Financial penalties have been imposed on Western Power for failing to meet its target for service performance to customers in regional areas.

The mercury is set to tip over the forty degree mark for many parts of WA this weekend, and it's important to know how the heat can affect your body.

The Shire of Kondinin says there has been a big impact on the Wheatbelt community of Karlgarin from a major storm that occurred a year ago today.

Local governments have expressed concern about a decision to kill off merger discussions between four Wheatbelt shires.

A prominent businessman on Western Australia's south coast has been sentenced to eight years and six months in jail for attempting to hire a hitman to murder his estranged daughter-in-law. Brian Vincent Attwell paid $10,000 to an undercover police officer who had posed as a hitman in September last year. The court heard the 74-year-old was angry over legal action after his son's divorce and he was motivated by "sheer hatred" of Michelle Attwell. The trial was played recordings of the businessman saying his daughter-in-law had cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he wanted her "strangled and buried".

Wheatbelt nickel miner Western Areas says it is pleased with its quarterly results, despite seeing small drops in production and sales and higher costs.

Aboriginal teaching assistants whose jobs have been axed, have appealed directly to the Education Minister for their jobs to be reinstated.

Booker T Jones shares his stories from over fifty years of taking to the stage and collaborating with some of the biggest names in music.

Former WA chief scientist Lyn Beazley says she is honoured to be named patron of an agriculture program in Manjimup.

The Western Australian Opposition is calling on the State Government to revisit the eligibility criteria for its concessional farming loans because of limited demand so far.

An eastern Wheatbelt farming group says it is extremely frustrating for struggling growers in the region to see limited demand for a Government support package.

WA nickel miner Western Areas is attempting to raise about $100 million in a venture designed in part to reduce debt.

A Collingwood footballer admitted to police hours after his arrest that he punched a man out of 'anger' following an earlier altercation outside a nightclub. The trial of Magpies defender Marley Williams in the District Court in his home town of Albany, on WA's South Coast, was this morning played the accused's initial interview with police. Williams is charged with grievous bodily harm, after punching then 29-year-old Matthew Robertson outside the Studio 146 nightclub in December 2012.

The Auditor General has found the Water Corporation is losing billions of litres of water more than it should each year, mainly due to leaking pipes. In his report, tabled in Parliament today, Colin Murphy says about 30 billion litres of water was lost each year, ten billion more than what is considered acceptable. The agency will also have to fork out tens of millions of dollars to replace ageing pipes in the network.

Western Australian Wheatbelt nickel producer Western Areas says it will make significant savings after raising the funds to pay off a $110 million bond.

Police have charged three people with drug offences after raids on several properties across Albany.

A Denmark man has pleaded guilty to more than 50 charges relating to filming, or attempting to film, his teenage step-daughter.

Farmers in some of the driest parts of Western Australia are concerned they will miss out on funds from the Federal Government's drought assistance package because they will not meet the criteria.

The Narrogin Town Council is calling on the Western Australian Government to support upgrades to a wastewater treatment system, which it says is costing nearly $100,000 annually to maintain.

Residents have been left without water for a day after a breakdown at a local treatment plant and as western NSW sweated through a heatwave.

Thousands of fish which became trapped in a NSW pond after flooding in 2016 have been returned to the Macquarie River after a painstaking effort to keep them alive.

Pat O'Sullivan took over the Hillston Spectator from his dad more than 60 years ago. But now, with his garden calling, the publication could be at risk of folding.

Water is extensively treated before it's used for dialysis

The drought could have major implications for life-saving medical procedures, such as dialysis with patients needing up to 4,000 litres each week for treatment.

Desalination is not just for coastal cities treating seawater. Drought-hit inland towns could use it where emergency bore water supplies are too salty.

Thousands head to the tiny New South Wales town of Louth for a dusty race weekend amid the ongoing dry.

Water is fast running out across the Macquarie Valley, with one town preparing for the possibility of closing the hospital

MORNING BRIEFING: Western Sydney residents concerned about the new 24/7 airport will have years to wait before they know proposed flight paths, while the enduring drought pushes Dubbo to cut water use even more.

The New South Wales Government is funding an aerial survey for water in the state's central west.

A Dubbo man is handed a community correction order and community service after pleading guilty to animal cruelty following his appearance in a video of an emu being plucked.

The Bureau of Meteorology says almost 30 millimetres has fallen at Bourke in the state's upper-west but the widespread, heavy rain needed to end the drought is unlikely in the near future.

Regional airline Rex is threatening to cut services on its Sydney-to-Dubbo and has sent a scathing letter to Dubbo households criticising their local council.

The Federal Writers' Project, established by President Roosevelt in July 1935 as part of the New Deal, provided jobs for out-of-work writers during the Great Depression. Australian authors Jeff Sparrow and James Bradley discuss whether a similar literary stimulus package could work today.

Conservationists are hoping the coronavirus pandemic will force governments to take action against the wildlife trade. But will stricter legislation push wildlife traffickers deeper underground?

Writing about 'place' is more than parachuting into an unfamiliar location, meeting a few people, rehashing well-worn clichés, then flying out again. Three writers discuss the places they written about, and how to capture the essence of people and place.

Many diets fail because your metabolism and brain adapt to different kinds of diets and physical activity. When you cut back your energy in-take, your body starts creating appetite enhancers.

WA has now posted six days in a row without a new case of COVID-19 after no new cases were recorded overnight, with 95 per cent of people who contracted the virus in the state now recovered.

A program to house homeless individuals in Perth hotels is abandoned after more than half the 20 people who were given accommodation at the start of the scheme chose to leave early.

Wildlife parks have a long road back to financial buoyancy after coronavirus restrictions stripped them of their sole source of income; visitors, and some operators are dipping into personal savings just to keep their animals fed.

Accused Claremont serial killer Bradley Edwards is at the centre of the longest and most expensive criminal trial in Western Australia's history and yesterday was the first time the public heard from him.

Western Australia reports no new cases of COVID-19 overnight, marking a full week since its last positive test, with the Premier calling it an "amazing and incredible and terrific" result.

While China's demand for Australian rock lobster soars, less international flights causes product delivery to be capped.

Australia's superstar all-rounder Ellyse Perry will go under the knife and face six months out of cricket after injuring her hamstring during her team's T20 World Cup campaign.

Organisers of Murwillumbah's annual banana festival say national anti-terror rules have made it too expensive to hold a street parade.

This couple's love affair was sparked by an innocent remark about mince pies during the interval of a show many years ago.

Four children who took a family member's car from Gracemere near Rockhampton on Saturday night have been found safe in Grafton in northern NSW.