Southern Tasmania and Hobart have entered a snap three-day lockdown, while Victoria and NSW have announced easing border restrictions for vaccinated citizens.

A senior Queensland firefighter who was initially denied a blue card allowing him to work with children will be able to apply after courts overturned the decision.

NSW’s move to effectively end quarantine for most travellers by opening up international borders to those who are vaccinated has raised questions over the future of the centre being built in Melbourne’s north.

Researchers have discovered three key markers in the blood that are associated with migraines, with hopes they could lead to new treatments for the debilitating condition that costs the economy $35 billion a year.

Ten thousand punters and racing fans attended Royal Randwick on Saturday for the other race that stops a nation - or at least its biggest city - the TAB Everest.

The Everest - the race that stops the hibernation.

Whale Watchers Sydney have taken eager spotters out on the open water for the first time since lockdown began, with just a few weeks of the season left.

Police are searching for four-year-old Cleo Smith, last seen at a campsite 75km north of Carnarvon.

Residents will on Monday be granted greater freedoms – including more guests at weddings and funerals – after the vaccine milestone was reached.

Regional officers and police stations are well-represented among this year’s crop of nominees for the Nine News WA Police Excellence Awards.

Electric transport devices such as e-scooters are cluttering Melbourne’s footpaths, creating obstacles for pedestrians - especially the vision impaired.

The government must not sleepwalk into the future when it comes to meeting the challenges of an ageing and declining population.

Queenslanders returning from southern Tasmania have hours to make it home before they will be forced into hotel quarantine.

Victoria has recorded 1993 new local cases of coronavirus and seven deaths as changes to border rules mean vaccinated NSW travellers will be able to visit Victoria without quarantining before Melburnians can escape the city.

A man will face court for allegedly stabbing people outside a home in Ipswich.

The best photos from the international wire agencies as chosen by our picture editors

From the CBD to the suburbs, Sydneysiders let their hair down on Friday night after more than three months at home.

Schools will be juggling a long list of safety measures when children return on Monday. But as COVID-19 cases surge, it is unvaccinated parents - not children - we should worry about.

Minor landslides have been reported after rain and winds as high as 78km/h hit greater Melbourne and Victoria overnight.

The Yoo-rrook Justice Commission presents a once in a lifetime opportunity to officially record the grave injustices inflicted upon our people.

The 1500 members of the Hong Kong election committee have all been vetted by the Chinese security agencies and will help select almost half the Hong Kong legislature in 2022.

Under the “intense pragmatism” of Victoria’s changed approach to contact tracing, not all COVID-19 cases are equal.

The NSW Building Commissioner writes that reforms will have a big impact on shoddy builders.

The NSW government has pledged $12 million to fight Aboriginal homelessness, but service providers warn it’s a bandaid solution for a complex problem.

An anti-vax baggage handler at Melbourne Airport who came to work while sick is being blamed for passing on COVID-19 to at least seven colleagues.

Outdoor entertainment might be music to the ears of those in the centre of the city, but walk a few blocks outside it, and it’s a different story.

This is what it’s like to work at Australia Post during the busiest period in the postal giant’s history.

It is one thing for the Catholic Church to lobby MPs to get privileges and exemptions for itself, it is another thing for it to try to defeat the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill and deprive the 70 per cent of citizens who support it.

NSW is preparing to hit its 80 per cent double-dose vaccination target, Victoria’s restrictions are on track to ease late next week despite record high case numbers and COVID-19 self-testing kits have been approved for use in Australia come Novembe...

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

Hobart and Tasmania’s south have entered a three-day lockdown from Friday night, after difficulty with tracing the movements of a man who escaped hotel quarantine.

Trevor Lambkin has been travelling to the Torres Strait for nearly 40 years to catalogue butterflies. What he has found is an ecosystem at serious risk from climate change.

The state will end quarantine for vaccinated travellers from November 1 but Scott Morrison insists reopening Sydney for international tourists and students must not be rushed.

Rob Priestly is the latest in a line of independent candidates seeking to oust sitting government MPs at the next federal election; in this case, the Nationals’ Damian Drum.

Three men have appeared before a Melbourne court after allegedly helming one of Australia’s biggest money laundering syndicates, with one of them denied bail.

The NSW Department of Education will provide “limited” home-schooling resources to parents who refuse to send their children to school for the rest of the term, according to the new back-to-school guidelines.

A WA Police spokesman said authorities were alerted to the emergency when one of the boat’s occupants made it to shore and raised the alarm.

A tornado has torn roofs off homes and damaged properties across Armidale in northern NSW, and has become the second tornado to hit the state in two weeks. The “unprecedented weather event” hit the regional city at about 10pm on Thursday, State E...

Footage shows police raiding a rural property in south-east Queensland seizing an estimated $25 million in cannabis plants. Four men have been charged.

Police arrested a 23-year-old man, who had been detained by security staff at The Golden Sheaf, but released him pending further inquiries.

As coronavirus cases in the Hunter area outstrip those in some of the city’s hardest-hit hotspots this week, businesses in regional NSW are scrambling to cancel bookings and postpone events after travel was blocked until November 1. 

With witnesses spread across the country, as well as in Afghanistan, the case brought by the former SAS soldier has been hampered by the pandemic.

Kenyan police are investigating an Australian charity that claims to save vulnerable children from human trafficking.

Justice Robert Beech-Jones found that restrictions on movement according to vaccination status “are the very type of restrictions that the Public Health Act clearly authorises”.

The significant easing of Victoria’s border permit system was revealed soon after NSW announced that fully vaccinated international arrivals won’t need to quarantine from next month.

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

Jailed at 14 and eventually bunking with a child killer, Sandie Jessamine escaped three times. Nearly 50 years on, she recalls the traumatic years that shaped her future.

Police raiding a boat found a fire that threatened to ignite a cache of fireworks and fuel cans packed alongside the largest ever cocaine haul seized in Australia.

International experience has shown children often struggle to readjust to school after extended lockdowns.

An eight-year-old boy and his 53-year-old father were rushed to hospital on Thursday evening after a man driving a Porsche Cayenne lost control, driving onto a sports field and hitting the pair who had been attending cricket training.