The Gold Coast council has invested $100,000 in a music festival this week to boost interest in live music and support local acts and venues, which suffered under the COVID-19 restrictions.

However, due to ongoing restrictions, venues are unable to let patrons dance indoors, with artists feeling extra pressure to perform and provide a positive experience to make up for it. 

Many residents whose homes were damaged in a Brisbane hail storm over a month ago have still been unable to return to living in their houses. 

Despite around $305 million in damages, necessary repairs have been unable to go ahead quickly due to low resources of construction materials and many workers being unable to travel interstate during the lockdowns. 

Rent in the area has skyrocketed, leaving many families competing for the same properties and many still unable to afford to move, but unable to live in their damaged homes.

An advisory body of the UNESCO world heritage committee has found that climate change threatens a third of the world’s natural heritage sites, including five within Australia. 

The conditions of the sites, which include the Great Barrier Reef, Blue Mountains, Gondwana Rainforests, Shark Bay, and Ningaloo Coast, have all worsened significantly in the past three years, with the Great Barrier Reef now in critical condition.

A Sydney hotel worker has tested positive to Covid-19, ending the state’s 26-day streak of no locally acquired cases.

Confirmed by the NSW health minister Brad Hazzard, it is said the woman worked at both the Ibis and Novotel hotels in Darling Harbour doing ‘domestic work’.

The woman’s test returned positive yesterday morning, however her five family members returned negative results, further investigations are now underway.
 

Singapore has given a US startup their approval to sell lab-grown chicken meat, a world-first regulatory approval for a slaughter-free meat product according to the organisation.

In its first launch, the meat will be sold in the form of chicken nuggets at a restaurant in Singapore with its price similar to that of premium chicken.

The introduction of this new food product reflects a surge in demand for alternatives due to environmental, health and animal welfare concerns.
 

The UK has approved the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, becoming the first country to approve a vaccine for the virus, with 800,000 vaccines doses set to arrive soon.

As the vaccines will be stored in hospitals, they are likely to be used there initially, before staff and residents of elderly care homes are prioritised first. 

While the vaccine will not be compulsory, it will be free and accessible from hospitals, specialised vaccination clinics and community GPs and pharmacists.
 

Transport minister Mark Bailey has announced that public transport fares will be frozen in 2021 in order to encourage commuters to return following the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns.

TransLink has been hiking public transport fares since 2018, but this and the COVID-19 lockdown have caused a decrease in public transport users by about 80% at the height of the pandemic. 

In addition to freezing fares, a new app that will forecast transport capacity and extra bus and train services will be added to aid and prepare commuters for social distancing.