Retailers have been at the economic epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic, with mass shutdowns in place for the past five weeks.

With Australia's music festivals cancelled one after another as the coronavirus crisis unfolded, there was finally some good news yesterday for local music lovers.

National Cabinet has already set a two-month timetable for the return to the workplace of the estimated one million Australians currently working from home.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants "to get Australia back to work", and says he's now focused on flattening the unemployment curve and creating a "COVID-safe economy".

An effigy of Federal Water Minister David Littleproud, dumped into the Murray River at a protest over the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is continuing to float towards South Australia.

While a Victorian council rejects drought funding it says isn't needed, farmers in far-west New South Wales say they feel like they're in a "forgotten corner".

Alison Whitehead ran up and down a local hill until she reached the equivalent elevation of Mount Everest's peak

Bats have been migrating earlier than usual this year due to inland drought and a lack of food in Queensland's south-east, with red flying foxes seen covering Mount Isa's sky.

It felt as if the winds of change were blowing through the Catholic Church after the royal commission. But a new defence has rejected some of its key findings in relation to one of its most notorious paedophile priests, writes Louise Milligan.

Consumers are increasingly asking for it and Meat and Livestock Australia says it's achievable carbon neutrality by 2030.

Two homicides in two months last year rocked Maryborough in regional Victoria, a town whose residents already felt they'd become too accustomed to putting themselves down over the years.

A judge says Victorian paedophile priest Robert Claffey "mocked" his priestly authority to access and abuse children, while sentencing him to more jail time.

A scoreline of 79.41 (515) to 1.0 (6) has reversed a country AFL team's own, regular weekly triple-figure defeats. But is this just another tally of country footy's troubles?

A former Catholic priest who showed pornographic images to children and assaulted a teenager while he slept is jailed for two years and two months.

The ABC understands the Victorian Department of Corrections considers the Hopkins Correctional Centre in Ararat, 200 kilometres west of Melbourne, to be the most appropriate place to send the high-profile cleric.

Ararat parish priest Father Andrew Hayes says the church should accept a court's decision to dismiss George Pell's appeal against his convictions, but the Melbourne Bishop is standing by the disgraced Cardinal.

Once touted as a $300 million solution to regional Victoria's waste woes, plans to build a waste-to-energy facility have stalled, with some in the industry left scratching their heads.

A contentious highway upgrade again comes under scrutiny after revelations a land deal was struck between Victoria's roads department and the former Aboriginal cultural heritage authority which approved the development.

More than 500 protesters stop traffic outside the Victorian Parliament to rail against the planned destruction of trees sacred to Aboriginal people in Victoria's west.

A child abuse survivor says the priest who assaulted him did so in the 'welcoming' home of another clergyman. His claim comes amid new allegations that paedophiles acted in concert within the Catholic Church.

Police arrest a Victorian man over the stabbing murder of Adelaide woman Suzanne Poll at a shop in April in 1993 after a DNA breakthrough.

Sheena Roberts and Rachel Fuller

Rob Minshull produces Weekends with Warren and is an avid reader.

Rob Minshull produces Weekends with Warren and is an avid reader.

Rob Minshull produces Weekend with Warren and is an avid reader.

Rob Minshull is an avid reader, and the producer of Weekends with Warren Boland.

Emily Perkins

This year's NAIDOC Week theme is Voice. Treaty. Truth. But the truth is that many Indigenous people feel voiceless when it comes to expressing where Australia stands on treaty today.

Volunteers for Meals on Wheels say the charity is under threat with branches surviving on bequests as Federal Government funding for the service plateaus.

The dishevelled older man on a city street is no longer accurate as a homeless stereotype with women, youth and regional families falling below the poverty line.

The graves of five young WWII servicemen have been destroyed at a NSW cemetery in what has been described as a "disgraceful" act of vandalism.

Energy Australia has apologised to a customer for issuing him multiple bills that 'did not make sense' despite his repeated complaints.

Australia's Jillaroos maintain their three-year dominance of New Zealand's Kiwi Ferns with a 28-8 triumph in their Test match in Wollongong.

Newly retired NRL star Sam Burgess will appear in court in December over an alleged incident at a residence near Bowral earlier this month.

Black holes usually cannot be seen but astronomers have now discovered one closer to Earth than any that have ever been located before.

As most of the world struggles to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, one country which should have been vulnerable is keeping deaths and case numbers extremely low.

Two Jewish convicts sent to Van Diemen's Land, both named Solomon, would go on to lead very different lives. While one became the inspiration for Dickens' Fagin, the other became rich and "respected" — yet could never leave his convict past behind.

NSW Police rule Deputy Premier John Barilaro did not breach coronavirus travel restrictions by travelling to his farm in the Southern Tablelands where he undertook property maintenance.

A southern Tasmanian man in his 60s is the latest to test positive for COVID-19 as the Premier prepares to release details on Friday afternoon of a slow easing of coronavirus restrictions.

The number of Australians to have recovered from COVID-19 has surpassed 6,000, Health Minister Greg Hunt has announced, leaving fewer than 800 active cases of the virus around the country.

Power has been restored to most of the 55,000 homes and businesses in Western Australia that were plunged into darkness when a massive storm hit the southern part of the state.