SIX adults and eight children were found safe overnight after their boat went missing in the Torres Strait, off far north Queensland's Cape York Peninsula.
has formed. Craziness. It hasn't been that bad in Australia yet, though they are predicting shops will run out this weekend. (Original link courtesy of Daring Fireball .)
TWO brothers aged two and five are believed to have died and two other children have been taken to hospital with burns after a house fire in Melbourne's outer north-west this morning.
WILDLIFE rescuers are appalled at the discovery of two kangaroos left to die slowly after they were shot with a bow and arrow on the Mornington Peninsula.
A FORMER senior detective convicted of selling drugs to the underworld will have to repay $68,000 in taxpayer-funded superannuation contributions received after committing the crime.
INFLATION will rocket to four per cent by March, according to internal Treasury forecasts, making interest rate hikes a near-certainty in the new year.
RESPECTED indigenous academic Marcia Langton criticised the "legal lunacy" surrounding the abuse of Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory, saying urgent reform was needed to protect children in remote communities.
AN amateur Australian Rules football player celebrating a grand final win was rushed to hospital after accidentally swallowing a bottle cap out of a beer-filled premiership cup.
THE full Federal Court dismissed an appeal from builder Multiplex, paving the way for 45 disgruntled shareholders to seek compensation of up to $100 million for alleged losses.
TRANSURBAN Group beefed up its US presence when it signed a landmark deal to build and operate the world's biggest high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes on the Capital Beltway in Virginia, valued at $US1.5 billion ($1.75 billion).
CENTRO Properties Group will be sued, possibly for hundreds of millions of dollars, over its failure to make proper disclosure of more than $1 billion of debt.
Environmental group Greenpeace welcomed the decision, but the Japanese whaling fleet is still planning to catch around a 1,000 minke and fin whales - its largest catch ever - for what the government calls "scientific research."
ALLEGED Harrogate firebug Helen White told police "I didn't light them all" after being arrested for starting 47 bushfires in South Australia, a court has heard.
THE Liberal Party reform process is creating deep internal divisions, with frontbencher Christopher Pyne challenging the approach of Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson and party officials.
JEWISH and Serbian community leaders have attacked a decision by Immigration Minister Chris Evans to grant a visa to controversial Croatian rock singer Marko Perkovic.
THE cost of dredging the Port Phillip Bay shipping channel has blown out to almost $1 billion, more than double the original estimate for the controversial project.
This is awesome! I just discovered that you can read Thinking Machine stories online! I had a book of them as a kid. The "Thinking Machine" was a super-smart detective, sort of an American Sherlock Holmes. The author Jacques Futrelle
