Annastacia Palaszczuk yesterday launched the 2019 Premier’s Reading Challenge stemming from her life-long love of reading.

The Premier launched the challenge at her old primary school, Jamboree Heights State School yesterday. Ms Palaszczuk encouraged statewide participation in the annual program aimed at inspiring children to read books, engage in shared reading, or listen to a book being read.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos who also heads space company Blue Origin has unveiled a mock-up of his proposed lunar lander in Washington.

Bezos says the lunar lander could be used to transport equipment and possibly people to the south pole of the moon by 2024.

The vehicle, titled Blue Moon, has been under development for the past three years and now has the capacity to carry scientific instruments and four self-driving rovers.

Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook called on Thursday for the ownership of Facebook to be broken up, warning that Mark Zuckerberg has become too powerful.

In an editorial published in The New York Times, Mr Hughes says that Mr Zuckerberg's focus on growth has led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks," and warned that his global influence had become "staggering".

Labor plans to unveil its policy costings on Friday, showing it expects to make budget savings of $154 billion over the next decade.

Australians are being promised a budget surplus in the coming financial year regardless of who they vote for in the federal election.

The budget surplus would stem from Labor government cracking down on tax concessions.

The ACCC has blocked the proposed $15 billion TPG Vodafone Hutchinson Australian Merger.

The competition regulator decided two smaller contenders fighting from different corners, with different techniques, offered a better shot at taking on the industry giants rather than one middle size contender.

In ACCC chair Rod Sims' opinion, TPG is the best prospect Australia has for a new mobile network operator to enter the market, and is likely the last chance Australia has for stronger competition in the supply of mobile services.a

Education Minister Grace Grace on Thursday officially opened a $7.04 million learning and music block at Dalby State School, two years after fire destroyed a 156-year-old heritage-listed building.

On April 24 2017, a blaze gutted the school’s administration space, staffroom and music hall, while other classrooms were extensively damaged by smoke and water.

Seqwater is working with QUT Institute for Future Environments to revolutionise the testing of water quality by introducing SAMMI, a robotic water tester.

SAMMI, or Seqwater’s Autonomous Motorised Monitoring Instrument, was built out of a need to conduct routine water quality monitoring in difficult to access locations.

Queensland Natural Resources Minister Anthony Lynham says ‘with this new technology in combination with Seqwater’s existing fixed network, water quality monitoring will be more efficient and effective.’

On thursday, Pope Francis called for a new law within the Church requiring all Catholic priests and nuns to report clergy sexual abuse and cover-ups, in a new effort to hold the Catholic hierarchy accountable for the church’s long and documented history of assault.

The decree provides whistleblower protections for anyone making a report and requires systems to be put in place to allow for clergy workers to make reports confidentially.