Today is January 7, 2021 and this is your daily news briefing from The Illawarra Mercury. In today’s update, a New South Wales prison inmate is believed to have shot himself dead on a Wollongong street after he stole the gun of a corrective services officer while on medical release, and there were five new cases on COVID-19 in New South Wales on Tuesday, with one of those found in someone from overseas in hotel quarantine.

Today is January 6, 2021 and this is your daily news briefing from The Illawarra Mercury. In today’s update, a man has fallen three metres onto concrete while working on the construction of a high-rise Wollongong apartment block, and a train spotter had to tell the crew of a Port Kembla-bound coal train crew that one of its wagons had derailed, an Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigation found.

Today is January 5, 2021 and this is your daily news briefing from The Illawarra Mercury. In today’s update, a Cordeaux Heights street has been left in disarray after an out-of-control bus careened backwards downhill, its driver incapacitated by a seizure, and NSW recorded no new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to 8pm Sunday night, though two linked to the Berala cluster were recorded overnight.

Today is January 4, 2021 and this is your daily news briefing from The Illawarra Mercury. In today’s update, NSW has recorded eight new local cases of COVID-19, including one in Wollongong - though authorities are still searching for a "missing link" to the Illawarra - and as masks have become mandatory at many indoor settings around Greater Sydney and the Wollongong local government area, some believe everyone should be doing it.

Today is January 1, 2021 and this is a special message from The Illawarra Mercury team.

Today is December 28, 2020 and this is an update from The Illawarra Mercury team.

Today is December 25, 2020 and this is a special Christmas message brought to you and yours, from The Illawarra Mercury team.

Today is December 24, 2020 and this is your daily news briefing from The Illawarra Mercury. In today’s update, with the Illawarra set to swell over the summer, police are warning residents and visitors to the region they will be watching, and large extended families in Greater Sydney, Wollongong and the Central Coast will not be able to gather for Christmas lunch or dinner, after the NSW Government decided to mostly maintain a temporary public health order which bans large gatherings in homes over the holidays.

Today is December 23, 2020 and this is your daily news briefing from The Illawarra Mercury. In today’s update, the 70-year-old Northern Beaches' man who attended Ulladulla Leisure Centre on Monday afternoon has been issued a Penalty Infringement Notice (PIN) by police, and Wollongong police are urging residents to contact them instead of posting it on Facebook to report the theft of Christmas lights and decorations.

Today is December 22, 2020 and this is your daily news briefing from The Illawarra Mercury. In today’s update, Labor's health spokesman and Illawarra MP Ryan Park has hit out at the way the NSW Government has handled the latest COVID-19 restrictions, saying he was baffled about the way they have been applied and communicated in the Illawarra, and the number of new daily COVID-19 cases has halved in the past 24 hours, with NSW finding 15 new cases linked to the Avalon cluster.