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.

They travelled across the world in the 1950s and '60s to build a new life cutting cane in the steamy paddocks of north Queensland. Now Basques return to learn the story of their ancestors.

Dark-coloured jerseys could lead to poor performance, increased rates of injury, and even jeopardise the careers of young rugby league players, researchers say.

An ominous drone photo of sharks circling a whale beached near Albany in WA snaps top prize at this year's Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year awards, with the photographer saying the scene was "unreal".

A man accused of murdering a woman in Far North Queensland changes his plea to guilty two days into his Supreme Court trial and will face sentencing this morning.

A court releases the video of a police interview that shows the murder confession of Matthew White, who strangled Cooktown woman Donna Steele in a botched extortion bid and has been sentenced to life in jail.

Cardwell residents band together to save a large tree that arborists have declared unsafe due to beach erosion during the recent heavy wet season.

Drought has collided with high demand for soybeans, lifting prices by around $500 a tonne, prompting warnings of a price hike for soymilk, tofu and tempeh.

A 10-year-old boy writes to Queensland's Environment Minister pleading with authorities not to remove a giant crocodile that has been sunning itself on a creek bank.

Grant 'Scooter' Patterson may be half as tall as most people but he does not do things by halves. He works hard, plays hard and pushes himself in the pool, chasing his dream of winning a Paralympic medal.

Also known as huffing, sniffing or rexing, chroming is the practice of inhaling solvents or other household chemicals to get high. It's caused the death of several children across the country and happens often on public transport but it's not illegal and this is why.

Four crocodiles one nicknamed Pugly by locals are killed in abandoned fishing nets in Queensland's Cape York, infuriating locals.

Dani Larkin knows the struggles of a young Indigenous woman in a "nation of divisiveness", and insists that constitutional recognition is the key to unlocking meaningful change.

A cold dry air mass moving through the state is causing cool mornings in Queensland, with temperatures dropping as low as -4.8 degrees Celsius, and it's forecast to continue throughout the week.

Former Commonwealth Games competitor Matthew Levings trained for years alongside Sun Yang. Now the Gold Coast tradie says China's Australian coach, Denis Cotterell, would never train swimmers he knew to be doping.

A club linked to a long-term business partner of the Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate may escape paying a $137,000 debt owed to the council.

A teenager from Byron Bay says regularly seeing a psychologist has helped him tackle crippling anxiety. The only problem is he can't afford to keep going.

Gold Coast woman Theresa Dalton is sentenced to six years in jail for hiring a hitman to kill her husband during their divorce battle, telling a Brisbane court it is a "catastrophic miscarriage of justice" because she is innocent.

An elderly Australian war veteran remembers helping to clean up in Japan after the atomic bombs.

Police say the 18-year-old man lost control of the vehicle at Southport after an alleged crime spree, causing it to roll several times.

The pair continued south on the M1 before again confronting a driver of a vehicle near the Palm Beach exit.

Gold Coast police are searching for a man and woman after they stopped their car in the middle of the Pacific Motorway before attempting to hijack two vehicles.

A woman who says her daughter has been denied a wheelchair asks her local MP who's also the Minister for the NDIS to sit in on a meeting about the girl's needs.

Di White says her son Anthony, 36, needed a ventilator to breathe after his diagnosis and "really didn't have a life" in the 16 months before he died in the bathroom at the local tavern.

One of the most expensive police cars used in Australia goes up in flames following a chase in north-eastern New South Wales.

Australian pro surfer Owen Wright says he hopes others will follow his lead and start wearing safety helmets in the surf, yet one neurologist warns of the "super-hero complex" and says helmets are not a magic bullet.

Millionaire Gold Coast businessman and self-described "philanthropist" John Chardon tells a Brisbane court he sometimes had sex with students he sponsored, but says he never "intentionally" hurt his wife, Novy.

A Gold Coast mother relives the horror of finding her young son with a pencil lodged in the roof of his mouth as she is reunited with the paramedics who helped save his life.

South East Queensland is expected to experience summer-like weather this week due to predicted hotter-than-average temperatures, with Ipswich set to hit 36C and Brisbane 33C.

The Queensland Rural Fire Service says weather conditions indicate there will be an extreme to locally catastrophic fire danger in the Darling Downs, Granite Belt, Maranoa and Warrego today, as thick smoke hangs over the Gold Coast hinterland.

Crews are battling 57 fires across Queensland including one that is out of control on the Gold Coast hinterland, with the QFES declaring the "unprecedented" blazes are just the start of a very severe fire season.

Queenslanders recall the nights in the 60s spent dancing in the hall of the Binna Burra Lodge the same place where hundreds of others have married the love of their life after fire guts the heritage-listed resort.

A singed and injured koala and her joey, who have become a symbol of hope and resilience amid Queensland's bushfire emergency, are slowly recovering in a Brisbane wildlife hospital.

Alarming footage shows high winds driving a large bushfire overnight on the Sunshine Coast, where 10 homes have been lost at Peregian Springs and Peregian Beach.

Acting Queensland Premier Jackie Trad says the Gold Coast hinterland fire that swept through the area over the weekend included areas of rainforest a highly unusual event, but one that experts say is occurring more frequently in recent times.

Police are speaking to a number of teenagers over a fire that damaged homes at Peregian Beach overnight, as authorities continue to battle a blaze threatening large areas of the Sunshine Coast. See how events unfolded in our live blog.

A large bushfire that has claimed 11 properties in the Gold Coast hinterland as well as historic Binna Burra Lodge could have been deliberately lit, Queensland's Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll says.

Thunderstorms have rolled west across Queensland's southern inland, bringing more rain than expected to the Gold Coast hinterland as well as numerous lightning strikes raising concerns about the possibility of new bushfires.

Family and friends post tributes to Jeffrey and Matthew Hills, whose bodies were found in the wreckage of a plane which crashed in northern NSW on Friday.

As the ban on climbing Uluru fast approaches there remains many locations attracting crowds, despite calls from local Indigenous people to stay away.

A Gold Coast couple who funded a "lavish lifestyle" peddling MDMA and cannabis on the dark web is jailed after pleading guilty to drug trafficking.