Former Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Palmer has called for pill testing to be introduced at Australian music festivals, saying it is time for the nation to accept police-based prohibition has failed. 

Mr Palmer says young people are continuing to take drugs at music festivals despite anti-drug campaigns and sniffer dogs, and evidence from European countries have allowed pill testing for almost 20 years is impossible to ignore. 

NSW parliament won't debate a bill to decriminalise abortion until next week after it came under fire from conservative MPs and anti-abortion advocates. 

The private members' bill would allow for terminations up to 22 weeks and later if two doctors "consider that, in all the circumstances, the termination should be performed".

Double Olympic champion Caster Semenya will not defend her 800m title at the World Championships in September after the Swiss Federal Tribunal reversed a ruling that temporarily suspended the IAAF’s testosterone regulations. 

The South African runner had been expected to compete at the World Championships in Doha after the Swiss Supreme Court had temporarily exempted her from an IAAF rule relating to athletes with differences in sexual development, however that decision has now been overturned. 

North Korea has fired multiple unidentified projectiles less than a week after firing two new short-range ballistic missiles, the South Korean military's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) says.

The latest launches early on Wednesday were from the Hodo peninsula on North Korea's east coast, the same area where last week's launches were conducted. 

A group of seven residents from Bribie Island and Sandstone point have filed an appeal in the Planning and Environment Court in Brisbane against a Moreton Bay Regional Council decision to allow more outdoor music concerts at a nearby hotel complex. 

The Sandstone Point Hotel has recently hosted a number of outdoor events with as many as 10,000 in attendance, and residents say they are concerned about noise pollution and impacts to the environment. 

The number of people killed on Queensland roads has hit a five-decade low, with 228 people killed in the 2018-19 period, according to data released during estimates hearings. 

Transport Minister Mark Bailey says traffic deaths in Queensland have been decreasing for the past 30 years due to a number of road safety initiatives, including compulsory seatbelts, reducing the blood alcohol limit and increased RBTs and speed enforcement. 

Clean energy will provide 35% of Australia’s total electricity needs within two years, according to a new report highlighting the pace at which solar power is transforming the national energy market. 

The report by Green Energy Markets has found rooftop solar systems and new large-scale farms regularly pushed renewable energy generation beyond 30% at midday during June, typically one of the least sunny months. 

An Australian defence company behind hundreds of millions of dollars in sales of next-generation weapons systems to Saudi Arabia and the UAE has denied its weapons are being used in the war in Yemen. 

EOS chief executive Ben Greene told the Guardian that shipments to the UAE, uncovered in an ABC story last December, related to a ‘demonstration unit’ which had no ‘lethality whatsoever.’ 

Sudanese authorities have ordered the indefinite closure of all schools in the country following the shooting deaths of five students at a rally sparked further student demonstrations. 

Siddig Youssef, a prominent protest leader, says talks with the country’s ruling generals on a proposed joint civilian-military ruling body have been cancelled in response to the killings.