Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner has dismissed calls for council to call a climate emergency calling the planned motion “alarmist”.

Greens councillor Jonathan Sri will move the motion at Tuesday’s council meeting calling on the council to declare a climate emergency and develop a major climate plan.

There will be a rally outside the City Hall on Tuesday afternoon attended by Brisbane climate activists after the meeting.

Brisbane Casinos will remain exempt from trading hour restrictions and mandatory ID scanners as the Palaszczuk Government rejects recommendations regarding Queensland’s contentious laws for pubs and clubs.

The government rejected recommendations from ten 1000 page reports, which found the exclusion of casinos from the policy could undermine its effectiveness.

The review’s lead author, Professor Peter Miller from Deakin University, says violence in casinos, the use of illicit drugs and pre-drinking need to be addressed.

Owners of units in Sydney’s Opal Tower are seeking millions of dollars in compensation from Sydney Olympic Park Authority, a NSW State Government-controlled entity that owns the land in which the building sits.

The lawsuit claims a “breach of warranty”, and the $170 million apartment complex was not designed and constructed with “due care and skill”.

The claim states the tower was not reasonably fit for occupation, after it was evacuated on Christmas Eve when residents spotted cracks in the foundations.

90-year-old Lorna Prendergast graduated from the University of Melbourne on Saturday with a Masters of Ageing.

The focus of her Masters studies was music as a form of temporary relief for people affected by dementia.

Mrs Prendergast from the small country town of Bairnsdale, received her Masters degree accompanied by her granddaughters at the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne.

China’s first ‘cyber-dissident’ whose website reported on sensitive topics including human rights, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for leaking state secrets.

Huang Qi ran a website called 64 Tianwang, named after the 1984 Tianenmen Square crackdown. 

Deputy director of research at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders, Frances Eve, stated his sentence sends a strong signal to others documenting abuses and will make it harder to know about the human rights abuses going on inside of China.

According to a climate scientist, extreme global temperatures are pushing the human body “close to thermal limits”. 

Record-breaking temperatures have swept through Europe this week with temperatures topping 40 degrees celsius and in areas of South Asia and the Persian Gulf temperatures are reaching 54 degrees celsius.

Dr Tom Matthews from Loughborough University says these high temperatures caused by climate could make certain areas uninhabitable.

Six regional Queensland towns, including Stanthorpe and Warwick,  will soon begin carting drinking water as the state’s drought conditions worsen.

More than 65% of Queensland is now drought declared, the worst affected being Stanthorpe, ont rack to run out of water by Christmas.

Southern Downs Mayor Tracy Dobie is estimating a bill of up to one million dollars a month just to cart water to the town, a sizeable chunk for a regional council with only 19,000 rates-payers.

The family of the disappeared teenager Theo Hayez who went missing on the 31st May in Byron Bay, has not lost hope in search of finding their son.

Theo’s father told a Belgian radio station he believes his son could still be alive, trapped in one of the region’s cults or communes, unable to communicate with the outside world.

Theo’s phone last “pinged” in the cape Byron area, near the lighthouse, on June 1st.