MORNING BRIEFING: Eastern suburb residents are particularly at risk after smoke haze blankets Sydney, and a north-bound lane on M1 remains closed after four trucks caught fire after a collision

Wendy Morgan has a degree in science, 40 years of work experience and even a forklift licence, but no-one will give her a job. She says living on Newstart makes the job hunt even harder.

South Sydney Rabbitohs forward Sam Burgess has been forced into early retirement from the NRL aged 30 due to a chronic shoulder injury.

MORNING BRIEFING: The Metro network is experiencing significant delays after a train breakdown less than 24 hours after yesterday's mechanical problems, while health warnings for poor air quality are issued along the NSW coastline.

While the big aged care chains may have copped many of the torrid headlines, the Federal Government has been another target at this royal commission, writes Anne Connolly.

Having left Melbourne in her 20s because she couldn't see a place for herself, Thai-Australian playwright Anchuli Felicia King is now forging a global career, with plays in London, Washington, Melbourne and Sydney this year.

The first report from the 10-month royal commission into aged-care standards offers blunt condemnation of the system, describing it as "unkind and uncaring" and fails to deliver safe care.

CEO Andrew David says the 3 Boeing aircraft will be grounded for weeks.

MORNING BRIEFING: The Federal Energy Minister 'unreservedly' apologises to Sydney's Lord Mayor for falsely claiming her council spent $15 million on travel, while parts of NSW remain blanketed in haze as winds fan smoke from bushfires.

Yes, rain is on the forecast for parts of the country, although it won't be drought-breaking. But as the rainclouds gather on the horizon the question we are all asking is: "Where is it going to fall?".

Derek has been called a "black dog" while playing soccer. Osman has been called a "terrorist". They're 14 years old, and they have a message for racist spectators: just stop.

A former Catholic priest accused of assaulting 40 victims across eight NSW parishes from the 1960s to the mid-1990s has pleaded not guilty to the 139 charges.

Garry McQuinn has found a way around the challenges of creating a new hit Australian musical by turning the National Institute of Dramatic Arts into a "musical theatre lab".

In Sydney to open the International Women's Jazz Festival, Wilma Reading toured the world during the genre's golden age but the "icon and trailblazer" is almost unknown in her home country.

Western United come away with a 3-2 win in their Melbourne derby against the Victory despite trailing 2-0 after just seven minutes. Look back at that remarkable win and Western Sydney's 0-0 draw with Brisbane in our ScoreCentre.

The theory in media circles is that the banking royal commission was big news because "everyone has a bank account". There seems to be no corresponding extrapolation for aged care, writes Anne Connolly.

As the drought bites deeper, residents in a growing number of rural communities are fighting to stop local groundwater being taken to satisfy Australia's thirst for bottled water.

The New South Wales police watchdog finds an officer engaged in serious misconduct by using unreasonable force during a motorist's arrest. It is among just 2 per cent of complaints last year able to be fully investigated due to NSW Government funding cuts.

An entire wing of the school is being taken over for three weeks including "art bombing" of the halls with bubble wrap and transforming classrooms into discos and caves.

A Vietnamese man carrying four kilograms of pork-filled mooncakes has been turned away from Sydney Airport after failing to declare he was carrying food.

A $2.9 million payout is being challenged in court today after it was found Nationwide News defamed actor Geoffrey Rush in a high-profile case earlier this year.

MORNING BRIEFING: The $2.9 million awarded to Australian actor Geoffrey Rush in his defamation case will be challenged in court today, while much-needed rain has fallen in some of the state's driest areas.

Geoffrey Rush's barrister tells an appeal hearing his client has been "slurred" by The Daily Telegraph's lawyer, who yesterday accused the actor of "delivering lines" when describing the impact the newspaper's articles had on his life.

Four years ago, Jonda Stephen found herself in a life or death situation. Her partner had hit her in the head multiple times with an iron, so she picked up a knife and stabbed him, in self-defence.

NSW Police Minister David Elliott says he would want officers to strip-search his children, after new data reveals 122 underage girls had been subjected to the practice since 2016.

The new FFA pay deal will close the pay gap between Socceroos and Matildas players, and has been praised by players, fans and administrators alike.

Two-thirds of working mums and dads are struggling to look after themselves physically and mentally, according to a new report. The findings are pretty depressing. But what can parents actually do about it?

The case of Quanne Diec and former nightclub bouncer Vinzent Tarantino shows even when an accused person confesses to a crime, criminal matters can later play out unexpectedly in court.

MORNING BRIEFING: Temperatures are set to soar to over 30 degrees Celsius in some places as firefighters stare down a difficult 48 hours on the east coast. Plus a Russian national is wanted for a double stabbing in Sydney's south.

Australian all-rounder Ellyse Perry has notched up plenty of career highlights, but her biggest is being involved in the "watershed moment" of women's sport in Australia.

All four major banks have now announced a fall in earnings for the year. A new report from KPMG says there is no end in sight for the profit squeeze on the banks, with consumers set to benefit.

One Peak Creative, which started in Vancouver before moving to Kelowna, has created several mock ads during the coronavirus pandemic.

Ariana Grande surprised her fans by sharing a kiss with her new boyfriend in the brand-new, at-home music video.

Part of their baby's name is an homage to their favourite aircraft.

The much-beloved, fictional Canadian teen-pop song from 'How I Met Your Mother' has now become 'Let's All Stay at Home.'

UK TV host Piers Morgan tore into the mother who sent another mum a bill for damage to her daughter’s expensive shoes — reducing her to tears.

SUNCARE favourite Banana Boat has been slammed by beachgoers after they were left with horrific sunburn. The manufacturer says the product is fine.

THE annual Australia Day lamb ad has become an Aussie tradition. But the latest one has been dubbed the most political one to date.

It won't shock you to hear that livestreaming services are seeing an upswing in viewership due to the COVID-19 pandemic keeping people at home, but now it's clear just what kind of effect the outbreak has had on viewing habits. Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet have determined that watch hours surged 23 percent between February and March, to just over 1.2 billion. Other services saw increased demand as well, but their gains were relatively slight. Microsoft's Mixer saw a 15.9 percent gain, while YouTube's gaming streams saw a 10.7 percent boost. Facebook Gaming saw a modest 3.8 percent increase.

ASUS has been pushing laptops with second screens for a couple of years now, but it's still searching for a winning formula. Last year's ZenBook Pro Duo pushed the keyboard down to the edge of the laptop's body, with the rest of the surface housing a second screen. The problem with that configuration was an awkwardly placed trackpad. But, you know who cares less about trackpad placement? Gamers. Hence, almost a year later, the company's Republic Of Gamers (ROG) division has its own spin on the concept: the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15.

Just like Intel said at CES, it's crossed the 5GHz barrier with its new H-series 10th generation notebook CPUs. And you won't need to shell out for the top-of-the-line Core i9 to do it: The new six and eight-core i7 processors reach up to 5.1Ghz (boost speed) on a single core. But if you want to go all out, the octa-core i9-10980HK hits 5.3GHz -- and it's fully unlocked for overclocking, to boot.

Lenovo is leaping quickly on the latest NVIDIA and Intel technology for its gaming laptops. It's introducing Legion 5i and Legion 7i portables (successors to the Y540 and Y740 respectively) that, most notably, are among the first to use NVIDIA's Advanced Optimus graphics switching. The tech both lowers power consumption in less-intensive moments and ramps up performance in GPU-heavy situations, theoretically giving you added battery life and higher frame rates in the same package. The Legion 7i also touts the option of new GeForce RTX 2080 Super Max-Q graphics if you insist on the best possible visuals.

Razer has unveiled the 2020 Blade 15 Advanced with more gaming and content creation power, along with one long overdue addition. To start with, the Advanced model is the first Razer Blade with an 8-core CPU, namely the 10th-generation Intel Core i7-10875. That will make it useful for both content creation and gaming, particularly since you can clock it up to 5.1 GHz.

Gaming on Twitch is largely a one-way affair. You can join a Marbles on Stream race or play a slightly delayed Jackbox Party Pack game, but the service is largely meant for passive viewing. Amazon aims to fix that before long, however. The company tells the New York Times that it's developing games both Twitch streamers and their viewers can play together in "real time." While details are scarce, you should see games become available throughout the summer.

The original iPad came out on April 3rd, 2010, at a time when most smartphone manufacturers were making the awkward transition from full QWERTY keyboards to touchscreen-only devices. Apple sold 1 million iPads in that first month, and by the end of 2010, that figure had climbed to 15 million.

That same year, the top video games were Fallout: New Vegas, Bayonetta, Red Dead Redemption, Super Meat Boy and StarCraft II. The alpha version of Minecraft was generating some slight buzz.

If you're devoted enough to livestreaming that you want the kind of features you'd expect from a TV studio, Blackmagic might have your back. It's releasing the ATEM Mini Pro, an enhanced version of the ATEM Mini switcher that's focused on the most elaborate streaming setups. There's now a hardware streaming engine that lets the Pro stream directly to Twitch, Facebook and YouTube through an Ethernet connection, with no special software required. You can also save recordings for posterity to USB flash drives, and multiview on the HDMI output lets you monitor all inputs on one screen.