About 65 arrests are made after some of the busiest roads in Perth's CBD were thrown into chaos on Friday morning by climate activists as part of a nationwide Extinction Rebellion demonstration.

Test all-rounder Mitch Marsh is likely to miss at least the first Test of the season after punching a dressing-room wall during Western Australia's Sheffield Shield draw with Tasmania, breaking his bowling hand.

One of the world's best known economists is proposing that all American be tested for Covid-19, regularly. Paul Romer says despite the expense and logistical challenges, mass testing is the only way the US can build community confidence, and therefore successfully re-open the economy.

Locals say bad driving mainly from tourists is to blame for a spate of fatal crashes on a stretch of Indian Ocean Drive north of Perth, after the latest serious accident left two foreigners dead.

As family and friends of Joyce Clarke demand to know why the young woman was shot dead by police, a tragic picture of her early life blighted by drugs and mental illness is beginning to emerge.

A company working on the Shell-owned Queensland Gas Corporation project tells job applicants they will not be accepted until they submit to blood tests to check if they are at risk of heart attack, high cholesterol and other conditions.

The simple genetic "heel-prick" test for newborns is saving the lives of children in New South Wales and the ACT, but elsewhere parents say their children aren't being afforded the same chance of survival in the face of rare diseases like Spinal Muscular Atrophy.

A formal investigation begins over the actions of Noosa Shire Councillor Jess Glasgow as a contestant on reality TV dating program The Bachelorette, with comments he made on the dating show described as "crude" and "highly offensive".

Defence says it "proactively tested" members for COVID-19 in the Middle East after it was notified a number of locally engaged contractors had tested positive to COVID-19.

The cry of 'save our sharks' echoed through Ellen Cove in Albany over the weekend as hundreds gathered to rally against the WA government's controversial policy.

Bradley Edwards elects not to offer a detailed defence to three charges of murdering Sarah Spiers, Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon — crimes that became known as the Claremont serial killings.

Alex Ross-King died of an MDMA overdose during a music festival in January. Now her mother is calling for changes to ensure no-one else dies.

In 1979, protesters blocked the path of bulldozers to stop the logging of a rainforest on the New South Wales north coast, the first blockade of its kind in Australia.

A North West Queensland mine has spent $45,000 on a COVID-19 testing machine for the community — despite the area having no cases of the coronavirus.

This holiday hotspot has the potential of having zero active coronavirus cases by early May, but with fine weather and loosening restrictions the situation could prove otherwise.

The Mount Isa Medical Centre is taking over the testing service to ensure people with respiratory symptoms are checked, despite no cases being recorded in the city.

There have been five new cases from over 4,112 people tested in the last 24 hours in NSW.

NSW's total number of new COVID-19 cases increases by only two people, one day before some social-distancing restrictions in Australia's worst-affected virus state are eased.

Health authorities in NSW carried out more than 8,800 tests yesterday, and they're delighted that only five came back positive.

MORNING BRIEFING: The aged care facility in Sydney's west is stepping up measures to address an outbreak of coronavirus after a staff member worked six shifts with mild symptoms.

A rampant outbreak of COVID-19 is sweeping the western Sydney aged care facility, and has so far killed 15 of it's residents.

Two South African music fanatics embark on a life-changing journey to uncover the story behind one of their country's favourite, but enigmatic artists.

The number of people who have tested positive for coronavirus in Tasmania jumps to 16, with five cases being diagnosed on Saturday, the director of public health says.

Health authorities say a person in their 20s is among the latest positive cases of coronavirus detected in Tasmania taking the state tally to 42.

Sex work, food vans at farmers' markets and race meetings are some of the latest activities banned by Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein, as part of the ongoing effort to slow the spread of coronavirus in the state.

An investigation is underway after two staff members of the North West Regional Hospital in Tasmania test positive for coronavirus.

One of the two coronavirus cases confirmed in Tasmania is a staff member from the North West Regional Hospital, a day after two other staff cases were revealed.

A coronavirus outbreak at Burnie's hospital has prompted a plea for Tasmania's north-west residents to do the right thing over the Easter break, as a drive-through testing station opens in Hobart.

More cases of coronavirus are confirmed as being from Tasmania's north-west, on the day Premier Peter Gutwein urges residents with flu-like symptoms to get tested for the deadly disease.

Hiking huts are Australia's answer to Scotland's famed bothies and New Zealand's backcountry shacks and stand as a testament of a national identity that has long been intertwined with survival in isolation.

Tasmania records its first coronavirus infection in a nursing home, a 79-year-old woman in the state's cluster zone in the north-west, where cases linked to two hospitals prompted a mass quarantine last week.

Tasmania has four new cases of coronavirus to add to its tally, with three being health workers from the state's disease hotspot of the north-west.

A female healthcare worker "in her 20s" is the latest case of coronavirus confirmed in Tasmania, on the day Australia's Chief Medical Officer apologises for alleging an "illegal dinner party" contributed to the state's outbreak.

Conservationists are alarmed about the amount of vegetation to be cleared for Snowy 2.0, but Snowy Hydro says the benefits outweigh their concerns.

Rampant vandalism, stress on social housing, and a dairy farming family at the end of their resources SBS's Struggle Street spotlights the Riverina in its latest look at poverty.

Extinction Rebellion protesters say they will take on board concerns that their demonstrations are disproportionately affecting people with disabilities, as police use power tools to separate activists in Melbourne and Brisbane.

Climate protesters who brought the streets of Melbourne to a standstill are vowing to make a comeback in autumn as police reveal the cost of overtime for controlling the protests would be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

A former police officer critical of the force's response to the Bourke Street rampage is considering selling his home to afford independent legal representation at an inquest into the attack, a court hears.

Police horses charged through demonstrators protesting an international mining conference

Police arrest more than 40 demonstrators who were blockading the entrance to an international mining conference in Melbourne, while two officers who were injured during an arrest are taken to hospital for treatment.

Protesters are continuing to disrupt a mining conference in Melbourne.

After Victorian police were found to have falsified hundreds of thousands of breath tests last year, the state's anti-corruption body warns there's a risk officers could still be conducting fake tests because of "meaningless and unachievable" targets.

Senior Victorian police defend their tactics, including the pushing of a journalist and the use of pepper spray, during protests outside a mining conference, saying officers are ready to respond the same way tomorrow.