NASA’S rover Perseverance touched down on Mars this morning, after travelling to the planet for over seven months. 

This is NASA’S most advanced astrobiology laboratory ever launched to another planet, the Perseverance’s mission will be to search for signs the planet once harboured microbial life on Mars, over three billion years ago when the planet was covered in water. 

The project has cost $2.7 billion over the past two years; two more missions to mars are planned to retrieve the samples within the next decade

Melbourne has recorded three new coronavirus cases linked to the Holiday Inn outbreak, taking the states total to 22. 

All three new cases have been quarantining at home and there is little concern for community transmission. 

Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley says the Government is continuing to locate primary close contacts to the cluster. 

“We had a total of 1507 primary contacts associated with the Grand Hyatt outbreak. We now have around 942 left. We contacted around 350 people yesterday to stand them down,” he said.

In local news, Anti CCP activist and UQ Student Drew Pavlou is currently on his way to Adelaide to protest the appointment of former UQ Vice-Chancellor Peter Høj to the University of Adelaide. 

"[Høj] was getting over $200,000 every year to deepen ties with China while China operated concentration camps where 3 million Muslims were tortured raped, bashed and beaten, and I think that's absolutely unacceptable," Pavlou said. 

Dozens have been arrested in protests over the arrest of the outspoken, left-wing rapper Pablo Hasél in Catalonia, Spain. 

The rapper was taken into custody on Tuesday, on charges of glorifying terrorism and slandering the Crown and State institutions, via controversial tweets and song lyrics.

Protesters see Hasel’s arrest as a blow to freedom of expression in Spain.

Content warning: sexual assault

Text messages obtained by The Australian newspaper today have called into question a statement by Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Monday responding to the alleged sexual assault of Liberal National Party staffer Brittany Higgins. 

A former colleague and friend of Higgins former claimed they spoke directly to the Prime Minister’s office about the incident in text messages sent in 2019, less than a fortnight after the alleged rape, contradicting the PM’s claim he only learned of the assault on Monday February 15th of this year.

A camp of Gubbi Gubbi Nation and other protesters remains in place after failing to comply with an eviction notice issued earlier this week. 

Protesters were warned they would be arrested for trespassing if the camp remained in place, but an injunction filed in the Supreme Court on Wednesday has protected them from removal thus far. 

The camp, established outside the Djaki Kundu sacred site near Gympie, has been protesting construction work on the Bruce Highway they fear will destroy the sacred site, since January 25th this year.