Up to 100,000 litres of water is being used each weekday by a regional New South Wales council to keep drivers safe on its gravel roads all 954 kilometres of them.

If you suffer from trypophobia, or an aversion to the sight of clusters of small holes, you might want to take a deep breath before laying your eyes on a Suriname toad.

Oliver Scales-Copeland, who is accused of stabbing two police officers at a service station north of Sydney yesterday, represents himself in court and becomes emotional when his bail application is refused.

A transport company seeking lucrative contracts to run Adelaide's public transport networks has shared fake quotes of former Labor ministers in an apparent bid to assist the South Australian Liberal Government press its case for rail privatisation.

Social media went into meltdown after images emerged of a power pole in the middle of a Newcastle street.

A recent Harvard study found Australia's economy is less complex than Kazakhstan or Uganda, but is the assessment fair? And, if it is, what can be done to diversify the economy away from its mining dependence?

Bush schools which harness outdoor exploration and play are increasing, and teachers say they are improving engagement, reducing anxiety and building resilience.

Port Macquarie resident Kim Dahler was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in her 40s and wants others to know life can still be fulfilling.

An estimated eight million tonnes of plastic rubbish enters the world's oceans each year and an Australian invention called a Seabin is doing something about it.

Early figures from Surf Life Saving Australia show that 53 people drowned on Australian beaches over summer.

Brenda Marney, 73, is charged with animal cruelty offences after a mutilated magpie is found at her home on the NSW mid-north coast police believe she lures animals with food before capturing and torturing them.

The forestry industry believes the Coalition's pledge of planting 1 billion trees by 2030 is unrealistic, unless it removes barriers preventing the sector's growth.

Farmers in the NSW Great Lakes area band together to titillate taste buds.

Three women, inspired by the revelations in The Teacher's Pet podcast, have come forward with allegations of sexual abuse by teachers at a NSW high school.

Australian artworks will feature in a new international art-science exhibition in Venice, which hopes to educate people and raise talk about climate change and deforestation, and possible solutions.

More than 20 Pixie O'Harris artworks are being restored for an exhibition after the final paintings, which had been missing since the 1950s, mysteriously turn up without note or explanation.

MORNING BRIEFING: Former Newcastle Knights star Jarrod Mullen is charged over his alleged role in a cocaine ring in the Hunter region and Australia's country music industry is in shock after singer and producer Glen Hannah dies.

Nicknamed "The Missile", James Magnussen decides to call time on his decorated swimming career, which included world championship gold and Olympic silver.

Stories of struggle, the Stolen Generations, mission communities and the death of a traditional language: how would you vocalise three generations of Indigenous history?

Investors are calling for entrepreneurial skills to be taught in schools to help prepare children for the future 'gig-based' economy.

Bound by tradition but using honey from stingless bees and Australian botanicals proves to be more than just a silver lining for a NSW distiller.

A pharmaceutical giant owned by the Sackler family in the United States is using flaws in regulation to push its latest product deep into regional Australia.

Relatives visiting the gravestones of their family in a NSW town, who found the gravestones razed, thought it was the work of vandals.

A research project is underway to determine the impact of the controversial Lord Howe Island rodent eradication program on a threatened currawong species and wider ecosystem.

Crescent Head is currently experiencing wind gusts of up to 40kph.

A woman whose house burnt down in bushfires affecting the NSW North Coast said that she and her husband now plan on leaving the bush due to the hazard.

Ross Miller has no intention of putting the rod into the rack. Instead, he is building another prawn trawler as a legacy to his son.

Experts say bushfires coupled with decreasing habitat in an urbanised landscape is taking its toll on wildlife and improved land management is crucial.

As the Coronial inquest into William Tyrrell's disappearance had a special sitting in Taree just 40 kilometres from where the toddler was last seen family members have been left frustrated by delays and disappointed by its failure so far to turn up any substantial new leads.

An innovative plan to flood a fireground is being employed on the NSW mid-north coast to extinguish a fire that has been burning for more than six weeks.

The winds are not giving firefighters any breaks as a fire in the Clarence Valley moves in on properties and blazes near Armidale and Tenterfield remain "absolutely enormous", according to the Rural Fire Service.

The number of homes lost to three fires in northern NSW rises to nine as strong winds continue to hamper the efforts of firefighters to bring them under control.

Exchanging garbage for clothes might seem an unusual trade, but that is exactly what happens at the Seaside Scavenge.

A common struggle for Aboriginal elders is how to make their language and culture appeal to young people in order for it to be carried on.

Wazza the koala has left carers astounded after she was collected by a car and endured a 10km trip down a major NSW roadway, only to bolt up a tree afterwards.

MORNING BRIEFING: A woman has been charged with murder after a man was found with multiple stab wounds in a Sydney apartment complex, while easing weather conditions have helped firefighters in Tenterfield gain the upper hand on a bushfire.

750-year-old Indigenous bones, discovered under a house on the New South Wales mid-north coast, are returned to the place where they were found.

The NSW Rural Fire Service downgrades an emergency warning for a fire at Backwater near Armidale, as hot and dry conditions continue to fuel bushfires in the area.

They were Australia's worst bus-crash tragedies and they happened within weeks of each other on the Pacific Highway. Fifty-six people were killed and 63 injured and 30 years on the pain still lingers for many.

Australia's reigning Indigenous Drag Queen says it's tough being Indigenous, gay, and drag but it's important to be true to who you are.

There are reports of property damage in the town of Darawank, north of Forster-Tuncurry on the NSW north coast where a bushfire is burning at emergency level.

Social media vision of three bushfires burning on the NSW north coast. An emergency declaration has been issued by the NSW RFS with homes under threat.

The Port Macquarie koala hospital fears more than 350 koalas may have died in a bushfire south of the town, with staff frustrated they cannot yet access the site.

Student Liam Birrer was supposed to be sitting a HSC exam instead he was fighting a bushfire in his local community.

Bullied outcasts hit the textbooks alongside teen mums bouncing babies while in the next classroom youths facing juvie learn about sex in prison.

The honey industry is facing hard times along with other producers, having taken a battering over recent years from the drought and a string of natural disasters.