Haider Ali, 37, is returned to Australia to face court after he fled the country while on trial for sexual offences two years ago.

A Canberra man appears before court facing child exploitation charges, after Tinder reported his alleged conversations searching for a young Thai girl to a United States cyber safety watchdog.

Robert Glen Sirl was caught having sex with a 15-year-old girl in foster care when police visited to talk to him about a separate rape. He has now been found guilty of both crimes. WARNING: This story contains graphic content.

A 27-year-old Canberra man is jailed for what is described in court as a "chilling" and "callous" attack on a Pekingese/Maltese cross that lasted 20 minutes.

Health Minister Greg Hunt says he has "serious concerns" and demands to see the "evidence" the ACT considered before deciding to legalise cannabis in Canberra from next year.

Bradley Lester Grey, 54, pleads not guilty in the ACT Supreme Court to charges of allegedly telling prospective sex workers they would need to perform acts with him to prove they were right for the role.

The ACT's top law officer says federal police should not waste their time chasing Canberrans who use small amounts of cannabis as he urges Christian Porter not to interfere with new laws.

Peter Forster-Jones is sentenced to jail over the 2016 murder of Eden Waugh at his home in Canberra's north, in what the judge called a "callous" act.

One of Australia's former top police officers says he is not guilty of the alleged offences, which his lawyer describes as "trivial".

The Sydney and Melbourne buildings have served as the gateway to Canberra for decades. But time and neglect have taken their toll on the icons, which now form a crumbling entrance to the capital's lake and parliamentary precinct.

If losing the grand final wasn't a sharp enough sting, the ACT Government's latest infrastructure plan sees funding and development for a new sport stadium take a back seat.

Canberra's youth detention centre issues an apology and an undisclosed financial settlement after an Indigenous teenager filed a lawsuit alleging her human rights had been violated when she was separated from her peers and her belongings for two months.

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has used a senate estimates haring to grill Joe Evans, deputy secretary of the Department of Environment and Energy, about the effect of climate change.

Despite being home to dairies, orchards and grain crops, the rural shire of Moira in Victoria has been told it's 0.1 per cent short of agriculture employment to qualify for a drought assistance grant.

Celebrated children's writer and novelist Gail Jones takes out two of six Prime Minister's Literary Awards, worth a total of $480,000.

South Australia's capital records the highest methamphetamine use of all the cities in the world compared in a paper based on wastewater samples, but a researcher says initiatives to tackle this problem have had an effect.

Despite his home being raided four years ago, Roger Uren has now been arrested and charged with breaching national secrecy rules.

Australia is set to become only the second country in the world to have a dedicated national women's baseball competition.

Researchers say an online tool to help understand where Australia's Bogong moths have disappeared to is starting to show promising results.

Policeman-turned-lawyer David Healey's mental health was shattered by a rocket blast in Afghanistan. He now helps other traumatised cops fight for compensation.

Revenue from parking fine patrol vans jumped from $1.6 million to more than $4 million in the last financial year, showing technology is increasingly becoming a vital tool in a crackdown on rogue parking choices across the capital.

More than a dozen live venues and nightclubs across Canberra shut down in the 2018 financial year, but the Government hopes a new plan to make a racket will turn that trend around.

Irma Palasics was killed during a brutal home invasion in 1999, but her killers were never identified. Twenty years later, her family believe new forensic procedures could find the people responsible.

When Sue Owen's hair fell out, she honed her skills in tying head scarves and "funking up" turbans. She now makes sure other patients "look fabulous".

The Australian Federal Police is assessing whether to suspend officer Ivan Kovacic after he allegedly committed an act of indecency on a woman he had invited to his apartment with her two friends to try some craft beer.

The owner of Mitchell Mistresses, Bradley Lester Grey used job interviews with "young and naive" sex workers to sexually assault them. Today he was found guilty of 20 sexual offences against seven employees.

Three accused Rebels bikies who appealed to the High Court to overturn an order preventing them from associating with one another have lost their bid, clearing the way for the NSW Police Commissioner to impose strict restraints on them, including a curfew and restricted mobile phone possession.

Lea Powell had to leave teaching after years working as a casual became too hard to manage but she was just one of more than 600 workers in the ACT's health and education systems who have been constant casual for more than five years.

A decade of dry conditions and lower rainfall has left parts of northern Australia facing an early and "above normal" bushfire risk in parts of northern Queensland and the Northern Territory.

A hipster's heaven in regional Queensland is putting the sword to counterculture capitals such as Sydney and Melbourne by embracing its man buns, skinny jeans and coffee shops.

Stagnant domestic production and a slump in global raw sugar prices require serious action to combat future declines in the $2 billion sugar industry, a report finds.

Florists say deceptive advertising is tricking customers into thinking they're buying local flowers when they're not. One businesswoman says the practice has cost her as much as $80,000.

MP Warren Entsch says the Queensland Government failed to honour a deal to help fund a Cairns Indigenous boarding facility for girls following the state election.

A leg wound that became infected after a fall eventually claimed the life of Bertha Aalberts, but her Melbourne nursing home had no record of the injury's severity, a Cairns hearing of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety is told.

Celebrity chef Maggie Beer says nothing can forgive the abysmal standard of meals given to some aged care residents as the royal commission into the sector hears people were served meals from trolleys near maggot-infested rubbish bins.

In the depths of rural Queensland is a fossil deposit so amazing that Sir David Attenborough regards it as one of the most important palaeontological sites in the world.

The team at Neville's Garden Site: Phil Creaser, Karen Roberts, Liz Price, Sue Hand, Kenny Travouillon, Dr Mike Archer, Arthur White, and John Scan

Two men are critically injured after a crane overturns near Mareeba in Far North Queensland this morning. The crash follows the death of a man in a separate crane incident on Sunday.

New laws are before Queensland Parliament to protect the Great Barrier Reef from harmful nutrient and sediment run-off, with a voluntary scheme not working fast enough according to the Environment Minister.

A 21-year-old woman suffers serious leg injuries in an attack by what is believed to be two sharks in Great Barrier Reef waters off Cape York Peninsula.

Health authorities urge more than 500 patients of a dental clinic in Far North Queensland to be tested for HIV and hepatitis as the clinic is investigated over its infection control practices.

On a remote stretch of beach on the west coast of Cape York, rangers were stunned to see the extent of the rubbish strewn across an area used by turtles during nesting season.

The 7-metre boat left Badu Island on Wednesday afternoon bound for Dauan island, just south of Papua New Guinea, with two men, two women and a nine-year-old boy on board, but it never arrived.

Police call off the search for five people missing in the Torres Strait since Wednesday after they set off by boat from Badu Island to Dauan Island, prompting a large-scale operation.

For the first time in his life, Alistair Bowie, 26, doesn't have to share a home with up to a dozen extended family members and he helped to build the house himself.