The British government has promised to fund free sanitary products for school and college students.

England will fund free sanitary products for students after teachers expressed concerns that some girls were skipping classes during their period because they could not afford to buy tampons and pads.

The government initiative will take effect at the start of the next school year in September 2019.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he will not endanger Australians by helping home-grown Islamic State terrorists return to the country.

Mr Morrison’s remarks come after pleas for help were made by an Australian woman trapped with her two young children in a refugee camp for Islamic State families.

He said that although it is tragic that IS sympathisers have dragged their children into warzones, they still need to take responsibility for their decisions.

The High Court has denied an appeal by Tasmanian councils to overturn a Supreme Court decision that exempts not-for-profit organisations from paying rates.

Retirement Village operator Southern Cross successfully took a case against the council last year as they faced a $564,000 increase to their rates.

Hobart Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds said the decision will force a council rethink as more organisations claim the charitable rates exemption, and that they will have to work out how to make up the funds.

Clive Palmer’s wife will appear in court today in relation to his collapsed company Queensland Nickel after her application refusing to testify was rejected.

Anna Alexandrova Palmer will be questioned in the Federal Court in Brisbane, and is also expected to produce management accounts and bank statements for Mr Palmer’s company Mineralogy.

A cyber expert researcher has uncovered an unsecured Chinese database listing identity numbers, education levels and marital status of over 1.8 million women, including a ‘BreedReady’ status.

The meaning of the database’s classification ‘BreedReady’ is still unclear, with speculation it could be a poor translation into English meaning anything from women of child-bearing age to women who actually have children.

The women range from between 15 to 92 years old, with 90% of the database’s females single at an average age of 32.

Federal prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation into several data deals between Facebook and some of the world’s largest technology companies, further increasing scrutiny of Facebook’s business practices.

A grand jury in New York has subpoenaed records from at least two prominent makers of smartphones and devices who had entered into partnerships with Facebook, gaining extensive access to the personal information of hundreds of millions of its users.

A new report from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau showed Australian planes hit more than 16,000 birds in the past 10 years with the most bird strikes happening in Brisbane.

The new report from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau released on Wednesday showed there were 1139 bird strikes in Brisbane, the most of any Australian city between 2008 and 2017.

The Commonwealth Bank has indefinitely suspended plans for a $4 billion wealth management mortgage-broker business following the banking royal commission.

The bank said it is still committed to the demerger but plans on addressing issues raised by the commission before proceeding with the project.

The planned demerger will combine several non-core businesses of the bank under one banner, NewCo.

Patients in Logan and Redland hospitals are waiting up to three days for a bed in emergency departments.

Australasian College for Emergency Medicine president Simon Judkins visited the hospitals after hearing patients were waiting for 24 hours for a bed and, in some extreme cases, up to 72 hours

Judkins said putting patients in a chair to wait for three days is inhumane and intolerable, especially considering the type of patients emergency departments receive.