Household transmission remains a concern in Sydney, experts debate the usefulness of Melbourne’s curfew and Taliban officials have fronted the world’s media for the first time since consolidating power in Afghanistan.

About 14 per cent of NSW’s public intensive care beds are occupied by people with COVID-19, as private hospitals are told to reduce their elective surgery intake to free up resources.

On Wednesday, the third case to be recorded in Bourke was within an Aboriginal community of about 14 houses on an old mission a few kilometres out the back of Bourke.

It is not possible to do your job properly and care for a toddler at the same time.

Differing approaches to online classes is causing tension within school communities, with an 11-year-old banned from Google Classroom for asking her peers if they wanted more.

Aboriginal groups are urging the NSW government to open more vaccine clinics in Sydney’s west as Blacktown’s mayor reveals he offered space for one last month.

The NSW government’s stay at home rules leave plenty of room for interpretation.

Police attended an address in Ipswich on Wednesday morning and the man fled, falling to his death.

The letter calls for an increase in Australia’s humanitarian intake and action to resettle interpreters, guides and other personnel involved in Australia’s mission in Afghanistan.

NSW, Melbourne and New Zealand are all in lockdown. This is how their restrictions compare.

Toutai Kefu, who was released from hospital on Wednesday, said it was “humbling to see the outpouring of love” he and his family had received.

Police will meet with hospitality industry representatives next week to discuss the problem, which has prompted fears of coronavirus infections spreading from Melbourne.

A charge of driving without due care and attention against councillor Jenny Hill was dismissed in court on Wednesday.

The Townsville student, who attended school for three days this week, has been forced into home quarantine after returning from Sydney on Friday without isolating.

Doctors who visited the Melbourne aged care home amid the country’s deadliest coronavirus outbreak said they feared that those left behind when staff were removed would starve to death.

Restrictions including mask wearing and capacity limits will ease in parts of Queensland from 4pm on Friday. Here’s how.

The head of the NSW corruption watchdog has warned that it remains under the control and influence of the state government due to unresolved funding issues, which they described as both inappropriate and unlawful.

Police Minister David Elliott said officers disliked enforcing public health orders, but they were a necessary infringement on liberties.

If NSW’s rolling daily cases average reaches 500 for at least five days, it will move to the extreme category. Meanwhile, a new cluster in New Zealand is casting doubt over Perth’s Bledisloe Cup match.

Health authorities are urging everyone in the St Kilda area to get tested as they dispatch specialist health teams to try and get a handle on mystery chains of transmission.

Father Anthony Caruana abused 12 boys at a boarding school in the NSW Southern Highlands in the 1980s. He was convicted of the abuse last month.

A man will stand trial after pleading not guilty to charges he murdered a woman and her brother almost 32 years ago in the home they shared in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs.

Today on Please Explain economics editor Ross Gittins joins Jess Irvine to discuss the adequacy of support for people whose incomes have been affected by COVID-19.

Photographer Vanessa del Medico has had to shut her business down six times, but this lockdown she’s doing things a little differently – she’s going easy on herself and her kids.

The media outlets are resisting a court bid by Christian Porter to stop them using or reporting on secret parts of the ABC’s defence to his defamation claim.

Australia’s unfair laws and processes are designed to make it as difficult as possible for asylum seekers to succeed in seeking our protection.

Restrictions, including mask rules, are set to ease in Queensland.

The 50-year-old had a picnic at the beach with her ill father after being granted permission to enter WA to say goodbye to him.

The 18-year-old accused apologised and expressed remorse for the deaths of his victims in court on Wednesday.

On any given day, Philimon Darmo, 83, might translate new restrictions, exposure sites or other announcements, which are then circulated throughout the community.

The number of pedestrians who died after being struck by cars in Victoria reached a nearly six-year high in June.

I definitely don’t like playgrounds being closed. But I do think it’s necessary.

“Witnesses reported the aircraft was seen descending very quickly, so something was obviously wrong,” a CASA spokesman said.

NSW has reported 633 new local cases, the highest number ever recorded in the state within a 24-hour period.

WA’s first purpose-built quarantine hub is expected to open by the end of March after the federal and state governments signed off on an agreement to build the 1000-bed facility on Wednesday.

WA Attorney-General John Quigley would not have backed Neville Owen’s appointment had he known of his relationship with Billionaire Kerry Stokes.

WA’s zero-tolerance approach to COVID-19 will clash with around half of the agreed steps in phase B and C of the national plan.

The nation has lost count of “roadmaps” that have emerged, all solemnly agreed and announced, on the way out of the pandemic. Instead, each state goes its own way.

The murder trial of Northern Territory police officer Zachary Rolfe may not go ahead on Monday as planned.

It is the premiers and chief ministers who will decide how Australia charts its course out of this crisis.

Drowning rates rose 30 per cent last summer after a fall in learn-to-swim enrolments.

There is frustration at the slow distribution of grants to help businesses in Sydney to survive the lockdown.

New data suggests the country’s tertiary institutions survived the first year of the pandemic better than expected, although job cuts and student fee losses are expected to bite.

The NSW government is also spending almost half a million dollars on a marketing strategy to improve the perception of teaching as the teacher shortage bites

Twenty years of struggle to protect women’s rights and equality in Afghanistan is at risk if the international community abandons the country, advocates say.

A new study finds COVID-19 has triggered particularly bad memories of war and conflict for many refugees, particularly those in areas in severe lockdown where police and military may be patrolling.

Three prominent Liberal Party MPs and leading health professionals are urging Premier Gladys Berejiklian to reverse the temporary closure of breast screening services across the state.

Trivia buffs: test your knowledge with today’s interactive superquiz and target.

Elvis Presley, whose pelvis became part of the sensuous delivery that made him a rock’n’roll legend, died of an “erratic heartbeat” yesterday.