A study from the USA’s National Institutes of Health has confirmed excessive screen time irreversibly affects children’s brains.

Preliminary results of the study have shown kids who spend more than two hours in front of a screen every day score lower on both language and thinking tests, which is worrying given the average teenager spends up to 6 hours a day on their phone or tablet.

It appears Theresa May’s days as British Prime Minister are numbered, as speculation grows that MPs are gathering to submit a vote of no confidence.

May is currently touring Europe, in an effort to salvage her Brexit proposal which looks doomed to be rejected by the EU, while in Britain, MPs lobby for the 45 votes required to remove her as PM.

A vote could occur as soon as Thursday, with prominent party members like Boris Johnson and Amber Rudd, contemplating running, should May lose.

Queensland’s Youth Safety Minister Di Farmer yesterday released the state’s first Youth Justice Strategy, which aims to cut juvenile crime by 5 per cent within two years.

The strategy involves reducing the number of young people entering detention on remand, ensuring they have the opportunity to apply for bail, and providing them with intensive community support.

The review was prompted after attempts to move 17 year olds out of adult prisons were delayed because of overcrowded youth detention centres.

Labor Left MPs have called for Australia to increase its refugee intake while accepting the party will not change its policy on boat turnbacks.

Labor’s shadow immigration minister, Shayne Neumann, has proposed increasing the refugee intake from     18 750 to 27 000.

The MPs are focused on preserving procedures for medical evacuations from offshore centres and providing a second chance review of cases under the “fast track” process.

Two nuns who worked at a Catholic school in California for several decades embezzled as much as $500,000, and used the funds to pay for gambling trips to Las Vegas.

When confronted, both nuns, now retired, confessed and are cooperating with the investigation, with the money to be repaid and no charges laid.

Neither nun could be reached for comment but the school says both nuns have asked for forgiveness and expressed deep remorse.

David Hanna, former Queensland union boss, has been accused of deliberately disregarding documents to avoid the scrutiny of the Trade Union Royal Commission into alleged corruption.

Hanna asked colleagues to stay back one day after work to help him load seven tonnes of documents that were later tipped in the Ipswich dump, after failing to set alight.

Still unclear what was in the files, the trial continues.

A new report has revealed the Arctic is experiencing a multi-year stretch of unparalleled warmth “that is unlike any period on record”.

The US government study states that human-caused climate change is transforming the Arctic, both physically and biologically, through reduction of sea ice and wildlife populations.

Temperatures in the Arctic are warming at more than twice the global average, with the five years since 2014 being warmer than any other year on record.

Within the past six months, Adani representatives have had forty meetings with the federal government to discuss the Carmichael coal mine project.

Greens Senator Larissa Waters says the number meetings suggest a cosy relationship between the two, further stating the environment department should be a regulator and protector of the planet, rather than facilitating the development of the coal mine.