The Matildas have drawn 1-1 in their second and final friendly match against world champions USA in their last hit-out before January’s Asian Cup. Australian winger Kyah Simon clawed a goal back in the dying stages of the game in Newcastle, cancelling out an early goal from American striker Ashley Hatch in the fourth minute. Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson made a …

NSW’s latest Omicron COVID-19 case visited several shopping centres, supermarkets and fast food outlets in Sydney and the Central Coast while infectious for two days in the community. The case is a woman in her 30s who arrived in Sydney on Thursday, before new travel restrictions were in place. She had travelled to at least two southern African countries prior to …

Australian states and territories are reimposing border rules in response to the new Omicron variant of COVID-19, which has now been detected in a growing number of countries across the world. On Saturday, Australia tightened its international border to travellers from nine African countries where the new variant of concern has been found. People arriving from South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, …

Urgent genomic testing is underway to determine if COVID-positive passengers who have arrived in Sydney from southern Africa are carrying the Omicron variant. Australian states and territories yesterday reinstated border rules in response to the new Omicron strain, which was first identified in southern Africa and has since been detected in several countries around the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) …

Six people including an infant have been rescued from floodwaters in southern Queensland, with a major flood warning current for the Logan and Albert rivers. The people were all rescued late on Friday and in the early hours of Saturday after entering floodwaters despite official warnings. The alerts were issued after the body of a man was found in a …

The Northern Territory has two new COVID-19 cases, one an arrival on a repatriation flight from South Africa where the new and heavily mutated Omicron variant has been detected. Authorities as yet have no genomic sequencing in relation to the passenger’s infection strain, Health Minister Natasha Fyles says. However the person has been in supervised quarantine at the national Howard Springs …

Federal Labor says it would welcome an election fight on the cost of living, saying the cost of petrol alone to the average family was gobbling up any real wages growth. Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers said Prime Minister Scott Morrison had been “lying” about the economy and that this has had “real consequences” for families. “If [Mr Morrison] wants to have …

Defence Minister Peter Dutton has been awarded $35,000 in a defamation action against refugee advocate Shane Bazzi over a tweet that accused him of being “a rape apologist”. The now-deleted tweet was accompanied by a link to a story published in The Guardian in 2019, containing comments Mr Dutton made about women on Nauru when he was Home Affairs Minister. Mr Bazzi had denied defaming Mr Dutton, …

After Najm Eldin Turgem and his wife Khadija Ibrahim arrived in Australia as refugees, the Sudanese community formed the bedrock of the life they were building. Now the couple is trying to come to terms with the tragic deaths of four of their five children in a house fire that tore through their Werribee home at the weekend and the …

Victoria has recorded 1173 new locally acquired COVID-19 cases and nine more people have died a day after protesters celebrated being “superspreaders”. The health department confirmed on Sunday the state is now managing 16,413 active cases. There are 568 Victorians in hospital, of whom 96 are in intensive care including 63 on ventilators. The numbers are slightly down from Saturday. …