Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is urging residents to continue to come forward and get vaccinated so border rules could finally be removed by Christmas.

The National Cabinet has agreed in principle to remove restrictions once 80 per cent of eligible people are fully vaccinated.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions is claiming lack of action on gender inequality in the workforce.

According to reports 90,000 women had lost their jobs between May and August, compared to 25,000 men, while in New South Wales alone, nearly two-thirds of all jobs lost since the lockdown began in June, had been held by women.

The federal environment department says the proposal to ditch the need for the recovery plans from the 185 at risk species and ecological communities is just the first tranche with more to follow.

The proposed changes are drawing criticism with University of Queensland’s Professor of Conservation Science James Watson saying the plans are a quote “quick fix”. 

Female municipal employees in Kabul are told to stay home unless their jobs cannot be filled by a man.

The new Taliban mayor of Afghanistan, Hamdullah Nomany, says the Taliban “found it necessary to stop women from working for a while”.

There are questions arising over whether Queensland should enforce heavier restrictions on essential workers entering the state to prevent COVID-19 cases.

Since August 24 there have been 11 cases where essential workers, particularly truck drivers, have entered QLD when infectious.

New research hub led by University of Queensland researchers has received $2.5 million to investigate better ways to help people suffering with drug and alcohol addiction.

The funding, provided by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), will be used to turn the existing partnership between UQ researchers and addiction support provider Lives Lived Well into a national Centre of Research Excellence (CRE).

Fifteen men have been arrested following a brawl in Runcorn.

Forensic crime scene technology is being used to trawl streams in eastern Australia in a bid to find more of the elusive platypus.

The species, which is endangered, were pushed further towards extinction by the devastating 2019/20 bushfires that scorched their habitat and pushed ash into streams.

A new “Insect Investigators” program led by the South Australian museum is now calling for 50 schools across Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia to join an official program to help scientists find and catalogue insects.

University of the Sunshine Coast ecologist Andy Howe says, “There are an estimated 200,000 insect species with 62,000 identified and described”.