Sydney news

Hunter police say back roads and major thoroughfares are in their sights this long weekend, as part of a road blitz coinciding with football grand finals.

Police say the gunman who shot dead a New South Wales police civilian employee was a 15-year-old radicalised youth of Middle Eastern background.

Bonalbo Memorial Hall, Broadwater Riley's Hill Community Hall, Eatonsville Hall, Eureka Hall, Meerschaum Vale Hall, The Channon Hall and Tumbulgum Hall have all been announced as the lucky winners of the Arts Northern Rivers project called 'If These Halls Could Talk'.

Anthony Milford has forced plenty of doubters to eat their words during Brisbane's run to this year's NRL grand final, but he admits even he was unsure how good he could be.

West Coast coach Adam Simpson says Hawthorn was always likely to be the toughest obstacle for any team in the race for the 2015 premiership.

A 15-year-old boy who pleaded guilty to inciting a suicide attack on police officers at this year's Anzac Day parade in Melbourne will serve at least five years in jail.

Buffering shows there is still plenty of fight in the old bulldog, claiming a third Moir Stakes at Moonee Valley on Friday night.

Former Australian Test spinner Lindsay Kline dies, aged 81.

A British teenager who pleaded guilty to inciting a terrorist attack at this year's Anzac Day parade in Melbourne will serve at least five years in jail.

Two former bar staff members at the Imperial Hotel in the inner-Sydney suburb of Erskineville have their credentials suspended for taking illicit drugs and drinking alcohol while on the job.

Young men could be the key to changing Western Australia's blokey corporate culture, where workplace flexibility is traditionally seen as a working mother's issue, a Perth conference hears.

A UK teenager involved in a terrorism plot to attack police at this year's Anzac Day parade in Melbourne will serve at least five years in jail.

Footy fans from Western Australia and north Queensland are making the sporting pilgrimage to Melbourne and Sydney for the AFL and NRL grand finals and we join some of them.

A Melbourne man accused of planning to fight in Syria seeks to have his passport cancellation overturned, saying he is the victim of overreach by the Federal Government.

St George Illawarra hooker Heath L'Estrange brings down the curtain on his 90-game NRL career.

The entrance to the main police command centre in Sydney has been cordoned off tonight following a shooting incident there late today, which has claimed two lives.

A record $48 million profit posted by Fremantle Ports raises questions about the West Australian Government's plans to sell it.

People flock to the Melbourne CBD on the first grand final public holiday, despite dire predictions from business groups that the city would be a 'ghost town'.

Homes are no longer under threat from a large bushfire in north Queensland which firefighters had earlier struggled to contain.

The headquarters for the Department of Immigration and Border Protection will likely remain in Belconnen after the Federal Government cancels its tender for a new office building.

The two candidates for the position of Perth Lord Mayor have faced off in a debate ahead of local government elections later this month.

State-owned port authority TasPorts is negotiating to sell the Triabunna wharf on the east coast to marina construction company Tas Marine Construction.

There is a spike in infections at the Royal Hobart Hospital, with the Australian Medical Association saying it is worried about an increase in reported cases of vancomycin resistant enterococcus at the facility.

Senior artists from South Australia's APY Lands want to set up a permanent art centre in Alice Springs to protect people from being exploited by unscrupulous dealers known as carpetbaggers.

The best way to end the working week. This week's panel were Tommy Dean, Rebecca de Unamuno and Subby Valentine.

Anti-abortion activist Troy Newman loses his High Court bid to stay in Australia and could be deported as early as this weekend.

A Margaret River teenager has a lucky escape after a massive snake lunges at her while she is prospecting in bushland.

$850 million: that's the cost to the Garden State's economy for a brand new public holiday to celebrate the AFL grand final. It was Premier Daniel Andrews' idea to give working families an additional day off together. But business lobby groups are furious, saying they've been forced to pay penalty rates to stay open or close for the day.

There are renewed calls for shark nets to be introduced to protect beachgoers on New South Wales north coast while other options are considered following a summit in Sydney.

A number of residents in Kangy Angy, on the New South Wales Central Coast, where the state government is proposing to build a multi-million dollar rail facility, say they will not be 'frightened into submission'.

The landmark Growing Up In Australia study hits a milestone with one-off health checks being done for the first time on thousands of kids.

An immigration detainee who claims to be an Indigenous Australian, not someone from Fiji who has overstayed his visa, is deported.

Sarah Jane Adams tells Lateline what it is like to be a style icon for almost 40,000 Instagram followers.

It is time to stop the "government knows best" approach to remote communities, while Indigenous people on welfare need to take more responsibility for themselves, an Indigenous government advisor says.

The team of barristers assisting the royal commission into trade unions delivers a scathing assessment of the embattled Heath Services Union in submissions on how Commissioner Dyson Heydon should deal with allegations of corruption.

The "time of cutting corners" on Adelaide's cycling infrastructure is over, says the city's Lord Mayor, who is pushing for a multi-million-dollar extension of the Frome Street bike lanes.

A Darwin man is sentenced to six years' jail after pleading guilty to 52 charges covering a range of offences including supplying a child with the drug ice as payment for work.

The sale of alcohol in supermarkets is up for discussion as part of a planned overhaul of South Australia's liquor licensing laws, the Government says, along with the issue of whether minors should be permitted to drink at private parties.

Dozens of South Australian tattoo industry workers fear they will be out of a job if proposed laws to regulate the industry are passed, protest organisers say.

The Far West Local Health District says nobody raised concerns about bullying or intimidation to the investigator called in to probe concerns raised by nurses.

A multi million dollar makeover of Bunbury's foreshore could get underway next year.

National Gallery of Australia (NGA) visitors can now get up close and personal with selected artworks usually kept well out of reach from the public.

The Louise Bell murder trial hears accused Dieter Pfennig once spoke about how to dispose of a body in the Onkaparinga River.

The coal industry is facing an orchestrated campaign to undermine its social licence to operate and the financial backing it receives.

A light plane, reported to be a Cessna with five men on board, makes an emergency landing in Adelaide's Victoria Park.

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A local yoga teacher tells us how she stays mentally healthy through meditation, breath and being in the moment.

"We took a little bit of a gamble that this was going to go around in circles for a very long time and we thought it wasn't worth doing a huge amount of work until we were sure it was absolutely going to happen, and I am quite relieved that we did do that." -UNE VC Duncan

Former Kleenmaid director Gary Collyer Armstrong is sentenced to seven years in jail for fraud and insolvent trading relating to the company's collapse in 2009.

Delegates attending this week's 11th International Mango Symposium have been told the global demand for mangoes is on the rise.