Sydney news

A woman is flown to hospital with critical injuries and all Altona-bound lanes on the Western Ring Road are closed after a multi-vehicle crash involving a cattle truck.

There is frustration in the flood-devastated community of Latrobe where some residents have complained of delays to the assessment and approval of their insurance claims.

Police appeal for help to identify a man and car spotted on CCTV as they search for the person responsible for dumping tacks along a popular Melbourne cycling route.

Rental affordability has improved across Perth and the city is doing better than other Australian state capitals, particularly Sydney and Brisbane, a new report suggests.

Blues coach Laurie Daley says Wade Graham might never get another chance to play State of Origin after he was suspended for Game Two.

North Queensland gastroenterologist Stephen Fairly wants to run a world-first, large-scale trial of gut bacteria transplants to treat obesity and diabetes.

A youth homelessness service located within one of Melbourne's most iconic inner city tourist attractions says the number of young people accessing its services has risen.

The storms that battered Tasmania last week reveal a hidden treasure buried in the sand along the coast of the Freycinet National Park.

Shipwreck the Zephyr photo by Lucy Bradshaw

Shipwreck of the Zephyr by Nick Monk

An ACT magistrate says it is "disturbing" that witnesses turned up to court to provide a character reference for a man who harassed his partner, when they did not know the details of his offence.

The father of a suspected Hunter Valley murder victim says he has always thought she was dead, and is not surprised a coroner is now treating her disappearance that way.

Six men from New South Wales and the ACT are charged over the stabbing murder of Tu Luong in Sydney's west last December.

A woman being treated for Lyme disease calls for a Senate inquiry into the issue to resume after "a lot of time and effort" went into establishing the probe.

Struggling Whyalla steelmaker Arrium has been pledged a $100 million lifeline from Federal Labor, if it wins the election.

Momentum is building in a campaign to protect the wreck of HMAS Perth that went down during World War II, as scavengers pilfer parts of the sunken Australian ship.

He is facing up to 43 years in jail for criticising his government, but Malaysian political cartoonist Zunar is defiantly continuing to publish cartoons to his tens of thousands of supporters via social media.

More than 500 people gather at Perth's Northbridge Piazza to mourn those killed and injured in the Orlando shooting massacre.

Organiser's of Hobart's Winter Feast hope to attract 50,000 people to their stalls over the next five days as the popular culinary Dark Mofo event kicks off.

Labor candidate and counter terrorism expert Anne Aly says a "failure of government" allowed controversial Sheik Farrokh Sekaleshfar to gain a visa to Australia.

A truck driver accused of a hit-and-run incident that killed a 60-year-old grandmother laughed when he was confronted by a witness, a Sydney court hears.

Western Australia's Education Minister admits his Government has not done a good enough job rebuilding decades-old public schools, amid accusations of a broken election promise.

The West Australian Government begins spending $67 million to impose a heavy haulage toll on the proposed Perth Freight Link, despite Main Roads not yet having the power to impose such a charge.

Huon Valley's mayor may resign over the State Government's decision not to dismiss the council despite an inquiry's recommendations.

Lawyers for a Gippsland man accused of attempting to murder of two council workers in a long-running dispute over the demolition of a shed argue he never intended to kill the men.

Western Australia's Public Transport Authority distances itself from a probe into suspicious share trading linked to the Perth Airport rail link project, saying it has had limited contact with the stock exchange.

Wade Graham is found guilty of a careless high tackle, earning him a one-match suspension that will keep him from making his Origin debut for NSW next week.

Northern Territory Chief Minister Adam Giles writes to Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett asking the state to take back up to 700 Indigenous people sleeping rough in Darwin.

A man shot by police after refusing to drop a knife he was holding at Hornsby shopping centre in Sydney's north last week is charged with attempted murder.

Hundreds of people turn out for a candlelight vigil in Hobart's Franklin Square to pay their respects to the 49 people shot in a Florida nightclub.

It was a busy time in the 1980's for police reporters in Sydney. Neil Mercer, who heads up the ABC's National Reporting team, was one of them working as a journalist for Fairfax during the reign of Roger Rogerson.

It's taken the help of the CSIRO's powerful Parkes telescope for American researchers to discover a first-of-its-kind complex molecule in a giant star-forming cloud thousands of light years away. The discovery may shed light on how molecules that ultimately led to life on Earth formed in the first place. And the breakthrough is expected to help scientists solve one of the greatest mysteries in biology.

A woman driving in a car with her three-year-old son narrowly missed a light pole and appeared to have "nodded off" in the minutes before she hit and killed a cyclist in Melbourne's south-east in 2013, a court is told.

Wallabies coach Michael Cheika has given his forward pack a shake-up, dropping Scott Sio from his squad and making three other changes for Saturday's second Test against England.

In a national roundtable as part of the child abuse royal commission, police and expert representatives from around the country have gathered to discuss the challenges of their work.

Western Sydney's Nepean Hospital will be allocated $1 million in next week's New South Wales budget, but doctors say it is too little, too late.

A 22-year-old man is charged over the 2014 stabbing death of Rani Featherston in Melbourne's south-east.

Videos of boys using public toilets were found on the computer of a Perth child psychiatrist who is alleged to have committed a similar offence in Canada, a court hears.

Queensland prep students as young as four will be learning how to code from next year as schools fast-track the teaching of digital technology.

A once-in-a-decade wait is over for the beekeepers of Western Australia who are taking advantage of a rare event to capture an elusive and lucrative honey.

Are you one of our regular students for Self Improvement Wednesday? Each week, you get to learn something new - that's our Self Improvement pledge.

Two people are killed and a third is critically injured in a head-on collision near Bombala, south of Cooma.

Young West Australian girls who want to play AFL now have a professional league to aspire to, with Fremantle set to focus on local talent for its entry into the new competition.

A burst water pipe causes flooding in the basement of Perth Children's Hospital as construction woes continue at the $1.2 billion facility.

A Palmerston man who installed a hidden video camera in his stepdaughters' bathroom for "salacious and sleazy reasons" walks from court after pleading guilty.

Police charge a 43-year-old man over the alleged abduction of a two-year-old boy at Mudgeeraba on the Gold Coast.

A pop-up op shop in Cairns provides on-the-job training while raising money for community services.

A man is sentenced to community service for kicking a pet Chihuahua to death in the Hunter Valley.

The music therapy room in the Royal Children's Hospital is an essential part of its oncology care that has existed for 25 years in Melbourne.

A 22-year-old man has been arrested over the 2014 stabbing death of Rani Featherston in Melbourne's south-east.