Sydney news

The Deputy Premier Troy Grant says remote western communities will be among the beneficiaries from recent hospital upgrades in the region's larger centres.

As hundreds of medical graduates start year-long internships in hospitals across New South Wales, the push is on in Tamworth for interns to work in the local hospital after their training.

Conditions will be tough for Tour Down Under riders as they race from Prospect to the Barossa town of Lyndoch in Tuesday's opening stage.

A television antenna repairman is charged with the indecent assault of a woman while she was in the shower at her Mount Pritchard home, in Sydney's south west.

Lleyton Hewitt's final Australian Open campaign starts tonight, with Roger Federer among many taking a keen interest in how the veteran fares.

Rubber-tyred vehicles emerge as a health hazard for underground coal miners in the New South Wales Hunter Valley, with hundreds of injuries reported over the past decade, stemming from jolts blamed on vibrating vehicles.

Telephone scammers posing as Australian Taxation Office officers spark a warning to Canberrans, with some victims having already lost more than $100,000.

A man faces court in the New South Wales Riverina today charged with alleged sexual assaults on two girls in the 1980s.

The NSW Ambulance Service is urging people enjoying the beaches along the east coast to look out for marine life that can bite or sting.

Temperatures across South Australia are tipped to reach up to 40 degrees Celsius as Stage 1 of the Tour Down Under gets underway.

A potentially lethal bacteria found in feral cats on Christmas Island prompts a warning to avoid contact with the introduced pests.

A University of Newcastle academic hits out at what he calls a 'Eurocentric' education system for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

New South Wales has avoided the riots that broke out at a Victorian jail over smoking bans, but prison officers say inmates are coming up with novel ways to get their nicotine fix.

Newcastle Council says City Hall's newly refurbished clock tower should be revealed in the coming days, with scaffolding set to be removed at the end of January.

Scientists uncover the sound of a deadly disease-carrying female mosquito's wings beating, in order to lure the male of the species to their death.

The Northern Territory's rambutan industry experiences one of its longest harvest periods on record, with another month still to go.

Disgraced former speaker Bronwyn Bishop could put her hand up for preselection for this year's federal election as soon as today, but some Liberal insiders argue the party needs new blood.

Karen Chetcuti was incapacitated then murdered by her neighbour after the Victorian mother of two dropped into his house to pick up a punnet of tomatoes, police allege.

A pregnant 16-year-old was kicked in the stomach and a man was bashed in the head with a mallet when a group of people stormed a home in Cronulla in Sydney, police allege.

The NSW Environment Protection Authority says it is too early to know whether regulatory action will be required after a dam overflow incident at an Upper Hunter mine.

The NSW government says it's too early to know when a review into the policy of not providing air conditioning in public housing properties will be complete.

A police pursuit in Adelaide's north ends after the vehicle being chased loses both its front tyres, with the driver then trying to evade officers on foot.

Temperatures across South Australia are tipped to reach up to 40 degrees Celsius as Stage 1 of the Tour Down Under gets underway.

A pregnant 16-year-old was kicked in the stomach and a man was bashed in the head with a hammer when a group of people stormed a home in Cronulla in Sydney, police allege.

Four people escape injury after several shots are fired into a home at Greenfield Park in Sydney south west overnight.

Czech Republic qualifier Kristyna Pliskova, who beat Samantha Stosur in straight sets, says the top-ranked local women's hope in the Australian Open was nervous.

Police say Tasmania's untested anti-workplace protest laws will be used if there is civil disobedience at a logging site in the state's north-west.

Residents rubbish EPA

Hospital apology over ferret bite

Firefighters stop the spread of a grassfire that engulfed a home at Crib Point on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula.

Chris Gayle smashed the equal fastest half-century in Twenty20 cricket history, but it ias not enough to prevent the Melbourne Renegades bowing out of this season's Big Bash League.

Victoria's firefighters union applies to the Coroners Court for an inquest into Christmas Day fires that saw 116 homes destroyed along the Great Ocean Road.

Nick Kyrgios powers his way into the second round of the Australian Open at Melbourne Park with a straight-sets win over Pablo Carreno Busta.

Australian Open favourite Novak Djokovic reveals he "felt terrible" about being approached to fix a tennis match when he was a teenager in 2006.

Police charge three members of the Knitting Nannas anti-coal seam gas protest group after they chained themselves by their necks to a wastewater plant gate in Narrabri.

A South Australian foundry that was due to close last year has put those plans on hold, prompting the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) to clamp down on its odour emissions.

Fifth seed Maria Sharapova crushes Japan's Nao Hibino in a ruthless first-round display to fire a warning to her rivals at the Australian Open.

Police scale back their search for a missing UK tourist who jumped off an inner-city bridge into the Brisbane River, in what they have described as a "drunken stunt".

Nick Kyrgios powers his way into the second round of the Australian Open at Melbourne Park with a straight-sets win over Pablo Carreno Busta.

A house is destroyed and another is damaged as firefighters battle a grassfire at Crib Point on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula.

A rampaging Roger Federer kicks off his 17th Australian Open campaign with a 6-2, 6-1, 6-2 demolition of Georgian battler Nikoloz Basilashvili.

In-form Daria Gavrilova shows her fighting qualities to overcome Czech veteran Lucie Hradecka in her opening Australian Open match.

A property developer accused of running a red light in his car, killing Navy Lieutenant Scott Jarman and injuring two others at a Darwin intersection in 2014, has his trial vacated on medical grounds.

Water police identify two men killed in a boating accident off the Pilbara coast as Matt Pennington and Lawrence Smith.

One house is engulfed by fire as firefighters battle an out-of-control blaze at Crib Point on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula.

Researchers hoping to uncover more of Tasmania's convict history are carrying out the first-ever excavation of barracks at Triabunna.

After a long, dry start to the wet season, West Australian pastoralists finally get some welcome relief, with rain falling at the weekend.

Six senior citizens share their thoughts on their sexual encounters, past and present, in an effort to combat the taboo nature of the topic and offer wisdom to young people.

A pilot project is under way in the Mackay region to come up with better strategies for eradicating feral pigs.

A pilot project is under way in the Mackay region to come up with better strategies for eradicating feral pigs.