New legal advice suggests Australia's water suppliers may have no legal basis to add fluoride.

MORNING BRIEFING: Police investigate what is believed to be a human bone discovered by passers-by at a Port Macquarie beach, while a Sydney northern beach road is closed after a pedestrian was killed by a car overnight.

A failure to look upward when parking by the river at a favourite roost for local pelicans has left a Port Macquarie man red-faced and his car disgraced.

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

A NSW Mid North Council apologies for the grief it caused the community for knocking over headstones.

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

Emergency services are keeping a close watch on large blazes at Middle Creek Road, Kangaroo Creek north of Coffs Harbour, and at Verges Creek north of Crescent Head in northern NSW, after residents were warned to seek shelter.

Submissions to a NSW inquiry into koala protection call for design guidelines to protect the marsupial's habitat, which is under threat from housing developments.

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.

Whitegoods repairman Bill Spedding tells an inquest into the disappearance of William Tyrrell he was having coffee with his wife on the day the toddler vanished, before revealing the "devastating impact" of the police investigation on his life.

A 3.5-metre leopard seal has come ashore in northern NSW as authorities warn eager onlookers to keep their distance from the potentially deadly marine mammal.

In today's busy and technology-driven world, children are increasingly suffering from anxiety, and there's often little time to reflect, or play outside. Two NSW women are hoping to change that.

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.

Emergency crews gain the upper hand in fighting 85 fires across NSW but two blazes near Forster-Tuncurry escalate again.

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

The whitegoods repairman who became the chief suspect in one of Australia's biggest child abduction mysteries reveals for the first time how the ordeal "shattered" his life.

More than 40 sawfish die in the Fitzroy River catchment, known to be the world's last stronghold for the species.

Stories of families not being told when elderly relatives have died, old people found surrounded by food scraps and with maggots these are reasons why some people regard aged care in the regions a "death sentence".

There are calls for clearer emergency information after residents fled their homes during the Kimberley earthquake.

Katrina Francis and Alphonse Balacky are living proof that people can change. After suffering shocking abuse from Alphonse, Katrina now works with her partner to help men in Broome break the cycle of domestic violence.

Government marketers are spending an increasing amount of money on bringing so-called influencers to Australia, but is it money well spent?

Survivor is a word thrown around fairly lightly, but in the case of German migrant Frauke Bolten-Boshammer, you can't help but feel she's earned the title 10 times over.

One of the Top End's only female bull riders has taken on the US rodeo circuit despite suffering a serious shoulder injury just days from leaving.

They collect vital climate information, but weather balloons are also a daily contributor to plastic pollution levels it's a dilemma the Bureau of Meteorology is struggling to solve.

Vance Mazur will serve at least 15 years behind bars for fatally stabbing a 35-year-old Broome man outside a bottle shop in 2017 while suffering from violent delusions.

A day after Jody Gore was released from her murder sentence in an act of mercy by the WA Government, she says she hopes her case brings the "silent epidemic" of domestic violence into the open.

A husband and wife team one a butcher, the other a wildlife carer is doing wonders for injured and orphaned wildlife in WA's remote Kimberley region.

The weather serves as both a great unifier and obsession for most Australians and now the Bureau of Meteorology is about to bring in the next generation of online forecasting technology.

The Western Australia State Government will now supply water to affected farms where, in some cases, record-low rainfall has persisted, and damaging floods in early 2017 were the last significant rainfall event.

Catching a glimpse of snow at the top of Bluff Knoll is a highly sought after WA bucket-list item, but this history of snowfall in WA spans Geraldton to Southern Cross.

A Federal Government investigation has found no evidence a whistleblower onboard the livestock carrier Awassi Express fabricated conditions on the boat by switching off fans and ventilation.

As whales cruise past Australia's coastlines on their annual migration, here are some tips on identifying which species is which.

A seven-year-old Perth girl who picked up her toddler sister and held her aloft to save her from an attacking rottweiler dog is among a group of West Australians to be honoured with bravery awards.

A sea snake has washed up on a beach near Esperance on WA's southern coast, marking the region's first verified record of the typically tropical creature.

The "extinction pit" is the name used by scientists for a place no animal wants to go, and just five years ago the numbat Western Australia's animal emblem found itself on the edge thanks to the rise of a new predator.

A tax imposed on West Australian ratepayers 16 years ago to support the state's emergency services has raised more than $3 billion, but just $256 million of that has gone to bush fire brigades, and they say this is forcing them to rattle the tin for some essential equipment.

Australia's $1.4-billion plantation woodchip industry is dragged into the US-China trade war, with a number of shipments to the Asian economic powerhouse cancelled in the fallout from the dispute.

Growers question the process behind Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) announcing that a controversial ex-chairman is among the preferred candidates to fill board vacancies.

A severe weather warning for Tasmania's east coast is cancelled but heavy rain continues to fall in the region, with snow in the highlands.