MORNING BRIEFING: The father of missing Belgian backpacker Theo Hayez will front the media today as homicide detectives travel to Byron Bay to assist in the investigation, while some of the residents of Mascot Towers will be permitted to return to their homes to pick up belongings.

Book-loving Tasmanians are bucking the trend and turning to libraries in their thousands, less than a year after the state became the first in Australia to abolish fines and processing fees for overdue books.

Sydney property developers are pulling out all stops by offering special deals including to pay the buyer's mortgage for a year in a bid to lure customers and sell a glut of apartment stock in a downturned market.

An Indigenous boy with an intellectual impairment was stripped naked inside Brisbane's adult maximum-security police watch house after being deemed a suicide risk, documents reveal.

Hawthorn captain Ben Stratton is suspended for two weeks by the AFL tribunal, one week each for repeatedly pinching Essendon's Orazio Fantasia and stomping on the foot of Shaun McKernan.

Stunning footage of a security guard at Bellerive Oval attempting to enter the field of play to separate two tussling players has former players shaking their heads.

Police arrest a woman they had urged to come forward to authorities after a 23-year-old plunged to her death at a high-rise complex in Sydney's inner east.

World number one Ash Barty is locked in to headline the 2020 Adelaide International, joining a strong list of female players including world number five Simona Halep.

The SA Government has revealed plans to mothball 60 public hospital beds and offer further redundancies in the health system, despite record levels of ambulance ramping outside emergency departments in recent months.

The mass exodus at the Adelaide Crows is continuing, with the club announcing it will axe football chief Brett Burton and assistant coach Scott Camporeale following the completion of its external review, chaired by Hawthorn legend Jason Dunstall.

The dismissals come after a review identified poor internal relationships as a major issue affecting the AFL club.

A cat is filmed in the Simpson Desert eating a kangaroo carcass over several days, as part of a study into the environmental impact of dead animals.

A power outage in Adelaide has resurfaced hours after it had been resolved, impacting businesses and customers in the busiest section of the Adelaide CBD. The cause is still being investigated by authorities.

Almost a decade ago, Charles Brice was thrown from a motorbike in a trail-riding accident, and spent more than a year in rehab. This week, he completed a 300-kilometre road trip from the crash site.

A pioneering project on the WA coast is searching for underwater evidence of ancient culture. Scientists hope the exploration will lead to evidence of human life from when the seabed was land.

Child predators have the ability to use photos of children taken in public or sourced from social media to create child-like sex dolls which are manufactured overseas, an Adelaide MP warns.

David Warner belts a ton to power Australia to its fourth-highest Twenty20 score of 2-233, which proves to be more than enough as Sri Lanka falls 134 runs short in the first match of the men's team's international summer.

Two seven-week-old kittens are dumped in a garden bed at an Adelaide shopping centre, and the RSPCA is seeking help to identify the couple involved.

The Sydney captain climbed onto a goal post after the siren, contravening AFL laws.

The Prime Minister kicked off the official campaign with one week before voters head to the hustings.

The Member for Grayndler is the only declared candidate currently contesting the opposition leadership position.

King Midas has left his mark again on the same Western Australian gold mine which made global headlines last year after producing some of the biggest gold specimens ever seen.

It is not every day that the rise and fall of an obscure Adelaide mining company mirrors the plot of a deeply trashy 1970s disaster movie but, happily, for this story, the comparison works.

The find at a dam in outback Western Australia is even more incredible considering the number of fossickers who camp there while prospecting in the Goldfields.

Todd Robinson addresses the media after his partner, Constable Glen Humphris, was one of four police officers killed in a crash on Melbourne's Eastern Freeway.

Only a few weeks ago Karon Baker was in tears when her local Anzac Day service was called off, but by 6:30am this morning, she couldn't wipe a proud smile off her face.

A single charge of attempted indecent assault is dropped against television star Craig McLachlan, but the actor still faces 13 accusations.

Youth unemployment has soared as a result of the coronavirus, prompting some young people to start their own businesses to try and claw their way back into the workforce.

Meredith Thompson and Adrian Brown fight to see their beloved relative, after his nursing home denied visits even though he only has weeks to live.

Victorian Jobs Minister Martin Pakula and Education Minister James Merlino provide an update on the coronavirus outbreak on April 29, 2020. There has been one death, taking the state's death toll to 18.

The lawyer for asthmatic prisoner Mark Rowson tells a court his client should be immediately released from Port Phillip Prison, if authorities cannot mitigate the risk of a coronavirus outbreak in the prison system.

For years, questions have been asked about what Cardinal George Pell might have known about clerical abuse within the Catholic Church. A report that could be released within days may give us the best answer we will ever get.

The Victorian Opposition is calling for Deputy Chief Health Officer Annaliese van Diemen to resign over her comments comparing the "terror" of COVID-19 to Captain Cook's arrival in Australia.

The Prime Minister weighs into the debate on a tweet by Victoria's Deputy Chief Health Officer while the state's Premier says there are "far more important matters to talk about".

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews responds to the state's Deputy Chief Health Officer's tweet comparing coronavirus to Captain Cook's arrival in Australia at a press conference on May 1, 2020.

An unusually early cold snap is delivering snow, frost and strong winds, and while temperatures will increase back towards average for a few days as the system moves out to sea, another bout of bad weather will soon move east from WA.

Health Minister Jenny Mikakos announces that Epping's Meadowglen Primary School will be closed for three days as the state confirms 13 new coronavirus cases.

Victoria's COVID-19 tally continues on its steepest climb in a fortnight, as Premier Daniel Andrews reveals 13,000 people were screened for the virus in the state's testing blitz on Sunday.