategic talks with Pakistan on Monday by hailing a documentary film credited with changing attitudes to so-called “honour killings”.
A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness won the Academy Award for best documentary short at the Oscars ceremony yesterday, and was on Kerry’s mind as he opened the annual US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue.
“This film told the remarkable story of a very courageous young woman who survived an attempt at an honour killing by her father and her uncle,” Kerry told the assembled diplomats from both countries.
“And yet even more remarkable was that after the initial screening Prime Minister Sharif pledged to change laws that allow such barbaric practices and murders,” he added.
“And that is a sign of how a great work of cinema can shine light on a subject on real world challenges and it can actually promote positive change.”
-AFP
9am:
At long last political commentator and satirist John Oliver has addressed Donald Trump.
“Our main story tonight is Donald Trump. And I say that knowing every time his name is said out loud, he has a shattering orgasm,” Oliver began.
The host reasoned with his largely liberal audience members, citing the fact that Trump has claimed three states during the Republican primaries.
“Polls show him leading most Super Tuesday states,” he explained, “Which is a big deal.” He compared the real estate mogul turned reality star turned presidential candidate to a proverbial back mole on the country: “It may have seemed harmless a year ago, but it has gotten frighteningly bigger and it is no longer wise to ignore it.”
“Donald Trump can seem appealing until you take a closer look,” warned Oliver.
“Much like a lunch buffet at a strip club. Or the NFL. Or having a pet chimpanzee.”
8:45am:
A teenage girl is the latest victim of a series of attacks on women in Adelaide.
A man threatened the 16-year-old with a knife while she walked in the southern suburbs on Monday afternoon, police say.
He is thought to be the same suspect who followed and assaulted four women in nearby areas on Sunday morning. A police taskforce has been set up to help catch the suspect.
-AAP
8:30am:
Americans are not known for their astute geography skills, so a recent CNN news bulletin that claimed our fair country was building a fence at the Slovenian border likely didn’t raise too many eyebrows.
However one Twitter user picked up on the comical error after seeing an on-screen banner exclaiming: “Australia building fence at Slovenian border”.
Apparently the Coalition government is really stepping up its border security...
This seems a little paranoid for an island nation thousands of miles away. pic.twitter.com/6jTLYhGwqz
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) February 29, 2016
8:15am:
Sugar cane farmers are lobbying the Turnbull Government to help North Queensland become the marijuana capital of Australia to help save the local economy and keep families on the land.
While it maybe the most profitable crop in North Queensland — it is illegal to grow — and now farmers want a cut of the action.
Farmers in Burdekin and Mackay are lining-up to find out if they qualify to grow medicinal marijuana, reports The Courier Mail. They are also putting pressure on the Government to relax laws to allow them to grow cannabis for food and industrial uses.
Member for Dawson George Christensen addressed a small group of farmers on Friday and will hold further talks in the Burdekin this week. He said North Queensland was good country to grow marijuana.
It is currently illegal for low-THC food, which is high in protein, to be sold on supermarket shelves.
8:05am:
Optus has responded to reports it is planning to axe about 1000 workers in a $215 million cost-cutting exercise.
The telco plans to use savings from shedding 10 per cent of its workforce to support its ambitions to buy up sports media rights, The Australian reported this morning.
In a statement to news.com.au, a spokeswoman for Optus said the business was reviewing its operations “to ensure it has the right organisational structure in place to achieve its goals”.
However, in the statement, the business denied immediate plans to make 1000 roles redundant.
7:55am:
A new review of female viagra in the US has received mixed reactions from users, with many saying it doesn’t work all that well.
The drug, Addyi, has been on the market since October, reports CNN, but the drug intended to boost the sexual desire of its female users isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
In various studies involving nearly 6,000 women, on average they said the number of additional “satisfying sexual events” averaged out to about 0.5 per month.
After being denied approval twice, the drug was approved by the FDA last year to treat women with a “sudden loss of libido”.
The drug is not yet available in Australia.
7:40am:
International animal advocates are calling for a federal watchdog for animal welfare in Australia, using the recent live baiting greyhound scandal and puppy farms as proof not enough is being done.
World Animal Protection has released a report calling for political parties to commit to creating an independent office of animal welfare, arguing Australia’s “patchwork” of laws are failing animals.
The lack of national standards was also putting farming and its 200 million animals at risk, it said.
“The system as it stands is not good enough,” head of campaigns Nicola Beynon said this morning.
The report, Advance Australian Animal Welfare, uses the frequency of animal welfare incidents, including live baiting in the greyhound racing industry, to argue for the national body. Australia’s live export trade and puppy farms also receive regular public criticism, it said.
Australian standards fall short of other countries, allowing battery-caged hens and body mutilations without pain relief, the report said.
-AAP
7:30am:
A journalist covering a Donald Trump rally has reportedly been “chock slammed” by a security guard at the event.
An Instagram video (which has since been deleted) shows the photographer being picked up by the throat and thrown to the ground.
Christopher Morris, who was on assignment for Time magazine, was then escorted from the event and briefly detained for touching Donald Trump — an accusation he denies.
“I stepped 18 inches outside of the pen and he grabbed me by the neck and started choking me and slammed me to the ground,” he said.
The photographer was reportedly snapping crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters, who disrupted the Trump rally by marching out with their hands above their heads, when the attack took place.
Secret Service agent choke slams reporter pic.twitter.com/jdsHOlylSB
— Joe Perticone (@JoePerticone) February 29, 2016
7:15am:
Russian police have arrested a nanny for beheading a young girl in her care, investigators said.
Local media is reporting the Burqa-clad woman was arrested on Monday while carrying the child’s severed head outside a metro station in Moscow.
The Investigative Committee said the body of a child aged three or four years with “signs of violent death” had been found earlier on Monday in an apartment in northwest Moscow after a fire was extinguished there.
“According to preliminary information, the child’s nanny — a native of one of the Central Asian countries, born in 1977 — waited until the parents left the apartment with their elder child and, guided by unknown motives, killed the little one, set the apartment on fire and left the scene,” the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
7am:
Police have ordered an evacuation of a row of apartment building in Sydney’s inner west this morning, after one of the structures partially collapsed overnight.
About 40 people have been evacuated from the housing units above a row of shops on Liverpool Road in Enfield after they began sinking, reports Nine News.
When authorities arrived at the scene at about 9:20 last night, they found immense structural damage and a gas leak.
6:50am:
Hundreds of refugees on Monday tried to break through a border fence into Macedonia from Greece, where more than 7,000 people are stranded, as anger mounted over barriers to entry imposed on migrants.
In a sign of widening divisions within the European Union, German Chancellor Angela Merkel meanwhile lashed out at Austria and Balkan states on the migrant route for abandoning debt-laden Athens to refugee chaos.
And Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov warned that once Austria reaches its limit on migrant entries this year, the Balkan refugee route will have to close.
On the frontier, Macedonian police fired tear gas as some 300 migrants forced their way through a Greek police cordon and raced towards a railway track between the two countries.
“Open the borders!” they shouted as a group of men used a metal signpost to bring down a section of barbed wire fencing, prompting police to fire volleys of tear gas and prevent them from crossing.
At least 30 people, many of them children, requested first aid in the stampede that ensued, the charity Doctors Without Borders said.
-AFP
6:40am:
New laws come into effect today for cyclists in NSW including a steep rise in fines for a number of infringements.
From today, cyclists are required to carry a license when riding. A failure to do so will incur a stiff financial penalty.
The fine for riding without a helmet has surged from $71 to $319. Riding dangerously and running a red light will now incur a $425 fine — the same amount for a driver who runs a red light. Cyclists will be fined the same $425 amount for failure to stop at a pedestrian crossing, and $319 for holding onto a moving vehicle.
The change in law has been criticised by cycling advocates who say it will discourage people from using bicycles on the state’s roads.
6:30am:
Treasurer Scott Morrison says he remains committed to cutting income tax, as the backbench rebellion against any changes to negative gearing on real estate continues to build.
The Treasurer is searching for ways to provide an economic boost that would allow him to cut income tax rates, but has been struggling to finalise an economic reform package since Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull ruled out raising the GST to 15 per cent.
A report in the Herald Sun this morning claims the Government is considering targeting some investors who heavily negatively-gear their properties, but are facing pushback from economic conservatives who believe it undermines the political attack against Labor’s far-reaching policy, which would claw $32 billion out of taxpayer pockets in the next 10 years.
Mr Morrison addressed the economic backbench committee yesterday and confirmed he was still considering some changes to negative gearing.
6:20am:
A Catholic priest has been caught on video snorting what appears to be cocaine in a room with Nazi memorabilia.
Fr Stephen Crossan of Dromore, Ireland, has taken leave from the priesthood since the footage was published by The Sun on Sunday in the UK.
The priest can be seen saying “I shouldn’t” as he snorts the substance.
According to the BBC, Father Crossan admitted to taking the drugs but said: “It was just the one night and that was it.”
The impromptu shin dig is believed to have taken place last year at Fr Crossan’s parish home in the grounds of St Patrick’s Church. As for the multiple pieces of Nazi memorabilia, Fr Crossan said he collected historical items from every country.
Northern Ireland priest 'caught snorting cocaine in Nazi room' https://t.co/UbzWSWs7PX pic.twitter.com/cFzwUD7ZOs
— Belfast Telegraph (@BelTel) February 29, 2016
6:10am:
Of all the horror stories of renting an Airbnb home, this has to be one of the worst.
When a group of mates hired an Airbnb property in French town just outside Paris, they were shocked to discover a decomposing body of a woman in the garden.
“Her body was found at the bottom of the property which opens out into a woods,” a police source said, according to The Guardian.
The woman’s body was found “hunched in a dug-out area, her head against the ground, covered in branches and surrounded by wood stumps,” the officer said.
The group who reported the body to police found the home on the popular home sharing service after renting the property in town of Palaiseau.
Review on Air BnB: I give this property 4 stars. Next time, bury the body better. https://t.co/kTwRfrHfKK
— Alex Finley (@alexzfinley) February 29, 2016
6am:
Cardinal George Pell has met with Pope Francis at the Vatican ahead of his second day of testimony to the Australia Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sex abuse.
The 74-year-old’s discussion with the Catholic Church’s leader was prearranged, according to Italian media who have covered the hearing as it’s the first time a senior figure in the church has faced questions on sexual abuse since Józef WesoÅ‚owski.
The Polish former Vatican ambassador died of natural causes in August last year while awaiting trial over alleged sexual abuse of children committed in the Dominican Republic. He was also accused of possessing child pornography and seen as a key test of the Holy See’s commitment to investigating abuse within its ranks.
During the opening day of the Royal Commission, Cardinal Pell said he would not “defend the indefensible” and admitted the church had “mucked up” when it came to treatment of sexual abuse survivors, but maintained that he knew nothing specific about abuse in the diocese at the time he was there.
5:45am:
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been moved to tears describing the story of an elderly indigenous woman and the importance of preserving native languages.
In an interview with NITV on Monday, Mr Turnbull spoke about a book he was shown while researching his Closing The Gap speech.
It contained a lullaby in the Ngunnawal language recounted by an elderly woman from the NSW Southern Highlands, who remembered her mother singing it to her.
It’s understood the woman was from the stolen generations.
“The thing that is so sad is to imagine that mother singing that story to her at a time when you are losing culture and the last thing that baby was, was safe,” Mr Turnbull told The Point program.
“That’s why it made me sad just to think about it.”
Mr Turnbull opened his speech earlier this month in the Ngunnawal language and pledged $20 million in funding for language preservation programs.
In the wide-ranging interview, Mr Turnbull also said a 2017 referendum on constitutional recognition was possible.
“I believe it’s feasible to have a vote next year.
“We will need overwhelming support for it to be carried.”
-AAP
Inside feud that brought Sydney to a halt
Five months of transport disruptions and chaotic commutes were brought to an abrupt halt this week after a fiery fight between the unions and the government.
Driver charged over meat cleaver incident
A man has been charged after reports a driver allegedly wielded a meat cleaver at other drivers on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Commuters warned of further travel chaos
Commuters are being urged to brace for another day of cancellations and delays as the rail union and the NSW government take their fight to court.