UnitingCare says it does not know when technology systems in its Queensland hospitals and aged care facilities will be operational again after the organisation became the victim of a cyber attack on Sunday. While manual back-ups are in place for some services and others are being rescheduled, UnitingCare says its systems remain inaccessible, including in the Wesley and St Andrew’s hospitals in Brisbane. nThe Australian Cyber Security Centre is working to fix the issue having warned last year of a specific ransomware called Maze that could be used to target healthcare organisations.

Passengers on a delayed flight from Perth to Brisbane have been forced into hotel quarantine after Western Australia announced a three day lockdown of the Perth and Peel regions. The flight was supposed to leave at 1:30 PM but was delayed until 6:30 PM and passengers didn’t know they had to quarantine until they landed but not all passengers were required to quarantine one said they were all mingling on the flight. Queensland Health officials boarded the plane upon landing to inform the passengers and after revising restrictions some quarantined guests may be released early.

State Education Minister Grace Grace says school banking programs such as Commonwealth Bank’s Dollarmites will be removed from Queensland schools. Australia’s corporate watchdog ASIC found the programs were of little educational benefit and exposed young children to sophisticated marketing strategies. While the program will be removed from schools, Minister Grace says the thirty eight thousand students with Dollarmites accounts will still be able to keep them open in a private capacity.

New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian says states should not be able to restrict who enters their hotel quarantine after 9 new COVID-19 cases were recorded in New South Wales yesterday night. Ms. Berejiklian says no matter why people are returning to Australia, the quarantine system should be kept as strong as possible and it should not be up to the states to limit travelers returning. Case numbers from overseas are rising in Australia’s hotel quarantine due to the South Asia grapple and in the past seven days over 40 cases have been detected.

A Russian prosecutor has ordered the political network of prominent Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny to suspend its operations as it decides whether to classify the network as an extremist group. The court ruling bans Navalny’s colleagues from holding political rallies or engaging in election-related political activity as the prosecutor’s office asserts that they have been engaged in illegal activities. Alexei Navalny is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent opposition and is currently serving a three and a half year prison sentence for parole violations.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson denies a press report claiming he allegedly said he’d rather see bodies pile high in their thousands than impose another national lockdown in the country. The Daily Mail claims the comment was made in 2020 but Mr. Johnson says it is 'total rubbish'. In January this year a third lockdown was ordered after infections began to rise again. This claim comes after allegations of ethical breaches and cronyism against Mr. Johnson and his Conservative government ahead of next week’s regional and local elections.

NASA’s new toaster-sized machine MOXIE has converted carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere into breathable oxygen. 

MOXIE can produce ten grams of oxygen per hour and will be run nine times over the next two years under a variety of conditions as proof of concept.

MOXIE principal investigator Michael Hecht said it’s estimated one metric ton of oxygen would be needed to support astronauts living and working on Mars for one year.