We report a comprehensive joint experimental-theoretical study of the equilibrium pair-structure and short-time diffusion in aqueous suspensions of highly charged poly-acrylate (PA) spheres in the colloidal fluid phase. Low-polydispersity PA sphere systems with two different hard-core radii, R(0) = 542 and 1117 Å, are explored over a wide range of concentrations and salinities using static and dynamic light scattering (DLS), small angle x-ray scattering, and x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS). The measured static and dynamic scattering functions are analyzed using state-of-the-art theoretical methods. For all samples, the measured static structure factor, S(Q), is in good agreement with results by an analytical integral equation method for particles interacting by a repulsive screened Coulomb plus hard-core pair potential. In our DLS and XPCS measurements, we have determined the short-time diffusion function D(Q) = D(0) H(Q)∕S(Q), comprising the free diffusion coefficient D(0) and the hydrodynamic function H(Q). The latter is calculated analytically using a self-part corrected version of the δγ-scheme by Beenakker and Mazur which accounts approximately for many-body hydrodynamic interactions (HIs). Except for low-salinity systems at the highest investigated volume fraction φ ≈ 0.32, the theoretical predictions for H(Q) are in excellent agreement with the experimental data. In particular, the increase in the collective diffusion coefficient D(c) = D(Q → 0), and the decrease of the self-diffusion coefficient, D(s) = D(Q → ∞), with increasing φ is well described. In accord with the theoretical prediction, the peak value, H(Q(m)), of H(Q) relates to the nearest neighbor cage size ∼2π∕Q(m), for which concentration scaling relations are discussed. The peak values H(Q(m)) are globally bound from below by the corresponding neutral hard-spheres peak values, and from above by the limiting peak values for low-salinity charge-stabilized systems. HIs usually slow short-time diffusion on colloidal length scales, except for the cage diffusion coefficient, D(cge) = D(Q(m)), in dilute low-salinity systems where a speed up of the system dynamics and corresponding peak values of H(Q(m)) > 1 are observed experimentally and theoretically.