Sydney's melting pot of language
The depth and diversity of languages in Sydney rivals the world's largest cities.
NSW's new crime capital: Moree
RACHEL OLDING Country towns in northern NSW are in the midst of a ''tsunami'' of crime.
High price of alcohol drives demand for illegal drugs
INGA TING The expense of alcohol is driving Australia's high rates of illicit drug use, health experts say, as new figures show Australia's combination of high levels of use and expensive illicit substances buck international trends.
Drawcards
Sydney's fastest growing suburbs
TOBY JOHNSTONE Parramatta or Paddington? New data from the Domain Group charts the city's best and worst performers.
Sydney restaurants: Where we are happy to pay for fine dining
Esther Han and Inga Ting Celebrated chef Guillaume Brahimi is set to open a new fine dining restaurant, as new figures show patrons of premium restaurants are spending more.
Options
Should you buy or rent?
Jacob Saulwick, Toby Johnstone, Michael Koziol Buy or rent? Ross Hoskins never gave the latter a try.
UN shelter in Gaza shelled, killing at least 15
Alexandra Zavis and Batsheva Sobelman Shelter in northern Gaza has been shelled, causing "multiple deaths and injuries," according to a spokesman for the UN refugee agency.
Behind the labels: who is really on the disability support pension and why
Judith Ireland, Conrad Walters We dig into the much-criticised benefit.
Number of displaced people worldwide exceeds 50 million: UN report
Sarah Whyte and Inga Ting The number of refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced people worldwide has exceeded 50 million for the first time since World War II, a United Nations report shows.
Dating scams leave victims broke and broken-hearted
Esther Han and Inga Ting Dating and romance-related fraud netted $25.2 million last year.
Pensioners lose savings in government cash grab
Esther Han, Inga Ting The government has bagged an unprecedented $360 million from household bank accounts since a controversial change to unclaimed money laws.
Women being left behind in Queen's Birthday Honours
CONRAD WALTERS Female librarians and women working with the disabled, take a bow. Since 2001, you have received more Order of Australia honours than your male counterparts. That's 185 of you, compared with 145 men.
Post-Gonski fortune to private schools
ANNA PATTY Termination of schools funding under the Gonski model after four years will deliver an ''overpayment'' of $169 million a year to 163 wealthy independent schools in NSW, analysis shows.
The royal we
PETER MUNRO We are not amused ... well, certainly Republicans aren't, as support for the monarchy among Australia's youth soars. Peter Munro meets those young 'uns who proudly dips their lids to Lizzie, Wills and Kate.
Life outside jail proves fatal
INGA TING A prison sentence - even after it has been served - can be a death sentence.
United States Correspondent
A slice of pizza and a one-way ticket to the big house: the three-strikes law
NICK O'MALLEY The way Jerry Williams tells the story he was just mucking around with friends when some kids said he stole a slice of pizza. He ended up with a 25-to-life prison sentence under California's ''three strikes'' law.
Science
Icy trip to the core of climate change
Nicky Phillips, Conrad Walters A puddle of water was not what Mark Curran expected to find when he arrived at the Australian Antarctic Division in Kingston to check the ice cores he helped drill in Antarctica over summer.
Asylum seekers' time in detention soars
Inga Ting, Conrad Walters The average number of days in detention has risen every month for the past eight months.
International drug cartels target wealthy Australian market
Nick Ralston International drug cartels are increasingly targeting the Australian market due to a rise in demand and the price consumers are willing to pay, with latest figures showing drug seizures and arrests at record highs.
Doctors fail to wash hands before treating patients, study finds
AMY CORDEROY Doctors in Australia's biggest hospitals are routinely failing to wash their hands before touching patients, new figures show.
Children left untreated as hospital waiting times 'blowout'
Kate Hagan, Craig Butt Victorian children are waiting too long for elective surgery with hundreds of patients listed for semi-urgent operations at the Royal Children's Hospital missing out on treatment within 90 days, new data shows.
Overlapping health system just helps to 'jump queue'
INGA TING Sam Taylor's children were just 6 and 14 when she was asked to make a choice no woman ever wants to make.
Drinkers in danger rate their usage as average: study
Amy Corderoy, Lucy Carroll Australians are in denial about their alcohol use, tens of thousands are potentially drinking at risky levels and those in the most danger are seemingly clueless they have a problem, the Global Drug Survey has found.
Food Authority inspections reveal worst-offending grocery stores
Esther Han, Inga Ting Rodents, bugs, filth and expired food have caused nearly 300 supermarkets, greengrocers and delis to be slapped with fines over the past six years, data from the NSW Food Authority shows.
University census date arrives: One in five students quit by first year
HEATH GILMORE It is the great university purge. Nearly one in five domestic students will probably leave their studies by the end of their first year.
Story of farming a saga of boom or bust
CONRAD WALTERS Drought kicked Cameron Rowntree in the gut this week. Spurred by the costs of feeding his cattle, the fourth-generation Walgett farmer thinned his herd by selling stock.
Private insurance-based healthcare 'the most expensive', Commission of Audit told
INGA TING Countries that rely strongly on private insurance to fund healthcare have more expensive health systems, the federal government's Commission of Audit has been told.
Freedom and control are why the rich really are charitable
INGA TING Among taxpayers who claim a deduction for their generosity, the proportion of money given away by low-income earners is 11 times higher than that of wealthy taxpayers.
Revealed: The women we failed
Nick Ralston, Amy Corderoy, Inga Ting Three-quarters of women killed in NSW die at the hands of loved ones, a statistic that has led the NSW Police Commissioner to warn that domestic violence is one of the ''biggest issues modern society has to face''.
When food goes wrong
Richard Cornish Salmonella poisoning has almost doubled in the past decade. Following a spate of local and international incidents, we investigate why this is happening.
Health system inefficiencies costing $3 billion a year, says expert
DAN HARRISON Billions of taxpayers' dollars could be saved from the public health budget without reducing levels of service and care, according to a former head of the federal Health Department.
Sydney schools face queues as sell-off scheme backfires
JOSEPHINE TOVEY 'Get rich quick'' schemes to sell schools in Sydney's inner suburbs over the past 20 years have backfired, parents and public education advocates say, with many of the remaining schools now close to full and the state government exploring the need for an inner-city high school.
A fare cop: state loses $120m every year to passengers who don't pay
Jacob Saulwick, Alexandra Back Public transport fare evaders cost NSW about $120 million a year, according to the first detailed survey of Sydney's bus, rail and ferry passengers.
Winter Olympics
Winter Olympics: Delphi's Oracle never foresaw this
Alex Nicholson Extreme sports have paved the way for Australia's hopes in the Winter Olympics.
Coalition wins money vote as $81m poured into its coffers
JONATHAN SWAN The Coalition appears to be vastly better off than Labor, with the Liberals and Nationals making about $26 million more than their political opponents last year.
NSW
Welcome to Sydney's new million-dollar suburbs
TOBY JOHNSTONE It is the only club in Sydney where Point Piper residents rub shoulders with the nouveau-riche of Kenthurst, where Mosman meets Matraville and Burwood and Birchgrove are equal.
Love your guts: world 'hearts' Aussie offal
ESTHER HAN Australians love steak, but our aversion to the bits left behind has made us one of the biggest purveyors of offal in the world.
EXCLUSIVE
Selective school fees five times higher than at other public schools
Josephine Tovey, Inga Ting Parents with children in NSW selective schools pay voluntary fees on average five times the amount of those with children in comprehensive public schools, creating a stark inequality within the public school system, an analysis by Fairfax Media reveals.
Lifting alcohol prices won't stop binges: experts
INGA TING Higher prices for alcohol will do little to curb high-intensity drinking because binge drinkers commonly drink little or nothing on some days so they can binge on the weekend, leading public health experts warn.
Steroid use soars among young men
Peter Munro Steroids have become the drug of choice for people who start injecting illicit substances, eclipsing methamphetamines and heroin in popularity among young men.
Australia's richest suburb: they're swimming in it
Matt Wade It has Taronga Zoo, Balmoral Beach and a higher annual income than several African nations. Mosman's postcode, 2088, has the largest combined taxable income in Australia - a handy $2.5 billion, the latest tax data shows.
Sydney gay capital but some are only homosexual couple in the village
Lucy Marks, Craig Butt, Caroline Zielinski Karen Di Stefano does not see her homosexuality as anything out of the ordinary. ''It doesn't define who I am,'' says Ms Di Stefano, who has lived with her partner Amanda Harris in Frenchs Forest for three years.
A new kind of neighbourly love in Airport West
Caroline Zielinski and Craig Butt Caroline Jemison says a trip to her local shopping centre often leaves her wondering if she and her partner Fiona Campbell are the only lesbians in Airport West.
Private health insurance: one in the hip pocket
RACHEL BROWNE With premiums steadily rising, many people are cutting back their healthcare cover, writes Rachel Browne.
Revealed: the high cost of being charitable
Rachel Browne, Michaela Whitbourn Almost half of donations to some popular charities are spent on fund-raising, prompting calls for more transparency as the Coalition prepares to abolish the body set up to regulate not-for-profit organisations.
HSC trends hark back to gender stereotypes of '50s
AMY MCNEILAGE Looking at trends in this year's HSC results, one could be forgiven for thinking the results were from the 1950s.
ATAR results: two years' hard work adds up to relative mystery
AMY MCNEILAGE Almost 55,000 of the state's school leavers will find out their ATAR on Thursday. But it is doubtful many, if any, will truly understand the intricacies of how it was calculated.
One year after Sandy Hook, Americans still up in arms
NICK O'MALLEY One year after the Sandy Hook massacre, America is still fiercely divided over its gun laws.
Automotive
Holden: Numbers tell the story for the small fry of General Motors' ecosystem
MARK HAWTHORNE The story of Holden and its demise needs to be viewed through a global lens if it's to be fully understood.
Sandy Hook massacre: Gun lobby targets Australia
NICK O'MALLEY Australia has again become a focus of the increasingly bitter debate over gun control in the United States.
Maths tutoring adds up for students: OECD study
AMY MCNEILAGE Many of the world's most mathematically gifted teenagers come from countries with the most lucrative tutoring industries.
University degrees worth billions to Australian wellbeing
MATT WADE Sitting through lectures and tutorials may be worth more than you think: the wellbeing value of a university degree is nearly $1 million.
Wasted decade as indigenous health fails to show improvement
INGA TING Indigenous health has not improved at all in many areas of Australia over the past decade, data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday showed.
Court verdicts: More found innocent if no jury involved
Michaela Whitbourn The man accused of murdering his fiancee by throwing her off the balcony of their Hyde Park apartment may have improved his chances of being found innocent by being tried without a jury.
COAG report: girls ahead at school but women lag in pay stakes
JOSEPHINE TOVEY It is the "baffling contrast" in gender equality in Australia: girls generally outperform boys at school, and are more likely to hold a bachelor degree, but men continue to earn more than women in the workplace and overwhelmingly dominate leadership roles.
Our national journey to prosperity
MATT WADE Statistics charting progress across Australian election years tell an interesting story, writes Matt Wade
Alarm over child drinking, multiple liquor outlets
AMY CORDEROY Children as young as 12 who live in areas saturated with liquor outlets are more likely to drink than their peers, researchers say.
Melbourne top for avoidable hospital visits
Dan Harrison Melburnians are being admitted to hospital at the highest rates in the nation for conditions that should not need hospital treatment.
How Australia eats: The ultimate pie chart
INGA TING We've never been more preoccupied with what, where and how to eat, so why are we fatter than ever and less capable of preparing food for ourselves? Here are the facts and figures.
Home truths
MATT WADE As Sydney house prices break records, economists warn that $1 million suburbs are the new normal.
200 schools worse off in new scheme
JOSEPHINE TOVEY More than 200 public schools in NSW, many in low socio-economic areas, will receive less funding next year under the new Gonski-inspired model, despite an overall $100 million boost to the sector.
HIV increase at a 20-year high
AMY CORDEROY Australia has had the biggest jump in new HIV cases in two decades, leading experts to call for urgent action to tackle the disease.
UK
If London's still calling, young Aussies have stopped listening
NICK MILLER The British capital is losing some of its allure.
Food shortage means thousands go hungry as data shows shift in needy
ESTHER HAN Charities are turning away more than 10,000 people seeking food parcels and free meals every month in NSW - nearly half the hungry mouths being children - because of depleted food stocks, a national report shows.
AFL
How your club fared in the free agency and trade period
Compiled by Emma Quayle and Michael Gleeson It has taken three weeks but the AFL free agency and trade period has finally ended. Emma Quayle and Michael Gleeson examine which clubs 'won' and which didn't.
Geography loses as HSC students map their futures
AMY MCNEILAGE HSC students are increasingly choosing subjects such as legal studies and construction with their eye on a future job, at the expense of languages and complex maths subjects.
Suicide link to ADHD drug
Amy Corderoy A nine-year-old boy has killed himself and two other children have attempted suicide while taking a drug used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, federal drug authorities have said.
Broncos top of the league teams
MICHAEL CARAYANNIS Brisbane Broncos are officially the most successful team in rugby league history.
Pharmacies next target of big two, say analysts
SARAH WHYTE The growing empires of Australia's two big supermarkets have been branded an international oddity amid a prediction pharmacies may be their next conquest.
Property
How to spot a housing bubble
GLENDA KWEK There's no doubt house prices are high - but are we already in bubble territory? Here's a checklist.
Generation EEO
RACHEL BROWNE Our federal cabinet might have only one woman but since the 1980s equal employment opportunity has been in place. We look at women who have moved to the top of their professions on this 'level' playing field.
Rudd saved Labor, leaked polling shows
Jonathan Swan, Bianca Hall, Rick Feneley Labor would have been reduced to a parliamentary rump had it not replaced Julia Gillard with Kevin Rudd as prime minister, according to leaked internal polling.
Few women, lots of private school Catholics
Matt Wade The lopsided gender balance of Tony Abbott's cabinet has caused a stir. But how does it compare with the Australian population on other major demographic characteristics such as age, religion, schooling and occupation?
Comment
Sorry kids, to be honest, we're not a charity
DANIEL FLITTON Opinion Australia needs to make sure it spends wisely when it helps overseas.
Washington massacre: Don't expect gun reform
NICK O'MALLEY Early on Monday afternoon in the US most of the nation was gripped by the notion that while one gunman was "down" in the DC Navy Yard others might be on the lose. That suggested the mass shooting may have been a terrorist attack.
Gen Y makes a sharp turn away from driving
Jacob Saulwick, Conrad Walters Sydney's 20-somethings are fast ditching their cars for public transport, previously unpublished figures show, revealing the trend is widespread in the city.
Wine no longer enough, buyers want the backstory
ESTHER HAN When it comes to exports, South Australia's Barossa reigns supreme over every other wine region in Australia. Last financial year alone, it splashed the world with 12 million litres worth $110 million.
State schools raise $329m to lift income
Craig Butt and Benjamin Preiss There is no such thing as a free lunch; or a free education.
Teen drinking falls but concern over risk takers
AMY CORDEROY The number of schoolchildren drinking alcohol has fallen dramatically over the past 30 years, a large study of NSW students has found.
Fine words but childcare still overcrowded
Cosima Marriner, Craig Butt One-third of Sydney childcare centres have no vacancies, forcing some parents to wait nearly two years for a place, with neither Labor nor the Coalition outlining a solution to the childcare crisis experts say is hampering women's workforce participation.
Education
Australia the world's most expensive place for overseas students
GLENDA KWEK Australia is the most expensive country for international students, ahead of the US and UK, but the falling currency and improved visa processes could soon seen a resurgence in numbers.
Crackdown for payment adds to effect of rising bills
Julie Power Energy companies are cracking down on people who can't pay their power bills, as experts warn ''energy poverty'' is intensifying.
Urban sprawl eats into Sydney's farmland
ESTHER HAN Despite his family growing peaches and lemons on the fringes of Sydney for nearly 50 years, Warren Rowles says the farming tradition will end with him.
Ratepayers hit with 5% rise
Aisha Dow and Craig Butt Every Victorian ratepayer will have to find more this year - an average of $76 per household.
Tram squeeze eases but some still suffer
Adam Carey and Craig Butt Overcrowding on peak-hour trams has eased in the past year but remains a stubborn problem on a number of Melbourne routes.
Gonski reforms: what your school will get?
Jewel Topsfield, Craig Butt and Henrietta Cook Every one of Victoria's 1522 state schools would receive funding increases over the next six years 'if the state signs up to the Gonski reforms'.
Hospital over budget, close to capacity
AMY CORDEROY Doctors at one of Sydney's top hospitals say emergency and resuscitation beds that are desperately needed for patient care are lying dormant because of funding shortfalls.
Mental illness costing $190b a year
MATT WADE The cost of mental illness to Australia's collective wellbeing has reached $190 billion a year - equivalent to about 12 per cent of the economy's annual output.
Cycle data riding high on reader feedback
Marc Moncrief and Craig Butt He was half-naked, his body was broken and Michael Walker could not remember a thing.
Would you like extra germs with that?
See if your favourite restaurant is on the state's name and shame list.
Family violence drives up crime rate
Nino Bucci, Craig Butt and Jared Lynch Family violence has again been used to explain a leap in the state's crime rate.
2013 Federal Budget interactive
Explore this year's federal budget to see where the money comes from and goes to.
Abbott parental leave to be among world's best
STEPHANIE PEATLING The Coalition's paid parental leave would be among the most generous in the world both in its length and the amount it paid to parents.
Tornadoes in Australia
See every Australian tornado visualised in this marvelous interactive feature by our colleagues at the Border Mail.
Special features
Most dangerous suburbs
Ten Sydney suburbs account for almost 30 per cent of the city's gun violence.
The human tide
Nearly 70,000 asylum seekers have tried to reach Australia since 1990. More than 1500 have died along the way.
You be the Treasurer
How would you balance the books? Have a go at being the Treasurer with our interactive.
Population interactive
How Australia got to 23 million.
Census 2012 interactive
Browse through data on Australia's population to see how we live.
How we get to work
Our interactive map compares modes of travel in the Victorian capital.
Sydney Gun Crime
Bullets over the 'burbs: a year of shootings.
Ten years after Bali
Our interactive tour of the attack, the terrorist and the lives lost.
Political Interests
Revealed: Politicians' gifts, trips and tickets. A searchable database.
Facebook facts
Friends with money: the global social phenomenon.
Who holds the power
Map the links between Australia's top companies.
Digital Dreamers
Australian startup innovation goes to Silicon Valley.
Wounded in Afghanistan
The road home for Aussie soldiers injured in battle.
Federal Budget 2012
Visualise all the numbers in the 2012 Federal Budget.
My School rankings
Searchable database: How NSW schools rank.