The head of a rural women's group warns remote workplaces are producing "horrific" cases of sexual harassment and assault.
Even before cases of strawberry sabotage crippled sales and cost the industry millions of dollars, Australian growers were despairing over dumping tonnes of perfectly good fruit.
Extensive cloud over northern WA, NT and QLD with a low pressure trough is generating showers and storms, potentially severe in the QLD. Patchy cloud over southern WA and SA with another trough and cold front is bringing a few showers.
According to some of the latest physics, time isn't exactly what we think it is. In fact, it may not even exist at all!
It seems obvious that certain events have a set order — a cup of tea will slowly cool down, an ice cube will melt and a scrambled egg won't unscramble.
According to our best theories of matter (quantum statistical mechanics) our scrambled egg is an expression of increasing "entropy" — a tendency of the universe to go from order to disorder.
But entropy can also decrease, which means your egg could reassemble itself and time would look like it's going backwards.
The catch is, the chance of this happening is so astronomically small — you'd have to wait longer than 13.8 billion years, the current age of the universe — you shouldn't hold your breath waiting for it to happen!
The present seems to be a unique, universally agreed-upon moment in time, easily distinguishable from the past and the future. But is it?
Imagine we're on two ships at anchor a little way off the coast of a nuclear test site when the bomb goes off, and we write down the time; when comparing notes later, our times will match up.
But if I'm sailing towards the site while you sail away, the heat and light emanating from the explosion will reach my boat slightly before yours because I'm moving to meet it. Now when comparing notes, we'll disagree: I'll say it happened at one time and you at another. So who's right?
Albert Einstein says we both are. In his theory of relativity, your present can be my future, and my present your past. As a result, time is relative, and 'now' can be different for everyone.
The idea that time can move backwards, or that there's no such thing as 'now' may seem weird, but at least the theories behind these ideas have been tested.
The latest attempt by physicists to develop a theory of everything has resulted in an even more bizarre — and controversial — concept that time may not exist at all.
Humans are obsessed with time: our language is drenched with endless metaphors and allusions to it. We're so often running short on it, wasting it, and whiling it away that it's bizarre to even think it may be no more than an illusion.
So-called "quantum gravity" theories try to bring together theories of quantum mechanics and relativity. Still a work in progress, these theories suggest time is not a fundamental building block of the physical world.
Rather, it is an "emergent" phenomenon — something never captured by equations but which sort of just happens anyway, like the weather.
But according to theoretical physicist Lee Smolin, who writes on the philosophy of physics, the idea of time as an illusion is wrong.
"It's based on a false extrapolation of a system of modelling little bits of the universe to the universe as a whole," Dr Smolin said at a 2013 lecture at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.
According to philosopher Elay Shech, physics has hit a kind of "roadblock" when it comes to understanding time.
"Quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity don't work well together and most of the theories of quantum gravity we have are not testable," he said.
And this is when scientists need to get philosophical, according to Dr Shech from Auburn University in Alabama.
They clarify what we mean by different concepts — like time — and help think up alternative pictures of reality which might be supported by existing theories.
In a field like quantum gravity, philosophers can provide a way forward by creating useful questions for scientists to answer, Dr Shech said.
BENTON HARBOR, Mich. - Thanks to the fast action of one Benton Harbor man a string of home invasions might be closer to getting solved.
Benton Harbor police arrested two 23-year-old men Monday after they tried to rob a home while the family was inside. Police wouldn’t say for sure if these are same suspects from a rash of robberies going on in town. According to the man who got robbed, these guys seemed to know what they were doing.
“You have enough audacity to come in someone’s house while they’re there?” said Michael Johnson, a Benton Harbor father of three who uses an oxygen tank for medical purposes. Johnson is still in shock after thwarting a robbery attempt in his home on Monday.
Johnson and his wife heard a knock at the front door. “My wife got up and went to the door and looked at the dude in his face,” he said.
While Johnson’s wife was distracted two other men came in through the back door of the home and went into the basement.
Johnson went to see who was down there. “We went back there and saw someone running back and forth in the basement.”
Johnson thought it was his teenage son’s friends borrowing a video game but the burglars were bagging up all the electronics downstairs.
The two burglars were in for a rude awakening when they made their way back up the stairs. Johnson was blocking the only way out. “I had my hand on him holding him just like this. I got him here just talking to him with the door closed,” said Johnson.
All of a sudden Johnson realized what was going on. “I’m just holding him at the backdoor and he’s looking at me like I’m crazy with a mask on. I’m thinking man he must be a burglar or something for real.”
Johnson let the two run off but he stopped them long enough to get a description of men and car they were driving. Benton Harbor police found the car not long afterward and the family got all their electronics back.
Johnson was not injured but said if the arrests help solve some of the other robberies in town he was glad to help.
“It’s been slow. The water didn’t really recede until late last night when it was too dark to start pumping basements and things it’s just been a slow process,” said Chris Elmerick, whose home was damaged.
“We’re doing our first rounds of damage assessments,” said John Antonucci, the Director of St. Joseph County’s Emergency Management.
In order for them to do so efficiently, they’re now urging people across Saint Joseph County to report damages as soon as possible.
If you live in South Bend, you can call 311 to report damages. If you live in the county, you can call Emergency Management at 574-235-9378.
Once the entire county is assessed, they will start letting residents know what kind of help they will receive as soon as possible.