Sydney commuters are feeling the pinch this morning as the latest train strike takes effect with commuters complaining of the packed conditions on social media this morning.

The timetable has been reduced to a weekend schedule, meaning trains will only run every fifteen minutes in peak hours instead of the usual eight.

Today’s ban on overtime comes ahead of Monday’s full day rail shutdown after workers voted to not take the government’s pay deal and take industrial action instead.

A Queensland Chief Scientist is in court on 31 new charges in relation to stealing funds from the state government.

Suzanne Miller allegedly used a state government funded credit card to buy $30, 000 worth of items, including a scooter, polaroid camera and a drone, for her own use between September 2013 and July 2017.  

However, this is not the first time the Chief Scientist had been charged over a $45, 000 private health insurance claim last July.

Brisbane protester Tayla Jay Haggarty has been charged after she suspended herself from a tree yesterday morning 50 kilometres west of Bowen, next to an Aurizon rail line connected to the Adani-owned Abbot Point coal terminal.

The mining sector said the act was extreme and dangerous.

This is just a part of a long line of peaceful protests which have been conducted in the area against the Adani coal mine and related developments.

There is evidence of obesity being “socially contagious”, a study finds that a person is more likely to be overweight if they live close to obese people.

People are needing to pay more attention to balancing lived environments as within Australia alone 62.8 per cent of the adult population is overweight and obese.

Adults were more likely to be obese if they lived in regional areas as opposed to major cities.

Scientists in China have successfully cloned 2 monkeys, becoming the very first primates to be cloned from a non-embryonic cell.

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai have stated the breakthrough should be of huge benefit when studying genetically uniform primates, eventually including humans.

The research underscored the focus China has been taking to remain at the cutting edge of Bioscience technology, and highlights the difficulties in ethical and moral boundaries around cloning.

Volcanic tremors have forced rescuers to suspend their search effort for victims of a deadly eruption and avalanche at a Japanese ski resort.

The eruption near Kusatsu ski resort killed one person and left eleven injured as volcanic rocks flew through the air.

The search effort for survivors trapped under the snow near the mountain will resume once conditions have improved.

A severe heatwave is forecast for the large part of south-east Australia over the long weekend.

For the north of Tasmania, extreme conditions are expected with maximums 10 degrees above the January average in Adelaide, Melbourne and Hobart.

This is the second severe heatwave warning in south-east Australia in a fortnight.

Holidaymakers in the Wye River caravan park are up in arms after park operators failed to properly warn them of a gastro outbreak at the site.

Upon arrival at the popular Great ocean road park campers were handed a leaflet saying there had been an outbreak of gastro, but the staff were quote ‘all over disinfecting the bathrooms and keeping everything clean.’

Some holidaymakers said they should have been contacted before they arrived at the park, and many had to cut holidays short when family members fell ill.

A suspected third case of the devastating banana disease, panama, has been discovered in far north Queensland where eighty per cent of the country’s bananas are grown.

Samples from the Tully Valley taken last week have tested positive for Panama tropical race 4, a disease which doesn’t affect the fruit itself but rapidly kills cavendish banana plants.

The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries said further testing will be conducted to determine how wide spread the disease is, but has warned this could take up to six weeks.