National’s plan is the status quo with belts and braces – and some question marks

Two teenage boys have been charged with murder over the stabbing death of a young man in Queensland yesterday.

Twenty-year-old Aiden Rhys Bower-Miles was stabbed on a street in Underwood near Logan just after 1am on Friday and died at the scene.

A 15-year-old Mount Gravatt East boy and a 16-year-old Logan boy were arrested over the death.

READ MORE: Sydney man arrested after domestic violence-related death

Both have now been charged with murder.

The younger boy was also charged with failing to provide access to data, while the 16-year-old is facing a cannabis possession charge.

They have both been denied bail and will appear in Brisbane Childrens Court.

Detective Superintendent Brendan Smith said the thoughts of police remain with the victim's family.

"The young ages of the pair in custody is certainly confronting and the community rightfully denounces this type of lethal violence and police stand with them in condemning this alleged horrific act," he said.

"After running out extensive inquiries, I am satisfied this incident has no connection to organised crime or gang activity."

Bower-Miles, known as "Wombat", is being remembered by his friends as the life of the party.

Police have also taken a black Audi sedan to a forensic facility for analysis.

They said they are now seeking footage of the sedan from around 7am to 4pm yesterday.

"Every piece of information helps investigators, no matter how small or insignificant you may feel it is," Smith said.

The Audi's number plate is 448GF5, with the front plant hanging off-centre at an angle.

Neighbours were left shocked after the stabbing in what's described as a quiet street.

"We were just down the complex chilling and heard screaming, like a fair few loud screams, and my dad came up and there was a group of people hovering around and my dad saw a girl covered in blood," a young resident said.

"It was hectic.

"Everyone was shaken up, screaming."

READ MORE: Tanker refueling spark believed to be cause of massive Sydney fire

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Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for Australia to reopen its embassy in Kyiv.

In a press conference on the anniversary of Russia's invasion of his country, Zelenskyy was asked by SBS reporter Ben Lewis if he wanted to see the embassy reopened.

"It's so nice to hear a question that you can say yes to," Zelensky replied in Ukrainian.

READ MORE: China calls for Russia-Ukraine ceasefire and peace talks

Switching to English, he said he wanted to welcome Australia's ambassador back to Ukraine.

"I'll be very happy, really. I have relations with Australia and they really helped us a lot," he said.

"I have had a huge deficit with armed vehicles – I don't want to share all of the information [about] how many we have got from Australia, but anyway we've got it and that is great.

"That's why, to shake hands with the ambassador of Australia – I would do it with pleasure.

"Please come. Come back. But on Bushmaster," he joked.

Australia has donated dozens of Bushmasters, a powerful armoured car, to the Ukrainian military.

The Australian embassy in Kyiv closed in January last year, as thousands of Russian troops massed on the border ahead of the invasion.

READ MORE: A year on, Russia's war on Ukraine may be about to get even worse

But while most of the embassies in Kyiv have since reopened, Australia's remains closed.

Australia's diplomatic mission in Ukraine has been based in Poland since the invasion.

The consular advice from the embassy is that Australians should not travel to Ukraine "due to the volatile security situation and Russia's illegal, unjustified and unprovoked military aggression against Ukraine".

Australians currently in Ukraine are urged to leave immediately.

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Some of the black market pistols were supplied to the rival gangs at war in Auckland.

A Colombian student killed a Sydney sex worker because his religious beliefs prohibited intimacy with a transgender person, a court has heard.

Hector Enrique Valencia Valencia has been found not guilty of murdering Kimberley McRae at her Coogee apartment between January 7 and 14, 2020, but guilty of her manslaughter.

Valencia killed the 69-year-old in a rage after discovering she was transgender.

READ MORE: Student 'lost self-control' killing trans sex worker

Justice Dina Yehia told the NSW Supreme Court on Friday she could not be satisfied that he intended to kill her but accepted the act was unlawful.

"It should be clearly understood that Kim McCrae was entitled to live her life. That she died is tragic," the judge said.

Valencia had testified that he was embarrassed about being intimate with a "man" because of his religion, Justice Yehia said.

READ MORE: Soft plastics recycling facilities inundated after REDcycle collapse

He was studying business in Australia at the time when he had arranged to obtain sexual services by answering an online ad from McRae.

Defence barrister Claire Wasley had argued he did not intend to kill McRae, having only "lost self-control".

The Crown rejected this and did not accept his guilty plea to manslaughter before a judge-alone trial.

Valencia punched her in the stomach and face then wrestled her to the ground after he punched her.

When giving evidence, Valencia said he held a broken lamp cord against her neck because he was scared and wanted to stop the attack.

McRae allegedly attempted to choke him with the cord, he claimed.

"It is not surprising that she sought to defend herself by arming herself with whatever was close to hand," Justice Yehia said, acknowledging Valencia attacked first.

A broken bedside lamp with a severed power cord was found near McRae's body when it was discovered.

READ MORE: Queensland boy to get transplant after critical bone marrow left at US airport

Wasley asked NSW Health forensic pathology specialist Allan Cala if a surgery McRae had to thin the appearance of an adam's apple could mean her thyroid cartilage was "not as robust".

"It might have happened in that way but it would be an unusual cause," Cala said.

"I accept that it is theoretically possible."

Justice Yehia accepted asphyxiation by neck compression as the cause of death.

In a chat on Facebook Messenger to a friend on January 10, Valencia explained why he was suddenly departing Australia.

"I threw my life away, dude. I am escaping because I do not want to end up in jail in Australia," he wrote in a post translated into English.

"I die of shame to tell this to anybody. I believe I killed a whore."

He did not tell his friend McCrae was transgender because he was "embarrassed".

Valencia will return to court for sentencing on May 5.

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Astronomers have found an unusually large planet orbiting a small star, located about 280 light-years from Earth.

The unexpected size of the newly discovered world, called TOI 5205b, has led researchers to call it the "forbidden planet".

About the size of Jupiter, it was spotted by researchers using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS.

READ MORE: Queensland boy to get transplant after critical bone marrow left at US airport

Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system.

The planet-hunting mission, launched in 2018, surveys the light of the nearest and brightest stars to spot dips in starlight, which suggests those stars have planets orbiting them.

The TESS mission has found thousands of potential planets.

The exoplanet orbits a red dwarf star called TOI-5205, which is about 40 per cent the size and mass of our sun, and about 3,127 degrees in temperature compared with the sun's blazing average of 5,527 degrees.

READ MORE: Soft plastics recycling facilities inundated after REDcycle collapse

An M dwarf star is smaller, cooler and redder than our sun.

These dim stars are some of the most common in the universe, and in recent years, astronomers have discovered that M dwarf stars are more likely to have planets orbiting them.

But astronomers weren't expecting such small stars to host giant planets — and that's exactly what they found when they took a closer look at the TOI-5205 planetary system.

A study detailing the findings was published Tuesday in The Astronomical Journal.

"The host star, TOI-5205, is just about four times the size of Jupiter, yet it has somehow managed to form a Jupiter-sized planet, which is quite surprising," said study author Shubham Kanodia, a postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC, in a statement.

Astronomers have found a few gas giant planets orbiting older M dwarf stars, but TOI 5205b is the first gas giant to be found around a low-mass M dwarf star.

The researchers compared the planet to a pea going around a lemon.

In our solar system, Jupiter could be compared to a pea orbiting a grapefruit (standing in for our sun).

When TOI 5205b crosses in front of its star during orbit, the planet blocks 7 per cent of its light.

The discovery of the planetary system challenges theories on planet formation.

Stars form from massive clouds of gas and dust in space.

The leftover material from star formation swirls around the star and creates a rotating disk where planets are born.

"TOI-5205b's existence stretches what we know about the disks in which these planets are born," Kanodia said.

"In the beginning, if there isn't enough rocky material in the disk to form the initial core, then one cannot form a gas giant planet.

"And at the end, if the disk evaporates away before the massive core is formed, then one cannot form a gas giant planet.

READ MORE: Fire crews investigate what caused massive Sydney petrol station fire

"And yet TOI-5205b formed despite these guardrails. Based on our nominal current understanding of planet formation, TOI-5205b should not exist; it is a 'forbidden' planet."

Researchers want to observe the planet in the future using the James Webb Space Telescope, which could detect if TOI-5205b has an atmosphere and unlock more of the secrets about how it formed.

Data collected from the Habitable Zone Planet Finder on the 10m Hobby-Eberly Telescope at the University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory is showing the potential for future discoveries, according to the research team.

Observations "are already hinting at the presence of more such planets, which suggests that TOI-5205 b — while definitely an outlier — isn't the only one," Kanodia wrote in a blog post.

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Revellers filled the streets as partying and celebration got underway for the renowned festival.

Australia's remaining soft plastics recycling services are struggling to meet a huge surge in demand following last year's collapse of the scheme run inside Coles and Woolworths.

It's prompted extreme measures to limit how much waste the facilities receive, with one council-run service now checking recyclers' driver's licences before they can drop off their plastics.

It comes after the nation's largest soft plastics recycler, REDcycle, which collected soft plastics from Woolworths and Coles stores around Australia, was forced to halt collections last November when huge stockpiles of soft plastics were discovered in its warehouses.

READ MORE: How can you keep recycling soft plastics in Australia?

On Friday, Coles and Woolworths struck a deal with the NSW EPA to clean up thousands of tonnes of the material in an attempt to avoid it being consigned to landfill, but the future of soft plastic recycling by the supermarket giants remains unclear.

Environmentally conscious shoppers have been scrambling to find an alternative destination for their plastic waste since REDcycle's collapse.

In Sydney's north, the Thornleigh Community Recycling Centre saw the amount of soft plastic it was accepting more than double in a matter of weeks, as people reported travelling from all over the North Shore to use the free service.

Operated by Hornsby Council, the recycling centre has been collecting an array of hard-to-recycle goods without restrictions for more than three years, but has now restricted soft plastic recycling to residents only.

Workers at the centre are checking users' driver's licences or rates notices.

The volume of soft plastics residents can drop off has also been restricted to one 40cm by 40cm shopping bag per week.

READ MORE: Soft plastics were meant to be on the way out. What went wrong?

Despite the new restrictions, Hornsby Council estimates it will accept around 50 to 80 tonnes of soft plastic material in the next 12 months.

"We are delighted that so many people want to care for the environment by seeking opportunities to recycle soft plastics," a Hornsby Council spokesperson told 9news.com.au.

"However, there is currently significantly more soft plastic waste being generated than the processing and manufacturing capacity of the small numbers of factories in Australia that recycle it."

With supermarkets no longer an option, many more councils are starting up similar programs.

In Melbourne, Monash Council began accepting soft plastic waste from its residents last December in direct response to REDcycle's collapse.

These are recycled by Melbourne-based company APR Plastics, which converts them into fencing, boardwalks and other outdoor furniture.

In Sydney's eastern suburbs, the Randwick Recycling Centre in Matraville is now accepting soft plastics again after being forced to halt operations with REDcycle's collapse.

Within a few days of launching on February 10, almost 100 residents had made use of the service.

"Randwick had been looking at soft plastics recycling ahead of (REDcycle's) collapse, but once that happened there was an overwhelming desire from our community," mayor Dylan Parker told 9news.com.au.

"Even my landlord was chewing my ear off saying, 'what are you doing about it?'.

"We can't just leave the community in the lurch."

READ MORE: How 'superworms' could solve Australia's plastic crisis

The mayor says he's reasonably confident their partnership with recycling firm Plasmar can accommodate local demand within their council, but it remains a small-scale stop-gap measure.

He is pushing for a national and state government approach to the problem.

It's a view that's shared by Eugenie Alonzo, who heads up Recycle Smart – an organisation that does home pick-ups of soft plastics as well as other items like old clothes and e-waste.

"Amongst all the items we collect, soft plastics are the one thing that crystalises everything," she said.

"It is the one thing that keeps on showing up because it is really hard to get rid of in your household."

Recycle Smart pick-ups are currently available in 16 councils across NSW and South Australia, with the soft plastics then sent off to APR Plastics in Victoria.

Alonzo says Recycle Smart is all about making recycling as easy as possible for Australians, but remains a small operation, with plans to ramp up operations to collect around 15 tonnes each month.

Their partner, APR Plastics, can currently process around a tonne of soft plastics per day.

READ MORE: Woolworths, Coles unveil major changes to plastic bag policies

By contrast, there are currently 5200 tonnes of soft plastics collected by REDcycle sitting in warehouses in New South Wales alone, with similar stockpiles in other states.

This means it would take an operation the size of APR Plastics 14 years to process the current NSW stockpile, assuming they worked 365 days a year and no other new waste came in.

"The reality is that state and federal governments are going to need to come up with a national solution working alongside major supermarkets in order to take soft plastics out of supply chains," Parker said.

"This is bigger than any one council or community."

But for now, it will be up to Coles and Woolworths to find a destination for the warehouses full of floor-to-ceiling plastic.

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The subjects of the Special Photographs seem to have been allowed – perhaps invited – to position and compose themselves for the camera as they liked.

Switching from gas to electric appliances can save Aussie homes thousands a year as gas prices overtake the cost of electricity. 

Gas appliances now cost more to run than electric appliances, according to One Big Switch, Australia's leading consumer buying power Network.

Households could save up to $9500 over the 12-year lifespan of appliances, but making the switch can cost close to $6000-7000 when adding up appliance and installation costs.

READ MORE: Cheaper airfares there if you're 'willing to hunt', Qantas CEO insists

Despite the large upfront payment, experts say the switch is financially worth it.

"There was a time not so long ago, when gas was cheaper for your cooking, for your hot water, but electrical appliances are now cheaper to run," Joal Gibson from One Big Switch said.

Neva Frecheville, a mum from Newtown, made the switch to electric appliances and loves it.

"Once we got it installed it's just a world better than gas, there's been so much change in prices, for gas in particular in the last couple of years, we just haven't been affected by any of that"

READ MORE: Police hunt dark SUV after man found dead in Logan

For those who can't afford a total switchover, experts say just swapping out a gas "heat pump" for an electric one can save households up to 60 per cent of their power bill.

The Australian Capital Territory's government has already implemented a ban on new gas connections to start this year, and will completely phase out all gas by 2045.