Bad sign: Furore erupts after principals at the Illawarra Grammar School and Shellharbour Anglican College sign a letter calling on the federal government to retain “faith-based exemptions” that would allow them to fire or not hire gay teachers. 

School inferno: Six classrooms are destroyed in a suspicious early-morning fire at Corrimal High School.

Mt Ousley mayhem: A runaway truck ploughs through the car park at McDonald’s Fairy Meadow, smashing several cars and trapping one woman in her vehicle. Investigations into the truck – owned by the Hari Om trucking fleet – would find the brakes were faulty.

Lockdown: A man held police at bay for three hours in a home along Princes Highway at Fairy Meadow. 

Doctors bullied: Almost 50 per cent of junior doctors claimed they had experienced bullying, discrimination or harassment in a 2018 Hospital Health Check report.

Big spenders: Labor pledges to scrap the F6 extension and instead spend $2.4 billion on the rail line between the Illawarra and Sydney.

Up and away: Commercial flights into and out of the Illawarra Regional Airport return with Fly Corporate. They had disappeared earlier in the year after JetGo went under.

Road death: A truck driver dies a head-on collision along Picton Road, not far from the location of a 2017 head-on between two trucks.

Sale stop: Labor says it will put an end to Boxing Day sales in Wollongong if it wins the March 2019 election. The basis for their stance is that workers should be allowed to have the day off like everyone else.

Shocking: Fairy Meadow man Anthony Peter Sampieri is arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a seven-year-old girl in a Kogarah dance studio and then stabbing the man who came to her rescue. 

Fight for life: Wollongong teenager Henry Kocatekin is fighting for his life in a Portuguese hospital after suffering self-inflicted burns to 90 per cent of his body.

Big gig: The team behind The Farmer & The Owl record label announce they will be holding a festival in MacCabe Park in March next year.

Election win: Labor’s Ann Martin wins the Ward 3 byelection after the Wollongong City Council seat was vacated by the resignation of Cr Chris Connor.

Drug charges: Kiama councillor Matt Brown appears in a Queensland court after being caught with ice and a glass pipe. He pleads guilty and is fined $500. 

Volunteer tragedy: During a day of heavy rain, SES volunteer Billy Martin dies while helping remove a fallen tree. He leaves behind wife Jess Martin and daughter Amarni.