The week in photos from the award winning Sydney Morning Herald and Financial review photographers.

The former Saturday editor of The Age will oversee the federal politics, business, world and environment coverage for Herald and The Age.

Maha Al-Shennag told a court a water bottle fell into the footwell and may have become jammed under the brake pedal. A prosecutor disputed this.

The girl is believed to be a close contact of a 46-year-old Logan truck driver who tested positive.

Thousands of people have taken day-13 COVID-19 tests in Shepparton amid plans for mobile vaccinations.

Andrew Conduit found out he was one step closer to marrying his partner Nina Miranti when his mother shrieked at them to turn on the television.

A Melbourne woman who kept an Indian woman as a slave in her home for eight years has been charged with allegedly intimidating the victim ahead of her Supreme Court trial, calling her from a payphone under the guise of being a tamil translator.

Life in NSW during COVID lockdown.

Today on Please Explain, sports reporter Tom Decent joins Nathanael Cooper to look at Australia’s success at the Paralympics.

Five people have been charged and three others remain in hospital after an 18-year-old man was fatally stabbed in Sydney’s west.

Victorians who have not been vaccinated will be “locked out” of a plethora of venues, including pubs and sporting events, once the state reopens.

Graeme Russell cared deeply about the issues of gender equality, diversity and family wellbeing in Australia, devoting his professional life to research and practical work to promote these goals.

Lucy Carpenter and Sammy McCombe were both born with oculocutaneous albinism, which causes vision impairment. Luckily, this hasn’t affected their shared passions - fashion and photography.

Want to chat? We’d love to hear from you. Send your letters to goodweekend@​goodweekend.com.au

Experts say the Queensland Premier’s use of worst-case-scenario modelling on COVID deaths is justified, after a week of bitter political fighting.

The mastermind of one of Melbourne’s most notorious armed robberies, where bandits dressed as road workers hijacked an Armaguard van and stole $2.32 million, has been jailed for 14 years.

Playgrounds are reopening in Melbourne, NSW plans to scale down its contact tracing efforts and half a million extra Pfizer doses have landed in Australia as part of the PM’s deal with Singapore.

Many parents now hope the vaccines will help get their children back to school safely. What does the science say so far?

Temperatures across the state have been unseasonably warm to this point, with Melbourne recording a minimum temperature of 20 degrees overnight on Thursday.

Not that long ago it was virtually impossible to convict a killer without finding the body. But times have changed.

Puneet was a 19-year-old learner driver behind the wheel of a V6 Commodore when he lost control and hit students Dean Hofstee and friend Clancy Coker in Southbank in 2008.

The 83-year-old bayside resident had never been in trouble with the law before - not even a speeding ticket - before she was stopped by police in January.

Australia’s federation is now more fractured than at any time during this crisis, in a toxic mix of policy differences and politics, exacerbated by the approaching federal election.

Friday’s figures are the highest number of cases and deaths recorded in the state within a 24-hour period and Gladys Berejiklian says the next fortnight is likely to be “our worst” in terms of the number of cases.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has apologised for letting NRL officials and players’ families and partners cross the border at a time Queenslanders were locked out of their own state.

And a defiant Jeannette Young said she was “upset” by questions asked by reporters about the level of deaths she was comfortable with.

The hospitality prices at Optus Stadium for the decider are ‘eye-watering’, even for those used to paying the ‘big bucks’ for corporate seats, says Radio 6PR’s Gareth Parker.

A Perth mother fears her son’s life is at risk after a hospital delay led to the approval of his “life-changing” cannabis oil prescription not being renewed.

With no current outbreaks and nothing even approaching the NSW situation during this pandemic, we nevertheless have a chronic hospital system failure.

A Sydney woman fears she will not be able to farewell her dying mother after all her applications to enter WA were rejected despite meeting the criteria.

Comments from the Queensland government had largely lacked the context experts say is key to fully understand the risk, with the Commonwealth’s chief medical officer seeking to assure the nation’s parents.

After a secretive meeting in Beijing involving executives of an Australian abattoir, a ban costing the abattoir millions of dollars was overturned.

Truck movements through Sydney’s M5 East motorway and new M8 have hardly increased since the opening of a new tollway last year, even though car traffic has surged by more than 15 per cent.

The state Opposition Leader argues vaccine passports are the only fair way to restore normality.

In isolation since testing positive, Catherine Bugmy can’t use the communal washing facilities. Now she must wash her clothes in a Wilcannia lagoon.

It is important for children to get back to school and as adults who have benefited from their sacrifice, we are under a moral obligation to ensure they can do that safely,

Should lockdown restrictions permit and you find yourself near Sydney Harbour Bridge, you may wonder why there is an unfamiliar red flag.

Six months from now when we’re out of lockdown, many Australians won’t have recovered financially. We need to give them a hand – as other major economies are doing – to ensure our national recovery.

It has been a very difficult time for the elderly in aged care facilities.

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

Police raid three bookshops, big day for little fossickers, and price of beer rises 1c

When a gun-toting robber walked into her Edgecliff dry cleaning business, shopkeeper Betty Epstein was unfazed, telling him “You’ve got to be joking”.

The defamation case of the week pits the cut-and-paste churnalism factory of Daily Mail Australia against Nine Network sports presenter Erin Molan.

Playgrounds may have reopened, but I hope these long lockdown days have made people rethink how children play.

Victoria’s coronavirus strategy has shifted gears, NSW is on track to hit a key vaccination milestone and the Morrison government has accused Queensland of ‘scaremongering’ when it comes to children and COVID-19.

Some joy among the madness.

We asked subscribers to the Greater Good newsletter to send us their pics and these beauties arrive in our inbox.

The national plan to open up at 70-80 per cent of the eligible population vaccinated could be “devastating” for Aboriginal communities.

Asthma Australia is calling for more to be done about pollution levels across the country, with the regional Queensland centre of Gladstone topping the state charts for pollution.

Financial incentives, travel inducements and shock ads are among the measures that could be used to drive up vaccination rates and help get the state out of its cycle of coronavirus lockdowns.