New figures show apprentice shortages in Queensland are worsening at an alarming rate. 

The state government has failed to deliver its promised thirteen thousand apprentices and the major shortfall is hurting a wide variety of industries including food, beauty and construction.

Shadow Minister for Employment and Training Brent Mickelberg says, “This chronic shortfall in apprenticeships shows the State Government is losing control of skills programs and preventing people the opportunity of learning a trade”

Brisbane City Hall’s Night Cafe has been a safe sanctuary that homeless youth have relied on for 20 years.

The Thursday Night Cafe provides young people aged 12 to 25 who are homeless or at risk of homelessness a safe space to come and get a hot meal, clothing, hygiene products or have a shower.

Located in the City Hall's basement, it is led by a team of youth workers, doctors, nurses, and other volunteers and serves as a salvation for those in need.

Images of Queensland school children in the local region of Gayndah holding guns and rocket launchers have received swift backlash from social media users.

Mayor Rachel Chambers defended the online photographs saying they had been misconstrued and blown out of proportion by critics on social media.

In regard to the event where the school kids were allowed to take photos with the weapons, Councilor Chambers went on to said, "They demonstrate bridge-building and allow the kids to hold unloaded weapons for them to experience their sheer weight."

Australian farmers have lost an average of thirty thousand dollars a year in profits over the past twenty years due to climate change. 

In its latest report, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) found a decline in rainfall from 2001-2021 subjecting farmers to lower returns. 

The report has also made projections about the next 30 years finding the impact of climate change to be most severe on the edge of WA’s north cropping zone, parts of NSW, and central Queensland.

An underwater archaeological mission in Egypt's Bay of Aboukir has uncovered an extremely rare ship, believed to be over 2200 years old. 

Archaeologists from the Hilti Foundation's Franck Goddio underwater team were exploring the ancient Thonis-Heracleion site, when they came across a Ptolemaic warship.

Many special artifacts were found at the site where the ship was re-discovered.

Gold treasures were buried deep, preserved underneath the waves by wet clay. 

A French dad has built a robotic exoskeleton to help his wheelchair-bound son walk. 

Fastened to his shoulders, chest, waist, knees and feet, the exoskeleton allows Oscar, who has a genetic neurological condition, to walk across rooms and turn around through voice activation. 

The exoskeletons have been sold to dozens of hospitals in France but are not yet available to private individuals.

Some of Queensland’s first hydrogen-powered cars have hit the streets and are revving their way towards a zero-emissions travel revolution.

Hydrogen Minister Mick de Brenni said the arrival of five hydrogen-powered Hyundai NEXOs takes the Palaszczuk Government’s fleet of zero-emission vehicles to 60 of a planned 144 electric vehicles in total by year's end, backing a sector that is a key part of Queensland’s economic recovery plan.

Queenslanders will soon see the five Hyundais join the growing number of electric vehicles in the government fleet.

The number of fire ant nests plaguing Brisbane backyards have skyrocketed, with confirmed cases five times higher than in 2014.

Fire ant nest sites have risen from nine hundred in 2014 to a reported eight thousand six hundred in 2020.

Head of the National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program, Mark Furner says, “The number of properties with confirmed infestation has increased predominantly in eastern areas, where the program has not yet commenced the eradication or clearance phases.”

Australia's efforts to close the gap on Indigenous disadvantage failed following an analysis by a Productivity Commission revealed stark failures.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders born between 2015 and 2017 are expected to live 8.6 fewer years amongst boys, and 7.8 fewer years amongst girls than non-Indigenous children.

While the gap has lessened compared to a decade prior, Australia is not on track to close it by 2031 with other aims such as reduction in suicide rates, incarceration, and children out-of-home care are failing to progress efficiently.

The Australian 2021 census is expected to be like no other in the history of data collection. 

Demographer Liz Allen, from the Australian National University's Centre for Social Research and Methods said, "Census 2021 is among the most impactful censuses of our time, not just because of what it collects and the timing of its collection, but what it means for our future."

This is because of how it rolls out, what it will say, and how it will help inform Australia's ongoing responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.