1. Anti-vaxxer teacher seeking to deliberately infect children after a measles outbreak in Melbourne.
A private school teacher is among a string of anti-vaxxer parents who have sought to deliberately infect their children with the deadly measles virus after a recent outbreak in Melbourne’s south-east.
According to the Herald Sun, the teacher - a mother of two - responded to a status posted on the Australia: Childcare for Unvaccinated Children Facebook page.
The teacher - who has not been named - responded to the post by commenting, "Same plz!".
Just last week, Victoria Health confirmed a case of measles in the Melbourne suburb of Dandenong, and warned anyone who had not received two doses of a measles-containing vaccine or who does not have immunity could be at risk of infection.
Speaking to the Herald Sun, Victorian Health Minister Jill Hennessy blasted the teacher's comments as "irresponsible".
"People who spread harmful anti-vaccination lies will not be tolerated in Victoria — and teachers, of all people, should know better," she said.
"Those who are peddling these lies are putting the health and safety of Victorian children at risk and we won't stand for it.
"Vaccinations save lives."
Deputy Chief Health Officer Dr Brett Sutton reminded parents that measles "still kills hundreds of children globally each year" and could not "fathom why any parent would put their child at risk".
"Around one in a thousand in Australia will die if infected," he said.
2. A mother and her two young children identified as victims of a deliberate Canberra house fire.
Anne Muhoro along with her eight-year-old son and five-year-old daughter died in the blaze, police confirmed today. #9News https://t.co/ZgQUjYrGyD
— Nine News Australia (@9NewsAUS) February 26, 2018
A mother and her two young children have been identified as the victims of a Canberra house fire a week after the deadly blaze, AAP reports.
Anne Muhoro, 45, her son Ezvin, 8, and daughter Faraha, 5, were formally identified through DNA matching.
"Everyone we've spoken to is heartbroken," Superintendent Scott Moller said, identifying the family publicly on Monday.
Autopsies have been carried out but Supt Moller said results showing how the trio died had not yet been released.
It was confirmed early on that the fire was deliberately lit, with accelerants at a number of starting points, but Supt Moller wouldn't comment on whether the deaths were being investigated as murders or a murder-suicide.
"This is very early days in this investigation and I'm not going to at this time speculate on how it's going to be finalised," he said.
Investigators are continuing to work through forensic evidence collected from the scene.
They want anyone with information, including dash camera footage from midnight on February 18 to 8.45am on February 19, to come forward.
3. The Weinstein Company is set to file for bankruptcy after Harvey Weinstein's dramatic fall from grace.
The Weinstein Company said in a statement late Sunday that it would file for bankruptcy following the collapse of sale talks https://t.co/HuDj8NUmgK
— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 26, 2018
The board of directors of The Weinstein Company say the New York film and TV studio plans to file for bankruptcy after talks to sell it collapsed.
According to AAP, the company had been seeking a deal that would spare it from bankruptcy after more than 70 women accused film producer Harvey Weinstein, its ex-chairman and once one of Hollywood's most influential men, of sexual misconduct including rape.
Weinstein denies having non-consensual sex with anyone.
"The Weinstein Company has been engaged in an active sale process in the hopes of preserving assets and jobs," the board said in a statement, reported by newspapers including the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times.
"Today, those discussions concluded without a signed agreement."
The board had "no choice but to pursue its only viable option to maximise the Company's remaining value: an orderly bankruptcy process."
The decision came after the board was unable to revive a deal to sell the struggling film studio for about $US500 million ($A700 million) to an investor group.
4. "It's not normal at all." Students return to Florida school for the first time after shooting.
A rainbow appears over Parkland, Florida, high school as teachers return after Feb. 14 shooting. https://t.co/bWRHANfDTM pic.twitter.com/QaiXtJevB2
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) February 26, 2018
Students at a Florida high school where 17 of their classmates and staff members were killed have returned to gather their belongings thrown down in panic during the school shooting nearly two weeks ago.
Thousands of students joined their parents in walking past the three-story building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where the February 14 massacre took place. It is now cordoned off by a chain link fence that was covered with banners from other schools showing their support.
"It's like the first day of school," one student told The New York Times. "But it's not normal at all."
Seventeen people dressed in white costumes as angels stood by a makeshift memorial outside the school before moving near the entrance. Organiser Terry Decarlo said the costumes are sent to mass shootings and disasters so the survivors "know angels are looking over them and protecting them."
Many of Sunday's angels were survivors of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando where 49 people died, Decarlo said.
The school reopens on Wednesday.
5. So, it turns out those 'productivity saving' stand-up desks are actually causing us more pain and making us less efficient.
They were touted as the "new way forward" for any progressive office environment, but a new study has found standing desks may actually increase a worker's bodily pain and slow down their mental functioning.
According to news.com.au, researchers from Curtin University studied 20 adults performing two hours of computer work while standing. Their changes in discomfort and mental function, as well as their movement, mental state, muscle fatigue and lower limb swelling were monitored.
After just two hours, participants' discomfort had significantly increased in all body areas, and their reaction time and mental state had deteriorated.
The study did show, however, that creative problem solving ability improved while working while standing.
"Due to concerns about excessive sedentary exposure for office workers, alternate work positions such as standing are being trialled," the authors wrote in the study.
"However, prolonged standing may have health and productivity impacts, which this study assessed. The observed changes suggest replacing office work sitting with standing should be done with caution."
Occupational health chair at the Australian Physiotherapy Association, David Hall, told news.com.au that standing desks shouldn't be viewed as a "silver bullet" solution.
"They're not the solution to everything, however they can be part of the solution for many people," he said.
"We're sort of facing two opposing problems in the health and wellbeing space. A lot of jobs have a predominance of sitting, and a lot have a predominance of standing.
"We advise people to mix those two in an intuitive, natural way, much like how we’d use our body on the weekend."
6. An "inappropriate" question? Ivanka Trump says she believes her father's sex misconduct denials.
This Ivanka Trump answer is exactly why nepotism laws exist | Analysis by @CillizzaCNN https://t.co/CBj9BPglq0 pic.twitter.com/XUtGcTKuKt
— CNN (@CNN) February 26, 2018
Ivanka Trump says she believes her father's denials of sexual misconduct.
Trump, who led the US delegation at the closing ceremony for the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, made the comment in an interview aired on Monday on NBC.
Asked if she believed women who have accused President Donald Trump of sexual misconduct, Ivanka Trump called it a "pretty inappropriate question to ask a daughter".
"I believe my father, I know my father. I think I have that right as a daughter, to believe my father," she said.
The president has been accused of inappropriate behaviour by more than a dozen women. He denies those allegations.
7. There's a new call to ban the sale of junk food at supermarket checkouts.
Public health experts are calling for Australia's supermarket giants to remove all junk food and soft drinks from their checkouts, AAP reports.
A first-of-its-kind study conducted by the Global Obesity Centre at Deakin University has assessed the nutrition policies of Australia's major supermarkets, finding they could be doing much more to encourage healthy eating.
"Unhealthy diets and obesity are leading contributors to poor health in Australia," lead author Associate Professor Gary Sacks said.
"Tackling the issue requires a comprehensive societal response, including government policy and wide-scale action from the food industry, which includes our supermarkets."
Researchers rated the policies of Woolworths, Coles, Aldi and IGA out of 100 in the review which examined six key areas including nutrition labelling, promotion practices and product accessibility. The information was then assessed using the 'Business Impact Assessment - Obesity and Population Nutrition tool' developed by INFORMAS, a global network of public health researchers that monitor food environments worldwide.
Woolworths ranked the highest, scoring 46 out of 100, while IGA scored just eight points.
"The supermarkets are quite vocal about being healthy places to shop but the reality is once you are in the store there is heaps of promotion of unhealthy food," Prof Sacks said.
"The end-of-aisle displays are typically filled with unhealthy products, it's just chocolate and soft drinks at the checkouts; so it's just really hard to stick to a nice healthy basket of food when you are surrounded by all of that."