During the final week of the Federal election campaign, National Party ads accuse Rob Oakeshott of having never "done a hard day's work in his life".

Schools and remote communities across the north of Western Australia fear for their future as vital funding dries up, leaving highly-valued employees jobless.

Some WA sheep breeders are worried a ban could damage the industry, but Labor says the science is clear and if they win government they'll end the live export trade.

The Landcare movement has the ability to unite farmers and environmentalists, but it hasn't received much attention in an election campaign infatuated with climate change.

O'Connor is one of the largest electorates in the world, but there will be 102 polling stations open for business on Saturday when the federal election takes place.

More money has been pledged for more than 70 protected areas across the country, almost entirely in regional and remote Australia.

South Australian voters watching party leaders cut a trail through marginal seats across the country could be justified in feeling like they have been left in the dust with the state barely rating a blip for Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.

A South Australian Aboriginal group loses a bid to stop a council ballot on whether a nuclear storage facility should be built on the Eyre Peninsula.

Two fire incidents in regional South Australia are under control after temperatures soared across the state. A fuel tanker rolled on the Eyre Highway earlier today, and CFS crews have contained a grass fire at Lewiston.

This year's Budget reflects a horrific summer of natural disasters, with increased support for natural disasters and drought relief.

Usually, federal elections are decided outside Victoria. This one could be different, with Bill Shorten hoping to pick up a number of seats in his home state that were once considered Liberal bastions.

The You Ask, We Answer election project has received dozens of questions about immigration with many concerned about how Australia can care for new migrants.

The Federal Government has been rocked by revelations Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce may not have been validly elected. Barnaby Joyce is the latest to be caught by uncertainty over his citizenship - telling Parliament he may be a dual citizen of New Zealand because his father was born there. Mr Joyce is staying on as Deputy PM while the High Court determines his eligibility, but the Opposition believes he should stand aside immediately. The case could have huge implications for the Coalition, which holds the Lower House with a slim one seat majority.

A fresh stoush has broken out between the Federal Government and a Melbourne council over its decision to cancel Australia Day celebrations. The Yarra Council in Melbourne's inner north last night became the first in the country to abandon Australia Day in solidarity with Indigenous people. The Prime Minister says he is deeply disappointed by the decision, and is accusing the council of breaching its duties.

For the first time, the long-term outlook for the Great Barrier Reef is downgraded to "very poor", with the impacts of climate change, including coral bleaching and record-breaking warm water, deteriorating its overall health.

The Northern Territory Government is trying something new to entice remote school students back to class at the start of Term 3 just in time for the head-count that determines how much school funding comes from Canberra.

Rural independents are proving a difficult test for the Coalition in this election. But the pathway to parliament is harder than it might seem.

Police charge a woman with common assault after the Prime Minister is egged while meeting with delegates from the Country Women's Association in Albury, on the NSW-Victorian border.

Energy policy is confusing. There are no shortage of acronyms and the policies change almost as often as the leaders do. Here we've tried to answer your questions.

Aged care advocates say policy, regulatory and funding systems have not kept pace with the changing needs and expectations of the growing number of older Australians.

Regional seats proved the toughest battleground for the Coalition at the NSW state election, and with just days to go until the federal poll the pressure remains.

Former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer says the three-week early voting period is bad for democracy, particularly in regional Australia.

Instead of storing or throwing out the stationery bought for the last federal election, this time the Australian Electoral Commission is donating it to Indigenous health and education organisations.

Angry protesters have called for the sacking of the Federal Water Minister and hurled an effigy of him sitting on a toilet into the Murray River.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is asking Parliament for a "big stick" to threaten energy companies with. Here's how it could work.

The Commonwealth is investigating how to respond to the ACT's decision to allow personal cannabis use, and may opt to overturn the new law, which allows Canberrans to possess up to 50 grams of marijuana.

A Federal Court judge finds the Registered Organisations Commission's investigation into donations made to the activist group in 2006 when former opposition leader Bill Shorten was leading the union was not politically motivated, but it was launched on a "flawed"basis.

Health Minister Greg Hunt says he has "serious concerns" and demands to see the "evidence" the ACT considered before deciding to legalise cannabis in Canberra from next year.

Chinese telco giant Huawei urges the Federal Government to reconsider its ban on the company providing equipment to Australia's 5G mobile network, describing claims it answers to Beijing as "unfounded attacks and smears".

An estimated 75,000 backpackers working, or that have worked in Australia, could be back-paid hundreds of millions of dollars after the Federal Court ruled the so-called backpacker tax invalid.

A father who threatened to kill a Federal Circuit Court Judge in a late night, expletive-laden phone call walks free from a Far North Queensland court.

A federal inquiry will examine the crisis at Earle Haven on the Gold Coast, as Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk declares state-owned aged-care homes will have nurse-to-patient ratios fixed.

The family at the heart of the "Home To Bilo" campaign will remain in Australia for at least another 24 hours as a legal argument about the immigration assessment of two-year-old Tharnicaa continues.

A patent application has been granted which Meat and Livestock Australia fears will have a chilling effect on genomic research in Australia's cattle industries.

Bill Shorten draws a rockstar welcome in enemy territory, Scott Morrison argues with Labor over its support for a Coalition policy and Clive Palmer is personally, yet noticeably, absent from the campaign trail.

Fresh from his tour of the United States, Prime Minister Scott Morrison heads to Queensland to pledge more money to support drought-affected communities.

Hopes are raised in drought-stricken towns that the Federal Government is on the cusp of delivering a stimulus package, with local mayors urging a generous spend.

The ABC understands drought-stricken towns will be the target of federal stimulus potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars under a program designed to support regional communities enduring hardship.

(Bloomberg) -- Millions of virus-idled American workers are now at home with little more than hand-wringing anxiety about where their next paycheck will come from. They are Jerome Powell’s biggest worry, and how to ease their plight with monetary policy is the Federal Reserve chairman’s largest challenge.The Fed will probably debate using instruments including stronger forward guidance or asset purchases when officials meet next month, which would add more muscle to interest rates that have already been slashed to zero.But those tools require officials to have a forecast they trust of where the economy is heading. The lack of clarity could be a reason to dial down expectations that they would take such steps in June, because officials will struggle to form an outlook as the nation slowly reopens.Policy makers have already described the difficulties that forecasters face.Vice Chairman Richard Clarida warned of “enormous uncertainty” in a CNBC interview and said “we have to be appropriately humble as we’re navigating this period.” San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly told Bloomberg Television that forecasting “has become very tough” now because it depends on the course of the virus. Philadelphia’s Patrick Harker described scenarios, including one with a second infection wave and “a painful economic contraction of GDP in 2021 as shutdowns are reintroduced.”Even so, Powell has said that the Fed will do what it can to curb the human tragedy of the virus’s economic harm.He helped nurture the longest U.S. expansion on record, a period of growth that was just starting to reach the most marginalized workers, from people with criminal records to those with little schooling.The Fed chief spent the last year on a listening tour to hear from ordinary Americans and discuss obstacles to even bigger gains.‘Absolute Limit’He’s now pledged to use Fed powers to the “absolute limit” to prevent the contraction from leaving deep scars on the economy’s long-term ability to grow -- through bankruptcies of small businesses or deterioration in worker skills. And he is boldly urging Congress to do more.“It is about not just winning the war against a depression, but it’s about securing the peace, winning the peace. We failed in 2008-09 to secure the peace,” Mohamed El-Erian, a Bloomberg columnist and chief economic adviser to Allianz SE, told Bloomberg Television Friday “We won the war against a threat of depression then, but we did not secure a peace of higher growth, more inclusive growth and sustainability.”In an April 29 press conference, Powell was asked if he’s troubled by the prospect that the downturn does the most harm to Americans who have only just managed to get a foothold in the labor market. “That’s exactly what I worry about,” he said.Record UnemploymentU.S. government data on Friday shows the nation headed in that direction. Employers cut 20.5 million jobs in April and the unemployment rate more than tripled to 14.7%, the harshest labor market downturn in the history of the data series. All the indications point to a brutal recession. The central bank wants to make sure it is as short as possible.Fed officials next month are due to refresh their quarterly Summary of Economic Projections, where all 17 anonymously write down a forecast for their policy interest rate, GDP, inflation and unemployment. They skipped the process in March due to a rapidly changing outlook.With so many puzzles yet to be resolved, they may diminish its importance or skip it again at their June 9-10 meeting.Officials have already assured investors that interest rates will be held near zero until they are confident the economy is back on track to achieve their twin goals for full employment and 2% inflation.Zero RatesTraders have priced in zero rates for the rest of the year, and possibly even negative interest rates in 2021, an idea that Powell has dismissed in the past and which other officials played down last week as a prospect in the U.S.With rates already at zero, “the second tool,” said Daly, “has been forward guidance,” and then balance sheet policies. Still, there is a sense at the Fed that monetary policy will have to be complimented with further creative fiscal policy to help push demand higher.Fed officials have worked with the U.S. Treasury and Congress to provide bridge credit to everything from Main Street businesses to the largest corporations.“Will there be a need to do more though?” Powell asked at his April 29 press conference. “I would say that it may well be the case that the economy will need more support from all of us if the recovery is to be a robust one.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - In a challenge to federal statutory restrictions on certain types of advertising by public broadcast TV stations, the district court's grant of summary judgment to the FCC is: 1) affirmed in part, where 47 U.S.C. section 399b(a)(1), restricting paid advertisements for goods and services on behalf of for-profit corporations, was not an unconstitutional speech restriction under the intermediate scrutiny standard; 2) reversed in part, where sections 399b(a)(2) and (3), restricting public-issue advertisements and political advertisements, were unconstitutional speech restrictions under intermediate scrutiny, as there was no evidence of harm to a substantial governmental interest.

(United States Fourth Circuit) - In an action by a Virginia non-profit corporation organized under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code to provide "accurate and truthful information about the public policy positions of Senator Barack Obama," contending that it was "chilled" from posting information about then-Senator Obama because of the vagueness of a Commission regulation, 11 C.F.R. section 100.22(b), and a Commission policy, published at 72 Fed. Reg. 5595 (Feb. 7, 2007), relating to whether plaintiff has to make disclosures or is a "political committee" (PAC), the District Court's judgment is affirmed where: 1) neither the regulation nor policy are unconstitutionally broad and vague in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments; and 2) it correctly applied the "exacting scrutiny" standard applicable to disclosure provisions.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - In this case, the district court's judgment in favor of defendants Federal National Mortgage Association and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, finding them statutorily exempt from state and local taxation of real property transfers and finding that Congress had the constitutional authority to exempt defendants from such taxation, is affirmed, where: 1) the transfer taxes at issue here are excise taxes, and the statutory carve-outs allowing for taxation of real property encompass only property taxes, not excise taxes; 2) because Congress had power under the Commerce Clause to regulate the secondary mortgage market, it had power under the Necessary and Proper Clause to ensure the preservation of defendant organizations by exempting them from state and local taxes; and 3) the exemptions do not violate the Tenth Amendment.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Reinstated a lawsuit alleging that a movie studio breached its collective-bargaining agreement with musicians who score motion pictures. The musicians' labor union contended that the movie studio breached the labor agreement by having the film Same Kind of Different As Me scored in Slovakia, rather than hiring union musicians in the U.S. and Canada. Finding genuine disputes of material fact, the Ninth Circuit reversed the entry of summary judgment for the movie studio and remanded for further proceedings.

"I left work and I felt so deflated," one doctor said about an effort to counter misinformation he saw on Facebook. "I let it get to me."Breaking News EmailsGet breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Held that a teacher working for the U.S. Department of Defense Domestic Dependent Elementary and Secondary Schools failed to file a timely petition for review of a decision removing her from the federal service. The teacher, who argued that her procedural due process rights were violated when she was fired from her job teaching on a military base, petitioned for review of an arbitrator's decision. However, the Federal Circuit concluded that her petition for review was not timely filed and thus dismissed it.

(United States Second Circuit) - The district court's order reciprocally suspending defendant-attorney from the practice of law before that court based on an order of the Connecticut Superior Court, is affirmed, where: 1) defendant received adequate notice of the charges; 2) defendant's other due process challenges to the state court proceedings are either meritless or, at most, concern harmless error; and 3) defendant also has not shown, by clear and convincing evidence, that there was a "substantial infirmity in the proof" supporting the state court disciplinary order.