Good morning. It's Thursday. Nelli Saarinen here with your AM NewsMail.

A major Australian university has wrongly accused thousands of its students of cheating with AI. But the burden of proof falls on the students — many of whom told the ABC they were given little time to respond and waited months for an outcome.

Plus, Australia's energy transition is in flux as major projects struggle to get completed, and more childcare incidents are unearthed by the ABC.

Last year the Australian Catholic University accused 6,000 students of academic misconduct, with the most common offence being the use of AI to cheat. Many had done nothing wrong, but had their assignments flagged as AI-generated by an AI program.

One of those wrongly accused was a medical student who had to produce dozens of pages of evidence to prove the accusations wrong. The university's case against him hinged on a single AI-generated report.

"It's AI detecting AI and almost my entire essay was lit up in blue — 84 per cent of it supposedly written by AI," the student told the ABC.

Analysis with David Speers: The government is determined to avoid wearing any blame in the Optus outage, but it also needs to be transparent about how it handled early advice from the telco as it seeks to maintain trust in the triple-0 system.

Environment law reform: Environment Minister Murray Watt will sit down with his Liberal counterpart Angie Bell today amid quiet optimism in both parties that a deal might soon be struck to rewrite Australia's "broken" and outdated environment laws.

Childcare incidents: The death of a 15-week-old baby in an unlicensed home daycare in Victoria's north-east is among more than two dozen disturbing childcare incidents recorded in government documents unearthed by the ABC.

• Drug trafficking: Out on their usual Saturday morning boat run, two Solomon Islands men discovered an odd-looking vessel. It turned out to be a narco sub — the third such vessel found in the country's waters during the past year as cocaine and meth trafficking comes to the Pacific.
• Energy transition: A "quick and easy" high-voltage powerline project linking South Australia directly to New South Wales was touted as a model for the energy transition. Now, the project is running dramatically over time and over budget, earning itself the nickname "extension cord to nowhere".
• Rental prices: House rents across the country's combined capitals have remained stable for five consecutive quarters, bar two cities that buck the national trend.

That is Majeda Abu-Jarad, who has been sending the ABC regular voice notes detailing her and her family's displacement in Gaza .

Majeda, her husband No'man and their five daughters are onto their 12th refuge after moving towns eight times in two years to avoid the Israeli military's attacks.

The war in Gaza may be ending soon, but the suffering is far from over for those displaced by Israel's bombardment and invasion.
 

Summer is just around the corner, which means it's time to slip, slop, slap.

But if you recall the reports back in June of Choice testing revealing that 16 out of 20 popular sunscreens failed to meet their sun protection factor (SPF) claims, you may be feeling confused about which sunscreens to trust.

To add to that, an investigation by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is ongoing, but in the meantime, ABC Health has dug into what we know at the moment.

And that's it for today. Thanks for reading. We'll be back at the same time tomorrow with more.

Nelli and the ABC News Digital team.

An Australian university has accused thousands of its students of cheating with artificial intelligence. The problem? Many have done nothing wrong.

Touted as a model for the energy transition, a "quick and easy" high-voltage powerline project linking South Australia directly to New South Wales is running dramatically over time and over budget.