Chile’s President Sebastián Piñera has asked lawmakers to allow troops back on the streets to defend key public infrastructure, despite reports of “abuses” committed by security forces.

Piñera’s announcement came shortly after the international rights group Human Rights Watch, said in a report that police had beaten protesters, shot teargas cartridges directly at them and run over some with official vehicles or motorcycles.

Three US men who spent 36 years in prison have been released after authorities say they were falsely convicted of a 1983 murder.

Baltimore men Alfred Chestnut, Ransom Watkins and Andrew Stewart were granted a writ of innocence after being convicted of the first-degree murder of a middle school student, DeWitt Duckett.

The men, who were teenagers at the time of their arrest, are now in their early fifties and are preparing to enter adulthood on the outside for the first time.

Tasmania has rejected a Chinese-backed bid to build a tourist resort overlooking Freycinet National Park on the state's eastern coast.

Company Cambria Green applied for the creation of a special development zone in April 2018 to enable the construction of a vast complex including 550 accommodation units and hotel rooms, two golf courses and an 80-bed health spa or palliative care unit.

Nineteen South Australian prison guards are attempting to have a coroner removed from investigating the death in custody of an Indigenous man, after seven guards lost a bid to avoid giving evidence at the inquest.

Wayne Fella Morrison died, while in the custody of the guards, after being pulled blue and unconscious from a transport van where he was forcefully placed face-down on the back seat in 2016.

Wildlife hospitals and care groups are "overwhelmed" with the influx of injured animals caught in the path of the state's bushfires, with average daily koala numbers tripling.

RSPCA Queensland veterinarian Meaghan Barrow said the busiest period would come now the bushfire crisis had eased and wildlife carers were able to get into the scorched bushland.

A notorious roundabout with a history of crashes in Brisbane's western suburbs is set to be replaced with an overpass and street lights in mid 2020. 

The Moggill Road-Coonan Street roundabout at Indooroopilly has had 32 crashes in the past five years, 10 of which required hospitalisation.

The intersection at Coonan Street will now be modified to create an overpass allowing inbound traffic leaving the street to clear Moggill Road and merge safely, and will be funded through the joint council and federal $500 million suburban roads fund.

The Maltese Prime Minister’s chief aide, and tourism minister have both resigned after an escalation of political turmoil relating to the death of an investigative journalist in the Mediterranean country two years ago.

The journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia had accused Keith Schembri, chief aide to the Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, and Konrad Mizzi, Muscat’s tourism minister, of corruption, shortly before she was killed in a car bombing.