Long overdue rehabilitation beds should make a big impact in tackling the city’s drug and alcohol scourge, according to frontline workers. Read more.

Police have confirmed a woman has died after crashing into trees on Bendigo-Maryborough Road in Havelock, near Maryborough. Read more.

Genetic testing did not give Christine Christie the answers she had hoped but it saved her life. Read more.

Ballarat cancer scientists have bagged a whopping $1 million to find a cure in one of the biggest private donations in our city’s history. Read more.

A transport industry peak body is calling for the establishment of a “ring road” through central Victoria, connecting the Western and Hume freeways. Read more.

A fairly pleasant day today - sunny and a top of 14 degrees.

►COODANUP:  A Coodanup mum said she was “disgusted” after a “psychopath” jumped her back fence, sniffed the underwear hanging from her clothesline, helped himself to a pack of cigarettes and left. Read more. 

►VIC: A transport industry peak body is calling for the establishment of a “ring road” through central Victoria, connecting the Western and Hume freeways. Read more.

►HAVELOCK: A woman has died following a car crash in Havelock on Monday afternoon. Police said her vehicle was travelling along Bendigo-Maryborough Road before it lost control and veered onto the opposite side of the road, smashing into trees about 2pm. Read more.

►WHYALLA: Investigations are continuing into the unexplained death of a woman whose body was found at a Whyalla Stuart home. Read more.

►WODONGA: The thieves who stole Brad Ley’s Holden saw the booster in the back seat, but they torched his car anyway – along with university textbooks, toys and important paperwork. Read more.

► HAY: Police have allegedly unearthed a monster haul of marijuana during a routine RBT stop in Hay. Read more.

► ORANGE: The husband of a woman killed in a fatal car crash on the Mitchell Highway last year says the three-year jail sentence for the driver was not long enough but he wasn’t surprised by its leniency. Read more.

►ARMIDALE: An ex-priest accused of molesting young boys in the New England has been granted bail amid reports detectives have received another complaint. Read more.

►VIC: Collingwood Football Club legend Lou Richards has died at the age of 94. Richards passed away peacefully on Monday in his nursing home. Read more.. Read more.

►Federal politicians using travel perks to bring their children to Canberra will lose access to business class fares from July, while former MPs will have fewer free flights to the capital after they leave Parliament. Read more.

►It's the political move that stunned even the closest Canberra-watchers. On the eve of the federal budget, former ALP leader Mark Latham has announced he is joining the Liberal Democratic Party, headed by David Leyonhjelm. Read more.

►Two women have been charged after border force officers seized nine kilograms of methamphetamine at Perth Airport over the weekend. Read more.

►BALI: The body of a 63-year-old Australian man has been found in Bali.Police are treating the death as suspicious and investigating all possibilities, including murder. Read more.

►PHILIPPINES: The Turnbull government has denounced Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs that left has thousands dead, declaring Canberra is "deeply concerned" about reports of extrajudicial killings. Read more.

► CAMBODIA: They are Cambodia's stolen generation. More than 35,000 children and young people are living in the country's orphanages and other institutions, including some run and financed by Australians, according to a new study. Read more.

1386 – England and Portugal formally ratify their alliance with the signing of the Treaty of Windsor, making it the oldest diplomatic alliance in the world which is still in force.

1901 – Australia opens its first parliament in Melbourne.

1904 – The steam locomotive City of Truro becomes the first steam engine in Europe to exceed 100 mph (160 km/h).

1960 – The Food and Drug Administration announces it will approve birth control as an additional indication for Searle's Enovid, making Enovid the world's first approved oral contraceptive pill.

1970 – Vietnam War: In Washington, D.C., 75,000 to 100,000 war protesters demonstrate in front of the White House.

1974 – Watergate scandal: The United States House Committee on the Judiciary opens formal and public impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon.

1980 – In Norco, California, five masked gunmen held up a Security Pacific bank, leading to a violent shoot-out and one of the largest pursuits in California history. Two of the gunmen and one police officer were killed and 33 police and civilian vehicles were destroyed in the chase.

2001 – In Ghana, 129 football fans die in what the Accra Sports Stadium disaster. The deaths were caused by a stampede (caused by the firing of teargas by police personnel at the stadium) that followed a controversial decision by the referee.

She’s a Tamworth Country Music Festival favourite whose powerful voice is known for turning heads; but even Lyn Bowtell was surprised when she turned the chairs of the four judges on The Voice on Sunday night. Read more.