​A new technique using artificial intelligence to predict where deforestation is most likely to occur could help the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) preserve its shrinking rainforest and cut carbon emissions, researchers have said.

Sydneysiders will be leaving their winter woolies at home on Sunday to welcome what is expected to be the warmest July day on record.

The project to reverse ecological damage in the Murray-Darling Basin is not going well.

Sydney will get a taste of summer this weekend, with temperatures of 26 degrees expected on Sunday, before rain sets in again as the working week returns.

The birds learned to sing from each other, reduced populations mean their song may be lost.

• EXCLUSIVE

The preferred alignment of the proposed F6 Extension takes in sites with some of the "richest concentrations of plant species in temperate Australia".

In the summer of 2010, Russia faced a severe drought, a heat wave and a series of catastrophic wildfires, destroying a third of the country's wheat harvest. Half a year later, the Arab Spring began.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has stoked the controversy over claims of water theft in NSW aired by the ABC, dismissing the report as a ploy to strip more water off rural communities.

Plans to develop an open-cut coal mine in the bucolic Bylong Valley lack key information about the impacts on the landscape, water resources and the community, the state's Planning Assessment Commission has found.

Britain's plans match a similar pledge made this month by France.

Federal-state tensions over water issues have escalated with South Australia demanding Barnaby Joyce, the federal water minister, drop his nomination of an irrigation lobbyist to the Murray Darling Basin Authority's board.

• UPDATED

A severe weather warning has been cancelled for the ACT and parts of southeastern New South Wales, after damaging winds were previously forecast for Wednesday morning.

A top NSW bureaucrat was on Tuesday refusing calls to stand down despite allegedly offering privileged access to government documents to irrigation lobbyists.

The Berejiklian government needs to refer the issues of water theft and industry collusion to the corruption watchdog, green groups say.

The possibilities of quantum computers are much-hyped but even the search for breakthroughs promises lucrative spin-offs.

More frequent severe droughts, coral bleaching are on the agenda with more extreme El Nino events predicted even with ambitious climate goals.

More than 200 sheep have died after they hurtled over the edge of a cliff in the French Pyrenees.

Another bout of spring-like weather is in store for much of NSW including Sydney, possibly putting some July warmth records in play by the weekend.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian says she does not need to ban plastic bags in NSW, "because 80 per cent of plastic bags" will already be banned by the supermarkets themselves.

The BBC reports the arachnid was the "size of a guinea pig", causing one of the men to flee in fright.

Troops mobilised after heavy rains prompt floods on the South Island.

With Sydney drenched in winter sun, a trip to the beach might be tempting.

You'd be forgiven for thinking you'd woken up to winter in the wrong hemisphere on Saturday morning.

Weather patterns delivering an exceptionally dry winter across south-eastern Australia show little sign of breaking up.

The Turnbull government has released draft management plans for the nation's marine parks that amount to an "unprecedented rollback" of protections, a coalition of 25 environmental groups say.

The world's first test-tube rhinos could be born from animals at a British safari park.

• COMMENT

Don't laugh. There are important lessons in the unlikely story of how the world came to mitigate the effects of a ticking time bomb under modern civilisation.

The nation's largest power generator has urged the federal government to exclude coal from its planned clean energy target, saying there is no appetite among private investors to fund new coal-fired power plants.

Ski fields still packed after school holidays, with 40 centimetres recorded on the slopes.

Officials said Xanda, who was 6 and had several cubs, was shot several days ago by a trophy hunter.