As it happened: Mandatory COVID isolation drops to 5 days; former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev dies

A collective sigh of relief could be heard every time a train approached the platform at Central station on Wednesday afternoon.

However, it was immediately taken back once train doors opened to reveal carriages overflowing with commuters desperately trying to make their way home.

Train guards were packing people in like a child stuffing their sleeping bag at the end of year five camp, with little success and great frustration.

Sydney’s public transport network was once again thrown into chaos on Wednesday afternoon as widespread industrial action across the rail network and key bus routes slashed services and left commuters stranded on platforms.

Kyiv: Ukraine claimed to have destroyed bridges and ammunition depots and pounded command posts in a surge of fighting in the Russian-occupied south, fuelling speculation on Tuesday that its long-awaited counteroffensive to try to turn the tide of war was underway. Russia said it inflicted heavy casualties in return.

The clashes took place in Ukraine’s Kherson region, where Moscow’s forces rolled up major gains early in the war.

While independent verification of battlefield action has been difficult, Britain’s Defence Ministry said in an intelligence report that several Ukrainian brigades had stepped up their artillery fire in front-line sectors across southern Ukraine.

Ukrainian authorities kept the world guessing about their intentions, sidestepping talk of a major counter-offensive over the past couple of days.

The NSW premier has declared war on the rail unions by threatening to drag them before the courts and tear up a multibillion-dollar safety commitment in a high stakes move that threatens to inflame wider negotiations with the state’s public sector workforce.

In a dramatic escalation in the long-running dispute, Dominic Perrottet on Wednesday issued rail unions with an ultimatum after the city’s public transport system was crippled amid industrial action on the rail and bus networks.

“This ends today. I will not have our city grind to a halt, our people inconvenienced any more by the actions of a union movement that belongs back in the 1970s,” he said. “The union is using our people as political pawns. They are not going to get away with it any more.”

Washington: The US Justice Department says it has found evidence to suggest that documents removed from the White House when Donald Trump left office were later concealed at his Florida home to obstruct a federal investigation into their whereabouts.

A Trump lawyer “explicitly prohibited” FBI agents from looking in boxes in a storage room at Trump’s property during a June search, the department said in a court filing.

“The government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the storage room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation,” the department argued in a filing in US District Court in the Southern District of Florida.

Welcome to your five-minute update of the trading day, and how the experts saw it.

The numbers: The Australian sharemarket closed weaker on Wednesday, shedding 11.50 points, or 0.16 per cent, to 6986.80. The ASX 200 added 0.6 per cent through August, held up by mostly strong company earnings reports.

Energy and materials stocks provided a significant drag on the market on Wednesday, with heavyweights Woodside Energy, Santos, BHP and Fortescue all finishing lower.

The lifters: Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals jumped 16.1 per cent after reporting its sixth consecutive annual profit; Webjet gained 7.63 per cent after predicting its operational cash surplus will exceed $100 million by September; and Tyro payments finished 10.1 per cent higher after Monday’s strong earnings report.

Australian naval officers will be allowed to train inside Britain’s nuclear-powered submarines for the first time to ensure they are prepared for the eventual arrival of the prized technology under the AUKUS pact.

Defence Minister Richard Marles is set to announce the landmark agreement at a press conference with UK Secretary of State Ben Wallace in the English port town of Barrow-in-Furness on Thursday.

“The idea of Australian crew working with either British or American crews to get experience on British or American vessels in the shorter term is what we are seeking to do,” Marles said in an interview with the London Times.