Police are hunting burglars who broke into a Webster Street home in broad daylight last week and stole a highly-expensive gold bullion. Read more.

A man who threatened to kill police before running amok in central Ballarat and throwing a chair through a busy shop has been released on a CCO. Read more.

Lobby group Commerce Ballarat has thrown its weight behind City of Ballarat's controversial plan to change parking rules to cope with burgeoning population levels. Read more.

The state government has remained tight-lipped on plans for a public primary school in Ballarat’s rapidly growing western suburbs. Read more.

Two young kittens were miraculously saved from a house fire in Sebastopol on Tuesday afternoon which destroyed a shed and left a man with minor injuries. Read more.

Mostly sunny and a top of 19 degrees today.

► BALLARAT: A disability pensioner slugged with a Centrelink debt three weeks out from major surgery said she prays every day that the robo-debt system “gets its comeuppance”. 

Scarsdale’s Lee-Anne Thomas received a debt notice for just under $700 late last November for an overpayment allegedly made by the department in 2010. She said she asked the welfare agency to hold off the debt until she after her surgery when she could investigate the claim but her request was refused. Read on

►WOLLONGONG: Thieves have devastated an Albion Park Rail tobacconist for the third time in six weeks, this time using a ute to bust open the shop in a spectacular pre-dawn raid. 

The raids, on a Cignall shop off Ash Avenue, have cost the business almost $40,000 in lost stock, property damage and stolen cash. Read more

►CANBERRA: Graduating university represents the culmination of years of hard work for most, but for Canberra man and paraplegic Paul Jenkins it marked something much more.

Mr Jenkins has spent the past six months training in an exoskeleton device and on Tuesday realised his dream of walking on stage at Parliament House and accepting his two bachelor degrees from the University of Canberra. Read more

►WAGGA: Two stricken teens may find a new home in Wagga as their aunt vows to keep a family promise. 

Shanon Heidemann, 17, has lived a nightmare following the death of his father, who was swept away in the Queensland floods, west of Gympie. 

As Shanon helped emergency services search the floodwaters for 50-year-old David Heidemann, he was told his mother and brother had died in a fatal collision on the Princes Highway at Berry. Read on

►PORT AUGUSTA: Reach Solar energy reached financial close on the first phase of the 300 Megawatt Bungala Solar project near Port Augusta. And at the same time, entered sale agreements with Enel Green Power (EGP) and the Dutch Infrastructure Fund. Read more

►MANDURAH: Regional development minister Alannah MacTiernan has given the strongest indication yet that she will overhaul the Royalties for Regions program to give it a stronger focus on job creation.

The program, which was first proposed by former Nationals WA leader Brendon Grylls, has invested more than $6 billion in the regions since 2008.

Ms MacTiernan said the incoming Labor government would redirect Royalties for Regions funding to infrastructure that created jobs, such as renewable energy projects. Read on

What does it look like in your neck of the woods today?

►The Turnbull government's budget razor gang is set to consider changes to the $10 billion Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme designed to bring down the price of medicines and kill off a potentially damaging fight with pharmacists. Read on

►Australia has failed to comply with its international obligation to crack down on family trusts, despite concerns they could be misused for tax evasion, money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Read on

►Federal funding has been stripped from two of Australia's largest private colleges after they raked in more than $440 million from taxpayers in just three years. Read more

►After a successful 2017, Party in the Paddock will return to White Hills, Tasmania from February 9 to 10, 2018.  Organisers announced the event had been confirmed for another year, with grand plans for the Paddock’s sixth edition. 

►The team bus of German football team Borussia Dortmund was damaged and a player was injured following three explosions near the vehicle on its way to Tuesday's Champions League game at home to AS Monaco, police said.

The match, a quarter-final first leg at Signal Iduna Park, was called off and rescheduled for Wednesday. Read on

►United Continental Holdings Inc. shares have fallen as outrage on social media over a passenger's forcible removal from a flight spread across the globe, including to China, where local media questioned whether racism played a role in the incident. Read on

►JAKARTA: A court hearing the blasphemy trial of Jakarta's Christian governor has been accused of succumbing to political interference after it agreed to delay proceedings until one day after the gubernatorial election.

Jakarta's police chief wrote to the North Jakarta District Court last week requesting the trial be postponed "considering the increasing vulnerability of the security situation in Jakarta". Read on

2014 Researchers announce a new orally-administered drug that may cure Hepatitis C; 90 percent of patients in trials were declared free of the virus after 12 weeks.

2012 U.S. company Google, Inc., announces its 2012 first quarter earnings rose by more than 24%, and net profits increased to $8.14 billion.

1992 Lynn Gunther of California threatens to blow herself up in front of U.N.

1961 Douglas MacArthur declines offer to become baseball commissioner.

1961 Yuri Gagarin becomes 1st person to orbit Earth in Vostok 1.

1919 British Parliament passes a 48-hour work week with minimum wages.

1911 First non-stop London-Paris flight (Pierre Prier in 3h56m).

Two of the Riverina’s longest-serving linesmen are preparing to be trained on the National Broadband Network, the latest in a long line of innovations since their careers started.

A lot has changed since Tony Fisher and Peter Norton went to work for the Postmaster-General’s Department more than 40 years ago.  Read on