Police and court
An unlicensed driver will be sentenced next month after admitting to drinking a “litre of rum” and smoking ice before leading police on a pursuit.
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School
Politics
Tamworth was right in the middle of international affairs on Monday as US Consul General Valerie Fowler put her boots on Peel St.
The plea has gone out for drivers in regional NSW to refresh their knowledge of the NSW road rules with new figures showing two-thirds or 253 of the 384 lives lost on NSW roads last year were on country roads.
No council, no voice and no identity – that’s what 150 angry Guyra residents rallied against on Sunday.
Health
Former Gunnedah resident Wayne Irwin is doing his bit to raise money for cancer research by organising a charity ride in the area in November.
The Tamworth and District Prostate Support Group is in desperate need of a new president to run the organisation that does so much for local men facing the fight of a lifetime.
Tamworth council is set to consider spending $165,000 to install a filter at the Bendemeer bore recently found to be contaminated by raised level of uranium.
Agriculture and Mining
New England is in the midst of a mining boom, with the industry injecting $310m into the local economy in the last financial year.
The extreme heat of summer has negatively impacted sorghum crops in the Gunnedah area with a lower yield expected as harvesting gets under way.
Sport
Stretching their muscles and their brains, Inverell locals are in training for the biggest obstacle course of the year, with the Toughen Up Challenge set to kick off next week.
Riders from Warwick and Millmerran are the favourites in the Saddle Bronc ride at the Millmerran Show Rodeo on Saturday.
A Moree teenager will head to America on March 18 for an equestrian educational study tour.
Regional
BATHURST: A woman has been taken to hospital in a critical condition after she was trapped in her car in the NSW Central West for more than 11 hours.
BENDIGO: An amateur BMX rider blackmailed children to perform sexual acts online, threatening to take his own life and to publish sexual photos so their families would see them.
OBERON: Less than a metre tall and having just turned three, Timothy went to live with his mother and stepfather in central western NSW. Relatives say he was happy and healthy, rough-housing with his cousins outside, playing video games and chatting on the telephone.
But on August 6, 2014 – just seven weeks after his mother and stepfather brought him to their Oberon home – he was dead.
NEWCASTLE: The city looks set to get its own wholesale flower market, allowing the region’s florists to source blooms from local growers rather than travel to Sydney.
WA: A school teacher who indecently recorded dozens of children has pleaded guilty to more than 60 offences. The male teacher, who was sacked upon being charged, faced the WA District Court on Thursday and entered guilty pleas to 62 charges, including 57 counts of indecently recording a child.
NT: Work has begun to fix a vital NT bridge which was badly damaged by Tropical Cyclone Alfred last week.
National news
CANBERRA: Senator Cory Bernardi says Tony Abbott should defect and join his new conservative party after the former prime minister was castigated by members of his own party for publicly urging the government to adopt a more right-wing agenda.
CANBERRA: The Australian Border Force has been warned over illegal body searches of passengers at international airports in a report that found immigration officers routinely lacked adequate guidance about their powers.
Photo special
The biggest swap meet in the Southern Hemisphere is a magnet for collectors and automotive lovers from across the country. Photographer Luka Kauzlaric was there, too.
National weather radar
International news
HOLLYWOOD: It was the year the Academy Awards ended in chaos. And then there was the ‘other’ Oscars stuff-up. Minor compared to getting the winner of best picture wrong, but another unhappy error.
JAKARTA: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will visit Indonesia next week, in a surprise move that underscores the success of Indonesian President Joko Widodo's weekend trip to Australia and the close personal relationship between the two leaders.
WASHINGTON: Key Republicans, including Trump allies, are talking up the gravity of the US President's Russia crisis amidst signs of heightened paranoia at the White House.
Face of Australia: Jerry Grayson
Former helicopter pilot Jerry Grayson has done things most people only dream about.
By the time he was 25, he was the most decorated peacetime naval pilot in history. He flew over the burning oilfields of Kuwait with German film director Werner Herzog. He helped film the Olympic Games, an IMAX movie, the James Bond movie A View To A Kill, Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down, and a Rolling Stones concert. Read on