There were tears in some cities and deserted airports in others as some of Australia’s biggest Games names returned to their loved ones.

The NSW Premier says case numbers in her state are ‘disturbingly high’, experts have backed Victoria’s new COVID-19 restrictions and residents of Greater Darwin are waking up to the first full day of a snap lockdown.

The four-year-old has raced twice for Gerald Ryan and Sterling Alexiou but was subject to some sale attention and hasn’t appeared since a luckless second at Randwick on July 17.

Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron joined Boris Johnson in blaming the US for the fall of Kabul but Joe Biden doubled down on his decision to withdraw.

The startling transformations of two of the country’s biggest companies overshadowed the extraordinary torrents of cash BHP is distributing to shareholders.

Police have called for park lights to be switched off and basketball hoops to be taken from public courts in areas of south-west and western Sydney.

Landlords and businesses in central Melbourne have given up on a recovery this year and are now looking to 2022 when they hope the pattern of repeated lockdowns will end.

Hotspot postcode have had some of the largest increases in vaccination uptake in the past month, but the number of residents fully inoculated in wealthier parts of the north shore, inner west and eastern suburbs is still up to three times higher.

Clubs that win the right to host finals will be able to choose where they play them but their choice will be limited to venues that can host crowds while the AFL players and staff won’t all be vaccinated by season’s end.

It was a tough decision to send an individual past the vetting process and into this dangerous world to gather evidence in the form of secretly recorded video and audio. We took our time, and we carefully considered legal and ethical advice.

Squadron Energy has confirmed it is withdrawing from on-shore gas interests in Australia’s North West.

Zarifa Ghafari has survived three assassination attempts but has never felt as much despair as now.

While there were “issues with sick leave” on the night Wallaby legend Toutai Kefu and family were allegedly stabbed, police chief says the Coorparoo district was far from unmanned.

Although there are not yet any cases in Brewarrina, more than 760 kilometres from Sydney in north-western NSW, people have tested positive in the neighbouring towns of Walgett and Bourke.

Magellan’s chief investment officer Hamish Douglass has defended the group’s approach to diversifying operations and predicts key stakes in loss-making companies will come good.

Western Australia’s predicted biggest-ever grain harvest is just weeks away, but farmers still don’t know whether they will have the manpower to get it done.

Sydney’s midweekers are back at headquarters with a seven-race card set down for Randwick’s Kensington surface.

“We are better to start high [with restrictions] and be cautious,” PM Jacinda Ardern said. “We only need to look at Australia to see the alternative.”

Some health experts have backed the tough restrictions, while others are more sceptical about the impact of a curfew in stopping spread of the virus.

For the second time in four months the Byron Bay mega-event has been rescheduled. It means the festival will have not been staged in both 2020 and 2021.

BHP also announced it would reshape its 20-year-old corporate structure by collapsing its dual-listing in Australia and the United Kingdom, transferring all shareholders to Australia-based BHP Group Ltd.

Afghanistan’s top diplomat in Pakistan has launched an urgent appeal for asylum in Australia.

In selling its oil and gas assets to Woodside BHP has just kicked the environmental can across the Nullarbor.

Health authorities are concerned about new, unlinked cases emerging in the suburbs surrounding Caulfield North, where a prohibited engagement party was held last week.

Vaccine rollout to Aboriginal people lags mainstream Australia despite priority status, amid call for Indigenous sport stars to front education campaign.

Australia’s competition watchdog warns the market is on a knife-edge and companies that rely on the fossil fuel could face further pain.

Changes to the controversial eligibility rule could prove problematic for the Waratahs, who face a monumental rebuild after failing to win a match this year.

Kerry Cotterill, who received an infringement notice during a lockdown protest last year, argued the Andrews government’s stay-at-home laws limit political speech.

Australian expats finding themselves at the end of vaccine queues and unable to return home want the government to start an embassy immunisation program.

A young man who stole a baseball cap from a seriously injured man and his dying brother will be released from custody, despite a judge’s concern over his lack of remorse.

Before lockdowns were imposed on the nation’s largest state economies, the RBA believed an economic rebound was on the cards.

The price of Chinese cooperation and economic investment is for an Islamist Afghanistan to remain silent on the plight of more than 1 million Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang.

Office and industrial property behemoth Dexus is confident workers will return to their desks when lockdowns are a thing of the past but any leasing tensions in the sector will be offset by growth in its diversified $25 billion funds management platf...

COVID-19 vaccines cause our immune system to produce a surge of new antibodies. Over time, those levels drop, and we become vulnerable to reinfection. But the World Health Organisation has called for a moratorium on boosters.

A senior government minister is among politicians and health professionals urging the state government to reverse a decision to suspend breast screening services in NSW.

The Coorparoo community has rallied behind the family of rugby union great Toutai Kefu, and are furious that crime is rising in the area.

Homicide Squad Commander Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty said investigators were determined to find answers for Adnan Salameh’s grieving family.

Willie Rioli’s two-year suspension is set to end and the fallen Eagles forward is in line to make an immediate return against Brisbane on Saturday.

Australia will almost certainly have to find a way to beat the same West Indies team that has bullied them in Twenty20 matches over most of the past decade if they are to progress to the semi-finals of the World Cup.

Thanks to airline pilots made redundant because of COVID-19 now volunteering for the child air taxi charity Little Wings, Victoria can get treatment for severe burns in Sydney.

Domain says its decision to reinstate a dividend and pay back JobKeeper funds to the government signals its confidence in the outlook for real estate.

Right-wing extremism has been growing in Australia for years. There are steps the federal government can and should take now to keep Australians safe.

Moses Mbye felt so guilty for standing in the way of Michael Maguire’s rebuild at the Wests Tigers, he is leaving to join St George Illawarra next year.

One of the river’s dams is just a few metres away from having its hydroelectric shut off. “What we hoped we’d never see is here,” said an official.

The Cats have lost their defensive prime mover, most likely for the rest of the season, but Mark Blicavs says he and his teammates are ready to respond.

Taxi driver Naji Fakhreddine is accused of murdering German national Bernd Lehmann in 2008 after the pair engaged in oral sex.

The opposition’s attempts to compel the Legislative Council to meet in a COVID-safe manner failed after crossbenchers sided with the government.

The Hawaiian action star’s Sweet Girl veers from icky to sticky, as the fake blood flows, leaving a wake of question marks in the process.

The lockdown-inspired ‘shop local’ mantra is proving invaluable for convenience focused retail landlords, boosting their earnings as sales soar across all categories.

Snapshot: The goalkicker playing down back; checking up on the talent guru; remembering a great Bulldog.