Brisbane will host a celebration to officially welcome Australia’s 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic athletes back to the country. 

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says the move aims to acknowledge and honour the athletes for their exceptional performances in Tokyo.

Preparations for Brisbane’s own 2032 Olympics are underway across the South East, despite concerns about the cost to the state.

Australia is slowly rising in world vaccination rate rankings.

Currently Australia is fifty-eighth in the world for full vaccination coverage, but among the O-E-C-D nations, Australia ranks near the bottom. 

However, Australia is currently the fourth fastest country in the world for vaccine administration, and is likely to overtake the full vaccination rate of the US in October.

Two First Nations women are suing Queensland Rail in the wake of racial discrimination

The women were forcibly removed from a Spirit of Queensland train in January whilst a white passenger was permitted to stay.

The family were then left stranded in Mackay, 300km from home with no money and little knowledge of the area.

A staff member claims they called police to have the women removed following alleged threats to staff.

Queensland teenagers are getting vaccinated more than any other age group right now. 

One in five teenagers have received their first dose in under a fortnight. 

An analysis of recent vaccination data shows the 12-15-year-old age group are on track for 80% to receive their first dose by the second of November. 

Federal Health minister Greg Hunt indicated this high take up rate could be the driving force to potentially push Australia’s entire vaccination rate above 80%.

A Western Australia fire brigade is setting the standard for gender diversity in volunteer firefighting services.

In Merredin, 12 of the 26 volunteer support staff and firefighters are female, a figure not yet seen in any other volunteer fire service in the state.

Lieutenant Sheree Lowe has been striving to get more women involved since she joined the brigade seven years ago, recruiting many female volunteers after an international women’s day celebration she hosted at the fire station.

Instagram’s plans for a user-friendly interface for under-thirteen’s has been paused in response to outcry from lobby groups. 

A letter from the Campaign for a Commercial-free Childhood claims the platform is dangerous for children’s health and privacy and called for the change to be scrapped. 

However, Instagram says the new platform “would be a practical solution to the ongoing industry problems of kids lying about their age to access apps.” 

Although plans have been paused, Instagram will expand work on parental supervision tools.

Lifeblood Milk and Queensland Milk Bank have teamed up to address the rising demand for donated breast milk. 

Australian Red Cross Lifeblood chief medical officer Joanne Pink says the new facility will collect, pasteurize and distribute over 1500 litres of donated breast milk annually. 

With roughly 5000 babies being born prematurely and 1000 born before 32 weeks of gestation, about 360 donors are needed to meet this demand. 

A major University is set to remove all lectures from its subjects.

The University of the Sunshine Coast has made a call to omit lectures from its programs starting from next year. From 2022, lectures will be replaced with quizzes and podcasts. 

The university says, “traditional style lectures have been demonstrated to have poor learning outcomes.” However, many students have voiced concern with some psychology students launching a petition against the change.

A new project is set to grow the southern Queensland agriculture workforce. 

Minister for Training and skills development Di Farmer announced the $200,000 agriculture diverse workforce program will start this month. The project aims to support migrants, refugees and international students to find work in the south west Queensland agriculture sector. 

Ms Farmer says, “the project is delivering on Queensland’s $14.2 billion covid-19 economic recovery plan.”