Police are investigating the armed hold-up of a Lydiard Street North convenience store on Sunday afternoon. Read more.

Isabella Mary-Claire Huby was “the dream child”. Read more.

The Melbourne Writers Festival returned to Ballarat on Saturday with a line-up of writers, journalists, poets and activists discussing how change affects culture, and why we need to embrace it. Read more.

Federation University has again been ranked number one for teaching quality in the 2017 Good Universities Guide. Read more.

Is this screamer from North Ballarat City’s Matt Johnston a mark of the year contender? See the photos here.

You've read that correctly - a top of 15 degrees today!

Need a national news snapshot first thing? Well, we have you covered. 

► WOLLAR, NSW: Wollar resident Bev Smiles describes herself as a woman who lives in the middle of an open cut coal mine. Surrounded by the giant Wilpinjong, Ulan and Moolarben mines, in an area between Denman and Mudgee, Ms Smiles is one of the last remaining residents in a village eaten up by coal. On a heritage train trip between Maitland and Gulgong on Sunday, she spoke about the death of Wollar caused by expansion of Wilpinjong mine to provide coal for Bayswater power station at Muswellbrook. Read more.

► WODONGA, VIC: Bush cabbies are being punished for the shortcomings of their city counterparts, Wodonga’s taxi chief believes. The Victorian Government moved last week to buyback taxi licences as part of legalising ride-sharing services. The action has angered cabbies who say their licences have been devalued and they stand to lose millions through the change in system. Read more.

► TASMANIA: A new report has detailed the economic and social benefits of raising the age Tasmanians leave foster care from 18 to 21. Half of all state care leavers will be unemployed, in jail, homeless or a new parent within a year of leaving the system. Anglicare Victoria has released research to back its push for people in state care to voluntarily stay in the system until their 21st birthday. Read more.

► WAGGA, NSW: A writer challenging the ‘official’ history of Indigenous land management shared his work in Wagga on Saturday. Bruce Pascoe, an award-winning author and great-grandson of an Aboriginal woman, helped start the Gurandgi Munjie project, aimed at recovering the continent’s traditional plants and agriculture. Speaking to a group of agriculture students, Mr Pascoe said he had found references in diaries by early Australian explorers of vast cultivated fields of yams and grains across the continent, which were soon destroyed by settlers’ sheep and cattle. In stark contrast to the history taught in schools, the author believes there was a great network of nations growing crops and managing animals on the continent for many thousands of years. Read more.

► LODDON, VIC: Climate change was real to Loddon mixed farmers the Hooke family, who run three properties Willera, Serpentine Park and Sangus Creek. The operation, cropping, wool and prime lambs – on the Loddon River floodplain north of Bendigo - was run by brothers Karl and Will Hooke, with assistance from their father Robert. “The general consensus now is to look 100km north at their average rainfall, and that is what we have to consider as our average rainfall, for the next 15-20 years,” Will Hooke said. Read more.

► MANDURAH, WA: Stark new figures have emerged showing Mandurah has the second highest unemployment rate in the nation - with a further seven areas across the state with jobless rates above the national average. Overall, Australia's unemployment rate fell to 5.72 per cent in July, continuing a downward trend seen since the beginning of 2015 and standing at its lowest level since September 2013. Read more.

► TASMANIA: A recently announced sponsorship deal between AAT Kings and the Save the Tasmanian Devil Appeal will help the continuing research into the deadly devil facial tumor disease, ahead of vaccine trial release this week. Read more.

► MOREE PLAINS, NSW: Moree Plains Shire Council has approved a $6m solar farm near Boggabilla, but it will need approval from the Northern Joint Regional Planning Panel before it goes ahead. The 4-hectare proposal is located along Kentucky Ln, near the Macintyre River, and opposite Goondiwindi. Once fully operational, the solar farm will produce 3.6 megawatts of power. Read more.

► It's a long way from the depths of a Canberra winter to the iron harvest of Flanders' fields but that's the journey that will be on Merrin Boyer's mind when she speaks at the national launch of Legacy Week at the Australian War Memorial on Monday. The 24-year-old Canberra Institute of Technology student from Coombs lost her father, Brigadier Rohan Boyer, in 2010. Legacy came to the party in the wake of his death, assisting Ms Boyer and her younger brother, Matthew, with practical and emotional support. Read more.

► A Roxburgh Park man involved in a car crash north of Melbourne on Sunday was found bleeding from gunshot wounds sustained prior to the collision. Two sedans collided at the corner of Cooper Street and Edgars Road in Epping just before midday on Sunday, police said. Read more.

► They are 18 years old and have been running their cupcake business for almost three years. Brisbane twins Samantha and Kaitlin Stanton took the entrepreneurial plunge while in year 11 in December 2013 along with another student friend and started Miss Mixed Cupcakes. The Stanton twins are among a number of students at St Paul's School in Brisbane who have become entrepreneurs while still at school. Read more.

National weather radar

International news

► Singapore: Singapore health authorities have warned the Zika virus, which has been linked to a rare birth defect, is spreading in the affluent city-state. Read more.

► United States: Newly declassified United States foreign intelligence documents from the late 1960s and 1970s have stopped short of issuing fully uncensored briefings about the Whitlam dismissal and Indonesian invasion of East Timor. The daily briefings from the Central Intelligence Agency to presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford provide a summary of national security threats and opportunities from 1969 through to early 1977. Read more.

On this day

August 29, 1898: Got Goodyear tyres? The company was founded on this day 118 years ago. While these days the brand might be best known for its car tyres - and the Goodyear Blimp! - the company originally manufactured bicycle and carriage tyres, rubber horseshoe pads, and poker chips. Goodyear started with 13 employees and now has about 67,000. See one of the company’s blimps take flight in 2014:

On August 29, 1916 Jim Whitbourne entered the world at the small country town of Kyabram in the Goulburn Valley.

One hundred years later, and in a very different world to the one he took his first breath, Jim reflects on a good life filled with laughter and love.

Port Macquarie’s newest centenarian will be joined by family and friends to celebrate this momentous life event and acknowledge all that Jim has brought to their own lives over the years.

Jim was the first of two children for Jessie and Arthur Whitbourne. His brother Ernest was killed in March 1940 as an airforceman serving in England. Read more.