u/neon_overload

> Conservation groups have questioned why their advertisements targeting Labor politicians were pulled by Adelaide airport for breaking rules on political advertising while others promoting gas and mining kept running.

> “But we don’t have a knowledge gap,” says Katherine Berney, a policy expert on gender-based violence. > > “We already have more than 1,000 recommendations. The knowledge gap isn’t there. There’s an implementation gap.” > > Seventeen years ago, the national council to reduce violence against women and their children titled their landmark blueprint for reform: “time for action”.

> Daily tobacco smoking among those aged 14 and above dropped to 5.6% in 2025, down significantly from 8.3% in 2022–23, the data shows. The federal government’s National Tobacco Strategy 2023–2030 had aimed for a national daily smoking prevalence of less than 10% by 2025, and now has a target of 5% or less by 2030. > > The Cancer Council Australia’s CEO, Jacinta Reddan, said the data also showed more than two-thirds of Australians aged 14 and above had never smoked – which was a historic high.

> The City of Yarra on Tuesday voted to end its memorandum of understanding with Lime, terminating its almost six-year-long trial. > > Though some councillors noted shared ebikes were an affordable and environmentally friendly transport option, others said the operator had not done enough to prevent users from blocking footpaths, dumping ebikes or riding while drunk.

> [David] Pocock, along with senators Penny Allman-Payne and Steph Hodgins-May, have called on the government to launch a Senate inquiry into the influence of fossil fuel companies over children's public life. > > The report named Santos as the biggest sponsor of children's programs with 71 programs, as well as BHP, Woodside, Glencore, Chevron, and Shell.

> Since detecting H5N1 in Australia, authorities have understandably focused on protecting Australia’s spectacular birds – including the threatened regent honeyeater and orange-bellied parrot. > > What’s received less attention are our iconic but increasingly threatened mammals. This includes the egg-laying platypus, native rodents such as the rakali and numerous marsupial species. In the United States, the virus has already done widespread damage to native rodents such as squirrels and voles, and the marsupial Virginia Opossum. It may well do the same to Australia’s mammals.

> "Doing physical things together is a way to bring people together and build up a bit of teamwork in a low-pressure environment … just have that social interaction that we've been lacking."

> Universities will get more funding for the extra students they enrol from poorer backgrounds as well as those who study in regional campuses under a needs-based model. > > The Commonwealth will pay universities $1535 per eligible equity student and $1398 for every regional student, with it helping to cover tutoring, mentoring, and academic assistance.

Today, KDE discover never successfully fetches available updates. Early in the process (within 15 seconds?), it reported an error, which is that the fwupd service timed out (I can't get it back in that state so I can't copy the exact error message). After that, however, the progress bar becomes stuck with the text below saying "Refreshing Firmware Updates". I've waited 20 minutes, I've rebooted, closed and opened KDE discover etc.

I'm an experienced administrator and not asking for help updating the system, help with dnf etc. I'm trying to figure out why KDE discover is getting stuck long term like this, why it can't seem to move on to the other updates even if fwupd fails.

> Guardian Australia has been told competing cabinet submissions about the plan [potential copyright changes for the AI industry] are in train, with the Department of Industry, Science and Resources and the Attorney-General’s Department split over the best approach. > > Ministers could choose between establishing new exemptions from copyright rules, in exchange for greater investment in Australian hosted datacentres, or a possible licensing extension to cover AI model developments. > > Under that proposal, AI companies could use Australian content to train their commercial products.

> It was designed to survive the apocalypse, as humanity’s last testament to its failure. But for a while it seemed the “Earth’s Black Box” hadn’t even survived its own planning process. > > Now, five years after it was announced to much fanfare, followed by years of ominous silence, the box is back. Its creators say parts assembly is under way and, in December, the full monolith will be installed near Queenstown on the edge of a remote western Tasmanian airfield.

> Aggrieved pedestrians and push-bike riders are pitted against those who see e-mobility as a ‘once in a generation’ chance to change the way we travel around cities

> The Australian government has launched its largest-ever lawsuit, suing American chemical giant 3M and its local subsidiary. The government is seeking A$2 billion in damages for the past and future cost of investigating and managing “forever chemicals” contamination from firefighting foams on almost 30 Defence sites. > > The government alleges the company withheld internal testing that showed these foams did significant environmental damage. 3M has vowed to defend itself.

> Pepin-Neff [shark bite policy researcher] said most shark bites, particularly involving white sharks, are the result of “curiosity or defensiveness” rather than aggression. > > “Both of those are terrible for humans and lead to trauma and tragedy ... but none of it is really about intentionality, because they don’t know what we are.”

> Beethoven's colossal final symphony, Symphony No. 9 in D minor, has taken the number one spot for the fifth time. > > [...] Gen X and Generation Alpha agreed on their top choice, with both voting for John Williams' epic soundtrack for Star Wars (Original Film Soundtrack) as their favourite work.

> About a sixth of the world's milk is wasted, over 150 million tonnes every year, but a Canberra company has come up with new technology that could drastically reduce that. > > Their technology allows dairy companies, which previously had to wait two to three days to receive routine laboratory test results back, to now carry out the tests on site in just three minutes.

> "I think one of the challenges is that during COVID, people felt like there was a sense of togetherness and that there was going to be an endpoint," [psychologist Sue Read] said. > > "I think when we look at these ongoing financial pressures, it feels like a chronic stressor."