Houses intended to keep eligible Queensland teenagers out of the youth detention system are not cost-effective and may not have the desired results, a damning report finds.

The departure of some of north Queensland's best and brightest students is worrying the region's leaders and prompting them to devise a retention solution.

The case against Queensland man Ronald John Toft, who was accused of trying to kidnap a six-year-old girl at an Adelaide caravan park earlier this year, is dropped.

Farmers in Western Australia's far north have carved a spot in the niche Halloween pumpkin market growing in popularity around the country.

A site is chosen for a dam as part of the $300 million Hughenden Irrigation Project in north Queensland, but questions remain about how water licences will be granted.

A man is airlifted to Townsville Hospital with wounds to his hand and abdomen after being shot by officers while trying to break into Bowen Police Station in north Queensland.

One of the original mining towns in the famous Bowen Basin, Collinsville, marks 100 years of coal dominating the local economy.

When Magnetic Island resident George Hirst saw piles of household items left on the side of the kerb for collection, he believed they were telling a story. So he turned it into art.

A female teacher is in hospital with a shoulder injury after being stabbed at a Townsville primary school by an 11-year-old female student, Queensland police say. The student was tasered by police and detained.

In the north-west Queensland town of Ravenswood, two heritage-listed buildings at a school have been moved due to an expansion of the local gold mine.

Witness AAC says five of her children with disability have had negative experiences with the education system, with problems ranging from verbal abuse to denial of access to bathroom facilities and other restrictive practices.

Pastoralists west of Alice Springs haven't seen this many camels on their station in years, and say their neighbours should be doing more to prevent a boom in the feral population.

One of the world's most dangerous desert tracks claims a victim, with five-time champion Toby Price bowing out due to mechanical problems paving the way for a hometown hero to take the gold.

Prosecutor Stephen Robson says he does not accept the version of events given to police by Mr Deighton that he went to answer the door while changing baby Michael, returned to find him falling from the change table and then caught him.

A businessman and his pastoralist partners launch court action against Origin Energy over its plan for gas exploration on a Northern Territory cattle station.

An Alice Springs paraplegic man is pulled over by police for using a NDIS-funded wheelchair aid deemed illegal in the Northern Territory.

A man is in custody after a woman was stabbed multiple times at a home in the Northern Territory town of Katherine, just streets away from where another woman was found dead last week. Meanwhile, the Alice Springs Women's Shelter says 500 more people have sought its help this year.

Discoveries of rare animals are sparking mini tourism booms in remote Australia, but they're also causing some headaches for Aboriginal rangers and their conservation efforts.

A Victorian family stranded in the outback arrives in Darwin thanks to a good Samaritan who embarked on a 22-hour round-trip rescue mission.

Aboriginal traditional owners, politicians, and local community members are renewing calls for the Aboriginal flag to fly on Alice Springs's Anzac Hill 365 days a year, after it was raised on Monday morning solely to mark NAIDOC Week.

In a ground-breaking collaboration, Melbourne fashion label Gorman teams up with Indigenous artists whose work depicts places where sacred cultural knowledge has been passed down for thousands of years.

More payday lending practice stories are coming out of the woodwork as ASIC says it is "building a casebook" for a possible ban.

The head of the Australian Law Society says comments by Alice Springs Judge Greg Borchers were "racist because they are disparaging, discriminatory and offensive, insulting and humiliating to Indigenous Australians based solely on their race".

A fatal crash following a police pursuit near a community north-east of Alice Springs is being treated as a death in custody, with police declining to say what prompted them to chase the 42-year-old man.

They are a lifeline for tourist towns, but locals in the nation's regional tourism drawcards say increasing numbers of older travellers are failing to show basic etiquette.

Christopher Malyschko was serving a life sentence for arranging the murder of his mother's partner in Katherine in 2011. On Tuesday morning he was found dead in his cell in Darwin's prison.

A proposed merger between two of Australia's biggest rural retailers is a step closer to reality after the competition regulator said it would not oppose the plan.

Authorities are trying to find a 59-year-old man buried under soil and rock after a wall collapsed at a manganese mine in the central Northern Territory.

A 59-year-old employee of the company that operates the Bootu Creek mine was killed when a wall of soil and dirt collapsed on him on Saturday afternoon, the Singapore-based parent company says.

NSW resident Sonia Smallacombe says she was racially targeted by a police auxiliary stationed outside a bottle shop who demanded she produce hotel receipts to prove where she was staying.

The 41-year-old man from a remote Central Australian community was found guilty of two counts of "sexual intercourse without consent" for a sustained assault in which he raped and punched his aunt and then brandished a shovel at her as she tried to flee.

The financial, emotional and psychological effects of the crime on the business directors of Alice Springs Helicopters and their families was significant, the prosecutor says.

The legalisation of marijuana has boosted tourism and created jobs in parts of the United States, and it could do the same in the Northern Territory, an economist says.

Aboriginal leaders on South Australia's remote Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands should consider suspending their manager Richard King while an investigation is carried out into the use of Commonwealth funding, an independent report has found.

A heavily pregnant Alice Springs woman is sentenced to five years and three months in prison for stealing $486,000 from her former employer, leaving the business almost bankrupt.

African performer Nyapal Lul is making music again in her new desert home of Alice Springs after fleeing war-torn South Sudan in 2013, leaving five children behind.

Airlines around the world grounded their Boeing 737 MAX 8 passenger planes after two crashes which killed 346 people. Now, as investigations continue, six of the planes are flown to Alice Springs for storage.

Bushwalkers and map sellers say the decision by Geoscience Australia to stop printing and selling topographic maps will put people's safety at risk and impact on our understanding of remote Australia.

It will take up to four hours for critically injured patients from these remote communities to reach emergency medical treatment if the NT Government pushes ahead with plans to close clinics.

A pet deer fatally attacks a man and injures his wife during feeding. The couple's son had to beat the animal with a lump of wood to save his mother, the ABC has been told.

Josh Meredith lives with Down syndrome and is helping change community attitudes towards disability in the workplace.