Fewer than half of Northern NSW emergency patients needing admission or transfer met a six-hour hospital access target in 2025–26, according to a health district review released yesterday.

There’s something special about biting into a perfectly ripe peach or nectarine, with juice running down your chin and the taste of summer in every mouthful. Stone fruit season is now underway, and local grower Rajesh Kumar is bringing a beautiful selection of fresh fruit to the farmers’ markets.

Hundreds of handmade jewellery pieces have been stolen from a Bangalow artists’ collective, leaving some members without any work to sell ahead of the crucial Christmas trading period.

The planned village centre at Kinvara, west of Lennox Head, would move to flatter land and allow taller shop-top housing under planning changes now open for public comment.

The arts are an essential industry. We need artists as much as we need accountants. We need dancers as much as we need doctors. We need comedians as much as we need civil engineers. We need filmmakers as much as we need financial planners. We need musicians as much as we need ministers.