Queensland Chief Health Officer Dr. Jeannette Young says six passengers that arrived in Queensland on a Qatar Airways flight from Doha last month may have contracted the Russian variant of COVID-19 from a super-spreader.

Ipswich City Council has begun investigating the illegal dumping of construction waste on a main road in Redbank Plains.

Residents have been complaining about the large amount of waste on Austin street for some time, with locals taking matters into their own hands transporting the construction waste to the local dump themselves when the Council takes too long to respond to complaints.

The Australian Defence Department has released freedom of information documents regarding its involvement with the Myanmar military, which has been under fire in light of the recent coup.

A new survey by Vox Pop Labs for the ABC found 19% of those who identify with the right side of politics are ‘very unlikely’ to take the COVID-19 vaccine, compared to 4% of those on the left.

Professor Julie Leask, an advisor for the World Health Organisation, warns of the potential of Australia following the US and parts of Europe in a trend of political polarisation around vaccination.

Israel’s environmental protection minister Gila Gamliel has accused Iran as the perpetrator of a disastrous oil spill off Israel’s coastline, calling the incident an act of environmental terrorism. 

The conclusion came as a surprise to many government, navy, and intelligence officers, who said that they had not been briefed on the investigator’s claim before it went through the media. 

In local news, Maiwar Greens MP Michael Berkman says the Education Department is considering alternative proposals to a new primary school at Indooroopilly State High School.

Locals and surrounding schools have criticised the proposal to build the new inner-west primary school in Indooroopilly, citing increasing traffic and safety concerns in the area.

Construction has started on Queensland’s new mega-prison in the Lockyer Valley, which Corrections Minister Mark Ryan has called “Queensland’s second biggest infrastructure project after Cross River Rail”, and which is set to economically revitalise the region.

The City of Gold Coast and the State Government have formed a climate adaptation partnership that aims to review how current infrastructure and environmental management practises on the coast need to be adjusted to better address the impacts of climate change.

Australian Indigenous health services Danila Dilba is launching a legal challenge against the decision to approve the Northern Territory’s first Dan Murphy’s store.

The case was filed in the Northern Territory supreme court on Thursday against both the NT Liquor licensing director Philip Timney and the Woolworths group.