Beekeepers in New South Wales are hand-feeding their hives as the drought cripples the bees' ability to make honey, with a shortage expected to sting consumers at the checkout.

A braille teacher says technology is causing a decline in literacy among people who are vision-impaired, prompting her to bring the tactile language into the mainstream.

MORNING BRIEFING: NSW police hunt for Sunjay Dayal, who escaped while undertaking maintenance work in Mount Kiera, while three cars set alight in a garage triggers the fire alarms inside a Liverpool unit block.

A woman on trial accused of murdering her partner allegedly poisoned him with a "cocktail of dangerous medication" so she could benefit financially from his death, an Adelaide court is told.

A new memorial planned for the 14 victims of the Appin mine disaster will bring little comfort to the families still shattered by the explosion of 1979.

The rugby league player is slapped with an extra charge which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison as he is committed to stand trial in August over the alleged aggravated sexual assault of a 19-year-old woman in Wollongong.

In March 1996, teenager Matthew De Gruchy bludgeoned his family to death in a "frenzied attack" in NSW. Twenty-three years later, he is set to be released from prison as a 41-year-old man.

An Adelaide judge remains tight-lipped on his reasons for declaring a mistrial in the case of a woman accused of poisoning her partner with a cocktail of dangerous medication.

The renowned painter launches legal action against his stepdaughter, saying she influenced her dying mother who "suffered from cognitive impairment" to withdraw $2.2 million from a bank account in 2016.

The ARLC has suggested that Jack de Belin needs a "reality check" as it argues that the code's no fault stand-down policy is necessary because the sport has been "beset by a series of scandals."

The NDIS cuts off at 65, so anyone who gets an acquired disability has to make do with an aged care supplement. This is not enough, according to a family caring for a quadriplegic.

Authorities say a man had been trying to land a light aircraft near Braidwood, one hour east of Canberra, when he was killed in a crash this morning.

Fine-dining chefs Tom Chiumento and Simon Evans usually serve seven-course degustations, but recently they've been using their talents to provide quality meals from food destined for the bin.

Australia has an extensive list of previously banned books that were once considered "obscene" and a threat to the country's morals and literary standards.

A man who had a container of railway detonators in his bag on a train on the New South Wales south coast pleads guilty to possessing an explosive device in public.

A court has been shown video footage of a carer yelling and swearing at her 81-year-old dementia patient before police allege she punched the elderly woman in the leg.

A man has been sentenced to six months in prison after being found with an explosive device at Wollongong train station last Thursday during peak hour.

Mining company South32 removes hundreds of workers from its two Illawarra underground coal mines as it investigates an issue with an emergency breathing mask.

A court hears a former NSW Northern Beaches baseball coach allegedly kept torture tallies, diaries naming victims, footage of alleged assaults and was in possession of child pornography.

High-profile members of the surf lifesaving movement have described a continual wrestle for resources between spending on sport and spending on rescue equipment.

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.

A New South Wales man claims he has been "deceived" by the state's public trustee after his elderly mother's will was allegedly changed without his knowledge.

A major crime review into the suspected murder of three-year-old Cheryl Grimmer, who was taken from a Wollongong Beach almost 50 years ago will be conducted, as her family desperately pleads for the state coroner to hold a second inquest into her death.

A man charged with the manslaughter of Valmai Birch, 34, at her NSW south coast home eight years ago is accused of hogtieing her and causing her death by asphyxiation or other means, before putting her body in a wheelie bin.

MORNING BRIEFING: An independent panel gives a 30-storey tower and retail complex at Barangaroo the green light, while police are perplexed how an SUV ended up on top of a parked car.

Shopping these days is no private affair as shopper surveillance ramps up towards the Christmas period. What you might not be aware of is that traders and their employees are also being keenly observed.

Illawarra is not a hotbed of top NBA talent, but LaMelo Ball has already done enough in the NBL preseason to rocket to the top of NBA mock drafts.

Daniel Mansbridge was seven kilometres into a 1,000-kilometre charity ride for children's cancer when he was knocked off his bicycle and bashed by a group of teenagers.

The train Harris Cheung catches to work in Sydney each day takes an hour-and-a-half the same time it took to travel the route on a steam train in the 1930s.

They've battled gale-force winds, cold winter nights, and drunks serenading them with Billy Joel classics at three in the morning. But two young medicos are determined to keep sleeping out in their scrubs to draw attention to the detention of asylum seekers.

It startled the cows, intrigued the locals and excited scientists around the world. Fifty years on, the Murchison meteorite still defines a town and yields new discoveries every year.

Stephen Grimmer, the brother of murdered toddler Cheryl Grimmer who disappeared in 1970, pleads guilty to indecently assaulting a 14-year-old girl.

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