Seventy beaches across New South Wales are part of the $34m dawn-to-dusk drone monitoring program, which one expert has called ‘the best technology we have at the moment’

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“Hey Taha, what’s the visibility like?” shouts a man with a towel slung over his shoulder.

“Uh, nice,” says Surf Life Saving New South Wales drone operator Taha Kafil-Hussain.

Seventy beaches across New South Wales are part of the $34m dawn-to-dusk drone monitoring program, which one expert has called ‘the best technology we have at the moment’

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

“Hey Taha, what’s the visibility like?” shouts a man with a towel slung over his shoulder.

“Uh, nice,” says Surf Life Saving New South Wales drone operator Taha Kafil-Hussain.

Use of sniffer dogs and searches will continue despite health and harm reduction groups arguing they could lead to riskier drug taking

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Drug testing will resume at New South Wales music festivals from October, but will not be rolled out into the wider community despite calls from peak health and harm reduction groups, while the controversial use of sniffer dogs and searches will continue.

On Wednesday the state government announced NSW Health will consult with the music festival industry and harm reduction organisations to roll out pill testing at up to 15 music festivals each year.

Brother of former treasurer and premier faces questions about texts that appear to indicate he was aware of fast-tracking policy before it was announced

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Did the former premier’s brother, Charles Perrottet, have prior knowledge of a Covid-era New South Wales government policy to introduce a fast track to approve major developments?

Did he take steps to ensure that developments owned by the fugitive developer, Jean Nassif, were successful through the fast track?

Male police officer caught on camera during 9 February protest against visit of Israeli president Isaac Herzog

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Video footage has emerged capturing a New South Wales police officer boasting about “punching” a protester in the head “when he was down”, before the protester was charged with assaulting police.

Police body-worn camera footage, which was leaked to a social media account and widely shared over the weekend, reveals a male police officer telling his colleagues during the 9 February protest at Sydney town hall against a visit by the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog: “I fucking pumped that cunt.”

New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania just experienced their warmest-ever winters – and BoM says above-average temperatures expected to continue

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Australia’s two biggest cities had their hottest and equal hottest winters on record, with three eastern states also breaking temperature records.

The Bureau of Meteorology’s (BoM) spring outlook shows above average daytime and night-time temperatures are expected to continue for much of the country, with an increased chance of unusually high maximums.

Liberal party figure tells inquiry he never asked Jean Nassif ‘for payments for political outcomes’ as lawyer tells him she is ‘gobsmacked’ by his ‘obfuscation’

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The younger brother of Dominic Perrottet has insisted he never asked a fugitive property developer for money for political outcomes – including at a meeting at fine-dining restaurant Nobu in Crown Casino, an inquiry has heard.

On Tuesday, the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) heard that developer Jean Nassif had withdrawn from a scheduled videolink appearance from Lebanon later this week, after Charles Perrottet faced questions about the dinner meeting between the two men in Melbourne in May 2021.

Former 2GB and 2UE broadcaster Jones, 85, has denied 22 indecent assault and sexual touching charges involving six men

Broadcaster Ray Hadley has told a Sydney court that an alleged victim of Alan Jones confided in 2019 he’d been “sexually assaulted” by the fellow 2GB broadcaster on a number of occasions.

“He said [Jones] put his hand on my cock and kissed me,” Hadley told the Downing Centre local court on Tuesday.

Dowling tells budget estimates that Michael Daley called to tell her he was appointing a senior counsel and ‘raised quite a number of names’

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The top prosecutor in New South Wales says she discussed a list of barristers to lead an independent review into controversial findings against her office with the state’s attorney general, before he appointed someone she had known “professionally and socially” for nearly 30 years.

Last month, a state parliamentary committee voted 4-3 to find that the NSW director of public prosecutions (DPP), Sally Dowling SC, had given false evidence about the pitching of a story about an Indigenous child performing an acknowledgment of country at a sentencing hearing to radio station 2GB.

Alleged offenders at large after man in his early 20s fatally shot in early hours of Tuesday

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A man in his early 20s has been fatally shot in an alleged home invasion in Sydney’s south-west that police believe was a “targeted attack”. A homicide investigation is under way, with the alleged offenders still at large.

Acting Supt Gretchin Atkins said the man, who was yet to be formally identified, was at his Glen Alpine home with his family in the early hours of Tuesday morning when multiple individuals allegedly broke in.

‘Opera House of the west’ still slated to open to the public as scheduled on 7 November, NSW arts minister says

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An investigation is under way into allegations of misconduct involving senior executives at the soon-to-be-opened Powerhouse Parramatta.

The $915m museum in western Sydney, billed as one of the world’s most significant new museum projects, is set to open in November.