Sensitive content: This story contains sensitive content around transphobia 

Professor Patrick Parkinson, the current Dean of Law at the Univeristy of Queensland recently comapred Transgender individuals to the Coronavirus virus, declaring it an ‘epidemic’. 

He has previously made hateful comments against the LGBTQI+ community in the past. 

Unfortunately UQ has responded in support of the Dean on grounds ‘of academic freedom’.

Australian Universities are reporting spikes in the number of undergraduate enrolments for students interested in environmental studies.

At Griffith University’s School of Environment and Science, Professor Catherine Pickering says more and more students are choosing courses within her school.

Professor Pickering says an increase in climate change awareness and discussion, particularly among young people, is the cause for this anomaly.

A highly sensitive military database containing the personal details of tens of thousands of Australian Defence Force (ADF) members has been shut down for 10 days due to fears it had been hacked. The system which is managed by an outsourced company was shut down in February amid fears the information had been compromised. 

The US state of Tennessee has been hit by tornadoes.

Twenty-two people have died and 40 buildings have reported structural collapses.

Emergency workers are still working through the wreckage looking for survivors.

European borders have recently been opened to refugees, arriving from Turkey, in response to the escalating war in Syria. 

Statements from officials report thirty-three Turkish soldiers were killed by government troops in the northwest Syrian airstrike in late February. 

These events have contributed to rising tensions and the decision to recently open the border.

The involvement of Russian-backed troops is cause for concern of a war outbreak between Turkey and Russia. 

The last Ebola patient in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been discharged from a treatment center.

The 42 people that she came into contact with are still being monitored but this still serves as a huge accomplishment in the country’s fight against Ebola. 

The regional director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) for Africa said she applauds the tireless efforts that have been made to respond to this outbreak and she is truly encouraged by the news that the last Ebola patient has left the treatment centre healthy. 

The Gossip Girl reboot is officially underway with a whole new cast of New York socialite teens to be stalked by a mysterious ‘Gossiper’.  Original cast members have been asked to come back to voice the ‘Gossip Girl’. 

The show will be set eight years after the ending of the original show. Showrunners have said the series will be more diverse and will have queer cotent that the orignal didn’t have.

Gossip Girl, while controversial, was a pop culture phenomenon, with the show launching fashion and social trends that defined the 2000s. 

The Palaszczuk government has given the residents of Burdekin ten million dollars for a new permanent water source.

The money is going to pay for three new bores, a new reservoir, associated pumps and connecting water main to allow the primary water source to be moved from the Nelson’s Lagoon bores to an alternate Ayr location.

This comes after per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances were discovered in the town water in 2018 which can lead to adverse health outcomes in humans.

Swathes of central Australia are preparing for the best rain in two years as the Bureau of Meteorology forecasts a five hundred kilometre band of rain heading for the east coast.

The bureau has issued a warning for heavy rain for towns as far north as Mt Isa and as far south as Shepparton in Victoria as ex-tropical cyclone Esther  travels across the country from Western Australia.