Cafes have changed the way we socialise, according to QUT senior lecturer Emma Felton.

Dr Felton’s project shows cafe culture is now a firm fixture in Australian living and provided a meeting place for a diverse range of people, and are even outpacing the craft breweries popping up in many suburbs.

She says more Australians are bonding over coffee, as it’s a business-friendly location, it’s quicker, and, with the rise of contract work, it is often the chosen location for contract workers who still want to be around people.

Queensland politicians are heading back into parliament today to debate a number of social issues.

A long-awaited Human Rights Bill will enshrine 23 human rights such as a freedom of expression and a right to education.

The Palaszczuk will introduce a revenge porn bill to criminalise the sending, or threatening to send, intimate material without consent.

Debate will also resume on the Land, Explosives and Other Legislation bill which aims to ban perpetrators of domestic violence from obtaining an explosives license.

The African Union is communing in Ethiopia for its annual summit today to examine whether it has succeeded in its aims to provide African solutions for African problems.

Since the union’s inception in 2001 it has failed to enforce democratic principles and institutions after questionable election results in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2018 and Burundi in 2015, while the continent still hosts 6 of the world’s top 10 longest serving non-monarch leaders.

A group of 27 Russian children whose mothers are being held in Iraq for belonging to Islamic State of Iraq and ISIS arrived home in Russia over the weekend.

A Russian foreign ministry official says the fathers of the children aged four to 13 were killed during three years of fighting between ISIL and Iraqi troops.

Anna Kuznetsova, Russia's envoy for the rights of children, confirmed the comments, according to the state news agency.

Australia’s aged care systems will be examined in a new royal commission beginning today.

The inquiry comes after whistleblowers revealed Adelaide’s Oakdale nursing home was overmedicating and mistreating its residents.

On the eve of the enquiry prime minister Scott Morrison announced an additional $1800 spent on every Australian living in residential aged care.

A New South Wales music festival has been cancelled just a week out from the event, and the organisers say it’s “another example of the government’s war on festivals”.

Mountain Sounds festival was due to be held on the central coast next weekend, however the organisers announced it would not be going ahead on Saturday

Queensland senator Fraser Anning flew to Melbourne on taxpayer dollars this weekend, using the money to attend a far right rally to protest African migrants.

Senator Anning, who called on a ‘final solution’ during his maiden speech to parliament, says African migrants present challenges for his home state and insists he was not walking alongside the group of neo-nazi’s saluting at the crowd.

Deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek says the senator’s actions were disgusting and demonstrate his intention to divide, rather than unite, the country.

Aussie motorbike rider Ben Bird is lucky to be alive after crashing into a potentially deadly wire trap while riding through a forest in Queensland.

Bird was riding his motorbike in the Amamoor State Forest, near Gympie, on Tuesday afternoon when he was unexpectedly struck around the neck by a thin piece of wire between two trees at a height most riders’ necks would be.

Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs Adel al-Jubeir told the US TV programme Face the Nation on Sunday they do not need a UN or international investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as its "competent legal system" can handle the matter.

Al-Jubeir says the slaying of the journalist inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey was "a massive tragedy" and denied it was sanctioned by Saudi Arabia's leadership.

Eleven suspects have been indicted and referred to trial in Saudi Arabia with five facing the death penalty.