EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY will splash $5 million on a new communications and arts hub at its Mount Lawley campus. New facilities, including design, visual art, fashion and animation, will be built over the next two years at a cost of $4m. The complex will include a new art gallery where students can showcase their works…

THE Wireless Institute of Australia performed a historic broadcast at the ANZAC cottage in Mt Hawthorn this week. Using the special event callsign VK100ANZAC, operators contacted Europe to commemorate the 1915 August offensive. “We managed to get a very good signal with an operator in Paris who spoke English,” says Onno Benchop, treasurer of WA…

PERTH Theatre Company has cancelled the next two productions in its 2015 season and is “reviewing operations”. On Wednesday morning customers trying to buy tickets to Of Mice and Men (starring Hollywood’s Jai Courtney) and yourseven were met with a dead link. Shortly afterwards a press release was issued announcing “PTC has been reviewing operations…

BAYSWATER mayor Sylvan Albert was admitted to hospital this week after feeling unwell. Deputy mayor Mike Sabatino says Cr Albert took ill last Saturday, cancelling an appearance at the Avon Descent the following day: “The doctors have told him to rest, but he will be back on council duty this Saturday,” says Cr Sabatino. “They…

POLITICS in wedding photos? Snaps from Perth councillor Reece Harley’s wedding to new wife Rebekah Major over the weekend included in them a subtle dig about a recent disagreement he’d had with lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi. At the last council meeting Ms Scaffidi voted not to spend $50,000 for a giant mural at 456 Hay…

NATIVE title does not exist on Heirisson Island, sinking Aboriginal activists’ claims they were unlawfully evicted. Earlier this year Noongar elder Bella Bropho wrote to Perth city council arguing activists protesting the closure of Aboriginal communities were entitled to camp on the island. She’d based this on a 2007 federal court decision which found Noongars…

MIKE O’HANLON wants the teenager who gave him a black eye to be put to work, not put in a cell. The Perth lord mayoral candidate had been at the Perth cultural centre last weekend with a friend when he was hit. At the time Mr O’Hanlon had been trying to stop his friend from…

THE coat of arms on the Perth general post office is being replaced this week. The building has two coats of arms (one UK, one Australian) and in January the Voice reported vandals had decapitated the unicorn and nearly kicked the lion’s head off the poms’ sigil. After the pieces had been sitting in a…

Mount Lawley Senior High School students collected more than 200kg of food during its Foodbank School Appeal. The collected food will provide more than 270 meals. Foodbank distributes supplies across WA to needy families and the agencies that support them. Pictured are: Ella Monaghan, Modra Addy, Sarah Brook, Neve Kerr, Heather Bland, Zari Calligan. Photo…

HOPE you like your liquor straight, because Whipper Snapper Distillery isn’t allowed to sell it any other way. The burgeoning East Perth distillery makes a whiskey-style drink and one of its flagship products is meant to be a mixin’ liquor, not a sippin’ liquor, intended to be enjoyed with ginger beer, tonic, watermelon juice or…