The boy’s family had expressed their thanks to all emergency services and volunteers involved in searching for their child after he went missing one week ago.

Griff Bondrum heads back to school on Monday with his year 12 peers - who once thought he was in detention rather than a member of their class. He is the youngest student sitting this year’s HSC.

Victorian lockdown restrictions will be eased at 11.59pm on Thursday under an updated reopening plan announced on Sunday. In NSW, the state has hit 80 per cent vaccination rates and rules will be eased further from Monday.

A Northcote woman is keen to see relatives, see her kids go back to school and to re-open her beauty salon.

Police have gathered CCTV from surrounding roadhouses, as police consider whether four-year-old Cleo Smith was taken from her family’s tent in WA’s remote north.

Chef/restaurateur Scott Pickett is relieved that he can reopen his restaurants to 20 fully vaccinated people indoors and 50 outdoors on Friday.

Queensland is still refusing to commit to a firm date for reopening, saying it will depend on how fast people can come forward and get vaccinated.

Victoria’s faster-than-expected vaccination rollout has allowed the government to accelerate its road map out of lockdown. Here’s what it means for school students.

High vaccination coverage alone will not be enough to stop the hospital system becoming overwhelmed as case numbers rise. 

Scott Morrison’s pledge to embrace the definition of anti-Semitism as set out by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance will be welcomed by Jewish university students.

A year after she first revealed her years-long secret relationship with a disgraced former MP, a corruption inquiry is this week set to examine whether Gladys Berejiklian breached the trust of the NSW public.

From churches to cafes, bookshops and beaches, Sydney enjoyed its first weekend of freedom since June.

Modelling that predicted a surge in COVID-19 cases in Victorian hospitals was right, but the length of time sick people are staying in those beds is much less than expected. This is what’s helping the state reopen.

The old Peat Island Asylum on the Hawkesbury River is set to be transformed into a tourist precinct despite opposition from local Indigenous groups.

On Sunday night, families of students in kindergarten, year 1 and year 12 will be packing their schoolbags and preparing uniforms for the first time since June. The rest will return a week later. Here is what to expect.

As schools resume face-to-face teaching, children may experience back-to-school anxieties. But there are parental strategies that can help.

Dr Fred Widdop had a storied career. His life could have successfully taken many paths, but it was the community’s gain that he devoted his talents to public dental health.

When lockdown ended last year, it kick-started the busiest summer in memory on the Mornington Peninsula, and locals are busily preparing for more come Friday.

Don’t call triple zero if you have a stubbed toe, can’t sleep, or you are constipated, urge NSW Ambulance staff who have dealt with a 30 per cent increase in demand. On some days, they can take 110 calls in a shift.

The state government unveiled the changes to its road map after new modelling revealed the state’s fast climbing vaccination rate almost halved the projected number of people expected to die from COVID-19 before the end of the year.

The Victorian Greens are calling on the state and federal governments to make up an almost $1 billion annual funding shortfall to help state schools in the aftermath of the pandemic.

A humanities education prepares students for the workforce, but it also prepares them to be active and engaged members of their community, at a local, national and international level.

Former NSW Labor leader Jodi McKay has announced she will resign from Parliament, triggering yet another byelection.

Mango growers are expecting the smallest harvest in at least two decades this summer, and the news isn’t good for cherry and grape growers either.

City of Melbourne says cheap CBD units are the key to a post-COVID population boost.

The Victorian government has unveiled the new changes to its road map to ease restrictions once vaccination targets are reached.

The state has reached its 80 per cent vaccination target and unlocked new levels of freedom for residents that will come into effect on Monday.

A total of 4111 jabs were dispensed at Bunnings sites across Qld on Saturday, the majority first doses, as more people heed the call to get vaccinated.

Orthopedic surgeons, consultant physicians, theatre staff, neurologists and even psychiatrists are being relocated into emergency departments and COVID-19 wards, as sections of hospitals are closed down entirely.

It’s a great day for the people of NSW after the state hit its long-awaited 80 per cent vaccination target.

It’s unclear who feels more betrayed by News Corp’s new Mission Zero campaign.

And why asking passengers to be double jabbed is the right thing to do.

I have been looking at a photo of my son on his first day at school. He looks awkward in his uniform. He had spent his life to that point in fancy dress.

Of all the restrictions that Melbourne has lived under for the past two years, the curfew has been one of the most controversial. At some point next week, it will finally be lifted. 

Ruth McColl, SC, a former NSW Court of Appeal judge, first presided over an ICAC inquiry in 1996 when she examined unsavoury practices at Glebe Morgue in Sydney. Now she is examining dealings on Macquarie Street.

Premier Dominic Perrottet confirmed NSW would ease restrictions to allow 20 visitors in homes and the return of community sport, as well as indoor dancing and drinking.

The former premier, who led arguments against voluntary euthanasia in NSW in the 1990s, said other Australian states had proven that voluntary assisted dying laws could work.

Some primary school parents don’t think the benefits of masks outweigh the downsides. Others think it’s a small price to pay for safety.

Australians performed $30 billion worth of unpaid help in 2020, but the COVID-19 crisis stopped many people volunteering more of their time and skills to help others.

The proposal for multimillion-dollar apartments overlooking one of Sydney’s largest urban parks has outraged some locals.

OneSchool Global, which is associated with the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, a group that refers to outsiders as “worldlies”, has received an estimated $9 million in JobKeeper payments.

The future of Oxford Street is set to become a political hot potato ahead of delayed local government elections in December.

Why is the state government replacing polluting diesel ferries with new polluting diesel ferries?

A girl who was paralysed when she hit her head on the bottom of a pool during a swimming lesson has won a settlement of $20 million, believed to be one of the biggest payouts to an individual in Victorian legal history. 

People flying overseas from NSW next month can book London return from $1400, Singapore return from about $900, and less than $500 return to Fiji, and it may get cheaper soon.

The AFL will step in to mediate a country footy controversy in which a progressive women’s club has moved in on the turf of one of the oldest country football clubs in the country.

Trivia buffs: test your knowledge with today's interactive superquiz and target.

Southern Tasmania and Hobart have entered a snap three-day lockdown, while Victoria and NSW have announced easing border restrictions for vaccinated citizens.

A senior Queensland firefighter who was initially denied a blue card allowing him to work with children will be able to apply after courts overturned the decision.

NSW’s move to effectively end quarantine for most travellers by opening up international borders to those who are vaccinated has raised questions over the future of the centre being built in Melbourne’s north.