New laws to crack down on graffiti vandals are merely window dressing and won't work, the NSW opposition says.

The federal government says it is on the way to ensuring all of its office buildings have five-star greenhouse ratings.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives headed to a final vote on a sweeping healthcare overhaul on Saturday, with Democratic leaders confident they can secure the 218 votes needed for a narrow victory.

US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and 39 relatives of United Flight 93 victims turned shovels of dirt at a groundbreaking ceremony for a national memorial.

Climate change negotiations in Copenhagen shouldn't stop Australia designing a scheme that is best suited for the economy, Nick Xenophon says.

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - The lower house of Haiti's parliament confirmed Jean-Max Bellerive as prime minister on Saturday, clearing the way for the economist and veteran politician to form a new government.

Queensland teachers have won a pay rise that places them among Australia's highest paid but will cost the Queensland government $1 billion over three years.

An Australian customs ship holding 78 asylum seekers off Indonesia should be sent to Sri Lanka, where its passengers are from, Barnaby Joyce says.

More than two thirds of Maori Party supporters believe the party did the right thing in joining the National government coalition following last year's General Election, according to a survey.

A rail lobby group says it fears more line closures will follow the mothballing of the Taranaki-King Country rail line.

The cenotaph in Sydney's Martin Place is to be placed on the NSW heritage list.

MIAMI (AFP) - Mexico's government issued a hurricane warning on Saturday as a strengthening tropical storm Ida bore down on the country's Yucatan peninsula.

Emergency services are helping residents on the NSW mid-north coast mop up after torrential rain, as 200 people remain cut off by floodwater.

A party pill activist says he's delighted the Government has decided against banning the party pill ingredient DMAA.

Labour believes the Government is quietly clearing the way for a massive sell-off of Auckland's assets.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President Barack Obama, fighting for his top domestic priority, urged fellow Democrats in the House of Representatives to "vote yes" Saturday on the broadest US health care overhaul in a half-century.

ANDORRA LA VELLA (AFP) - A bridge collapse in Andorra Saturday killed at least three workers, left seven badly hurt and one missing, feared buried under the rubble, the government said.

KABUL (AFP) - Seven Afghan security personnel were killed in a mis-targeted NATO air strike in the remote northwest, the defence ministry said Saturday, signalling further trouble for a fraying Western military effort.