Tim Clarke was three hours from laying the last bricks on a Watersun home at Golden Point when he was told to abandon the site. Read more.

The mother of a Ballarat woman who died after severe vomiting and a fever wonders if she would still be alive if paramedics had taken her to hospital. Read more.

Renovations of the burnt out Alexandria building which previously housed JD’s Sports Bar are expected to be completed within the next fortnight, with the property due to appear on the market soon after. Read more.

St Patrick’s College has proved it is the best rowing school in Ballarat in 2017 by once again winning the Head of the Lake – only this time it counted. Read more.

Three offenders who stabbed a man up to five times during a fight in Black Hill overnight remain on the run. Read more.

A sunny top of 30 degrees today.

Need a national news snapshot first thing – well, we have you covered. 

► OBERON, NSW: A body has been found following a house fire at Oberon on Wednesday morning. Emergency services were called to Eaton Lane, and found the home well alight. Firefighters extinguished the blaze; however, the home was destroyed. About 3pm, a body was discovered inside the home.

► BALLARAT, VIC: Tim Clarke was three hours from laying the last bricks on a Watersun home at Golden Point when he was told to abandon the site. The Magpie Street home is one of 300 projects around the state left unfinished after Watersun Homes went into voluntary administration on Tuesday. Mr Clarke has lost about $20,000 after he was pushed to pull the pin just hours before completing a two-storey home.

► TASMANIA: The prolonged nature of the debate around potential changes to hate speech laws is “dangerous”, Heather Sculthorpe says. The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre chief executive said the ongoing discussion as to whether or not Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act should be amended was causing distress in indigenous communities.

► HUNTER, NSW: Senator Derryn Hinch says his fight for justice for women victims of “one of the biggest medical scandals in history” – many living in the Hunter – will probably end up being “the most important thing I do here”. The former journalist once known as the “human headline”, who won bipartisan support for a Senate inquiry into how pelvic mesh devices were sold in Australia, said he had clear goals for what he wanted to achieve when he stood for politics: “Hoping to rewrite or scrap some old laws and bring in some new ones”.

► NORTH-WEST TAS: “Extremely arrogant”, “divisive” and an “overreaction” are just some of the words used by the mayors of the North-West to describe the state government’s handling of the issue of water and sewerage services.

► NARRABRI, NSW: The Narrabri Gas Project may bring less jobs to the town then previously expected, with only 10 per cent of its 1050-strong construction workforce slated to be locals. Less than half of the 200-ongoing workforce will be locals, with roughly 45 per cent coming from Narrabri or within an hour’s drive of the project.

► WAGGA, NSW: A Wagga partygoer who was knocked unconscious and had his nose fractured during Sunday morning’s kebab shop skirmish claims the alleged assault was racially motivated. Raymond I’u, 26, was leaving Beer Deluxe when he received a call from his wife, who said she had been vilified by three young men inside Anatolia Kebabs. Mr I’u rushed to the store and the chaos then unfolded.

► Australia's top economic bureaucrat has begged the government not to spend the coming windfall from soaring coal and iron ore prices, saying if it did it would repeat the mistakes of prime minister John Howard and treasurer Peter Costello in the early 2000s.

► An employment lifeline could give permanent work to about 150 Hazelwood workers facing retrenchment. Power generator AGL and unions have given in-principle agreement to a landmark scheme that would see some Hazelwood workers transfer to AGL's Loy Yang facilities after their jobs at Hazelwood are lost.

► Is this the worst ad ever? The federal Department of Finance is spending nearly $40,000 on a marketing campaign to attract new recruits - but its video advertisement been slammed as cringe-worthy, atrocious and one of the worst examples of the genre ever seen in Australia.

► The federal government is set to pull funding from a program that has recovered millions of dollars in welfare payments rorted by organised criminals. Labor is outraged that the "robo-debt" program against ordinary Centrelink clients is set to carry on and expand despite the controversy surrounding the policy, while Centrelink's successful partnership with the federal anti-money laundering agency Austrac is set to end in two years when its funding runs out.

► British DJ David Taylor has apologised to the "beautiful country of Bali" over his role in the death of a police officer and said: "It fills me with the deepest sadness I have ever felt to be a part of the loss of a human life". Prosecutors have requested that Mr Taylor and his girlfriend, Byron Bay woman Sara Connor be jailed for eight years for the alleged fatal group assault of Wayan Sudarsa.

.► Myanmar's government has dismissed a devastating United Nations report citing evidence of atrocities against Rohingyas, describing them as "reckless". In a rare news conference, the country's military defended its actions in the violence-torn Rakhine State, saying the actions were necessary to counter insurgency operations and defend the country.

► Two women accused of smearing deadly VX nerve agent on Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un, have been charged with murder amid high security in a Kuala Lumpur court.

1855: Alexander II becomes Tsar of Russia

1882: Queen Victoria narrowly escapes an assassination attempt by Roderick McLean in Windsor

1933: The film King Kong opens at New York's Radio City Music Hall

1961: John F. Kennedy announces the creation of the Peace Corps in a nationally televised broadcast

1983: Compact discs and players are released for the first time in the United States and other markets. They had previously been available only in Japan

“Strength and fortitude” were two words used to describe Dorothy Walker by her daughter Shelley McCready, at Mrs Walker’s 102nd birthday on Tuesday.

At a birthday party held at Presbyterian Care in Norwood, Mrs Walker was spoken of with great fondness by Mrs McCready, and son, Wayne McGee.

Mrs McCready said her mother was always fond of practical jokes and loved gardening.

“She’s the only one of her ten siblings still alive,” Mrs McCready said.

“She survived the two World Wars … an amazing lady.” Read more.