Principal and teacher groups are pushing for mandatory Special Religious Education (SRE) to be scrapped from high school after 43 per cent of students did not nominate a religion last year.

The number of New South Wales Public school students who do not identify with a religion has surged by 13 per cent in the three years to 2018, making non-believer the fastest-growing group, ahead of Islam and Hinduism.

French billionaires Francois-Henri Pinault and Bernard Arnault are copping a mountain of criticism after they tried to outbid each other with pledges in the hundreds of millions of euros to fund the rebuilding of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

People are wondering why the billionaires were so quick to pledge funds to rebuild a cathedral when there are so many other issues that need to be fixed in France.

Philippines authorities are still searching for survivors after a magnitude 6.1 earthquake on Monday killed at least 11 people.

ABS-CBN News reports five were killed while dozens are missing after a four-storey supermarket in Pampanga province north of Manila collapsed.

Pampanga Governor Lilia Pineda told local radio, search and rescue operations are continuing at the supermarket where as many as 30 people are feared to still be trapped.

Queensland has welcomed its very first female Police Commissioner following the retirement of its previous commissioner who served more than 45 years.

Katarina Carroll has previously held many other impressive titles including serving as chief superintendent and assistant commissioner of the Queensland Police Service, and the Queensland Fire and Emergency Service Commissioner in December 2014, becoming the first woman in Australia to hold such a position.

In local news, eight lime scooters have been removed from the streets following an incident in which vandals altered the audio files to play offensive messages.

A video of this broadcast was shared to social media which prompted the company to start actively checking whether any other scooters have been tampered with.

Looking across the nation, a recent study has shown lakes in Tasmania’s world heritage listed area have shown some of the highest levels of heavy metal contamination recorded.

Historical mining has been found as the source of these metals, with lakes as far as 130km from the mines being contaminated, including the iconic Dove lake which sits at the foot of Cradle mountain.

An argyle mine in the east Kimberley region of Western Australia has found one of the largest white diamonds ever produced which is a significant find for the diamond mine before they shut down in 2020.

The octahedral-shaped stone, discovered in March, is 28.84 carats and was named Argyle Octavia.

Argyle General Manager of Operations, Andrew Wilson, says, "[The company doesn’t] see many this shape, or colour, or that clarity, generally out of the mine. We’ve probably seen 20 of those in the last 36 years of operations, of the plus-20-carat size.”

In international news, in a letter written to Members of the European Parliament Brunei has defended its decision to impose the death penalty as punishment for gay sex.

Dated April 15, the letter stated that Brunei enforced its own legislation in the interest of preserving its traditional, religious and cultural values, and, as such, they began using the Sharia laws from April 3, punishing sodomy, adultery and rape with the death penalties such as stoning and theft with amputation.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has announced the world’s first malaria vaccine will be given to about 360,000 children in three African countries as part of a large-scale pilot project.

Malawi has already begun vaccinating children under the age of two and Kenya and Ghana will commence vaccinations in the coming weeks.

According to WHO, the vaccine allows for partial protection from the disease and clinical trials have found that approximately four in 10 malaria cases were prevented as a result.