Good morning! Here are your headlines from around regional Australia and beyond. Scroll down and refresh for weather, road reports and more.
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.
MARGARET RIVER: It doesn’t get much more inspirational than having one of the country’s most well known athletes cheering you on from the sidelines, and that’s exactly what happened to the Margaret River Hawks Basketball Under 12s and Under 14s team.
Champion boxer Danny Green was at the 2017 Basketball Country Championships to join the crowds of supporters keen to see the boys take on their regional rivals.
BUNBURY: A cucumber just shy of one metre long has been successfully grown in a Bunbury front yard.
Local resident Yelka received two cucumber seeds from her friend Ray last spring and decided to give them a go in her garden, where she had recently removed a flowering shrub.
WHEATBELT: Bernie Durkin is currently stopping across the wheatbelt on his solo cycling journey from Perth to Sydney to promote the importance of keeping Australia safe.
WA State Election
MANDURAH: The State Liberal Government has promised to fund a trial of a weekend bus service from Pinjarra to Mandurah if re-elected at the March election.
BUNBURY: Perth computer technician Anthony Shannon is set to contest the seat of Bunbury as a member of the Flux Party and believe’s his party’s new voting idea could radically change politics.
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.
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