BALLARAT'S indigenous community say they are deeply hurt by a decision to officially drop Mullawallah as a potential name for Ballarat's newest suburb. MORE HERE.

EMERGENCY SERVICES

- BALLARAT police are searching for two men involved in the theft of a television from a Sebastopol supermarket. MORE HERE.

- BALLARAT drug drivers will not have their cars impounded the first time they test positive for an illicit substance behind the wheel. MORE HERE.

- LINTON residents are fighting to keep their old CFA shed. MORE HERE.

WEATHER

OTHER PLACES

After 18 years, the jewel in the crown of rugby - State of Origin footy - will be back at the G tonight. And it's about time. The game that unites the two northern states will be showcased in the state of league indifference but this time there seems to be a lot more interest.

State of Origin attendance and ratings records are set to be smashed tonight but there was so little interest the last time the concept was played at the MCG that NSW coach Tom Raudonikis was able to ask the only journalist at a training session not to report that he was going to drop hooker Aaron Raper.

It is a sign of how much the game has grown in Melbourne since 1997 - and the impact that taking Origin to other cities in coming years is likely have  - that this year's rival coaches Laurie Daley and Mal Meninga held a press conference at the MCG on Monday attended by dozens of media representatives from NSW, Queensland and Victoria.

Invariably, most of the questions they were asked were about "the biff" and while any player who throws a punch on Wednesday night faces a 10 minute stint in the sinbin, fighting was discreetly encouraged 18 years ago as a way to help promote the game to a southern audience. Read more.

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

► CANBERRA: The senior government bureaucrat overseeing the territory's parks and nature reserves has criticised animal rights campaigners for their response to an official autopsy of a dead kangaroo found in Crace on Monday. Campaigners opposed to the government's shooting of eastern grey kangaroos claimed the dead animal shown in a widely distributed photo with serious head wounds had been killed as part of the controversial cull. Read more.

► DUBBO: The chief magistrate of NSW has questioned whether a country police chief's domestic violence hearing was moved to Sydney so he would not have to face court in his home town. Rodney Don Blackman, 44, has pleaded not guilty to seven counts of assault with court papers showing the alleged domestic violence spanned from 2007 to 2012. A Sydney court has heard Blackman's case was first heard in Dubbo but shifted to Sydney because most witnesses live nearer to the capital and of concerns Dubbo Local Court couldn't accommodate the anticipated 10-day hearing. Read more.

► HELENSBURGH: A green P-plater who took off after hitting a cyclist near Helensburgh, leaving her victim bloodied and suffering multiple fractures on the side of the road, will appeal her jail sentence at a court hearing in July. Talia Jade Van-Rysewyk hit cyclist Brendan Braid as he rode along the Old Princes Highway just before 6.30am on January 5, 2014, flinging the 58-year-old accountant from his bike. She then fled the scene in her damaged Ford Laser and drove to a friend's place, where she attempted to cover up her involvement in the crime. Read more.

► KATHERINE: Katherine has been a thoroughfare for a convoy of V8 Supercar-moving muscle this week in the lead-up to the 2015 Sky City Triple crown in Darwin. The B-doubles carting the teams' equipment and the Holdens, Fords, Nissans and Mercedes Benz themselves began their journey up the Stuart Highway on Monday, with several teams passing through Katherine on June 16 ahead of Thursday's V8 Supercar transporter convoy.

► NOWRA: THE crackdown on illegal drug activity in the Shoalhaven has continued with three more people appearing in Nowra Local Court on a variety of drug charges. It takes the total to 32 who have been charged as part of Strike Force Croci, which netted police more than three kilograms – or 25,000 street buys – of methamphetamine or ice valued at $2 million, three kilograms of cannabis, five firearms and cash.

► PORT MACQUARIE: Police have confirmed two people were lucky to escape injury yesterday afternoon after a light plane overshot the runway at Port Macquarie airport. Police said the plane lost engine power during take off. The pilot was forced off the runway with the plane coming to rest just short of Tuffins Lane sports fields where a touch football tournament was being played. The two occupants of the Beechcraft Bonanza were not injured. Read more.

► TAMWORTH: A Tamworth woman who was left quadriplegic after a horrific trampoline accident has taken miraculous first steps. Kate McDonald, a former Tamworth High student who now lives in Newcastle, has defied the odds and walked again. It was an “impossible dream” for Ms McDonald, who was told by doctors she would have little to no chance of walking again or using her hands after a freak trampoline accident on January 11 this year. 

► WAGGA: POLICE may have smashed an extensive drug ring with 13 arrests and dozens more expected to be made on Wednesday – including a local corrections officer. In an unprecedented operation, 110 police executed 12 search warrants across Wagga, Coolamon and Junee on Tuesday morning that saw 12 males and one female arrested and charged with drug supply, property and other offences. Photos, videos and story here.

► WARNERVALE: Wyong Shire Council supported the rezoning of land for a $500 million Chinese theme park while mayor Doug Eaton’s wife, Ruby, held shares in a company owned by the project’s backers.  With a 5-4 vote in December 2014, councillors  supported the spot rezoning of 15.7 hectares of council land at Warnervale for the Chappypie Australia China Theme Park. The council sought a ‘‘gateway’’  determination from the Planning Department, after a motion from Cr Eaton. Mrs Eaton’s financial interest in Sydney Chinese Daily Pty Ltd, owned by Australia China Theme Park Pty Ltd, did not appear on  council documents or minutes and was not disclosed at the meeting.

► Malcolm Turnbull has declared any new laws aimed at bolstering national security and prosecuting Australia's war on terrorism must not be allowed to erode the rule of law or contravene the separation of powers in the constitution, in comments that suggest simmering cabinet tensions. "We've obviously got to make sure that we protect the national security of Australia, we make a strong stand against this global threat of terrorism, and we also have to do so within the rules  ... which above all of course is the constitution [with] which we all have to comply," he told Sky News. Read more.

► A levy should be applied to alcoholic drinks to fund responses to family violence, according to a call to arms to be launched by Australian of the Year Rosie Batty on Wednesday. The blueprint to prevent alcohol-related family violence, developed by the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education, urges federal, state and territory governments to implement a series of measures to reduce the harm caused by alcohol, which it says is involved in up to 65 per cent of the family violence incidents reported to police.

► The top 20 per cent of Australian households have more than 200 times the savings of the bottom 20 per cent. This division is "stark," but it is a rarely discussed financial inequality, a report claims. The Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre, based at Curtin University in Western Australia, says much attention has been paid to the inequality of income and wealth in Australia, but little to inequality of savings.

► The federal government and the Greens have struck a deal that will see the proposed changes to the pensions asset test passed by Parliament, delivering $2.4 billion in savings over four years. The deal, announced late on Tuesday, came after Opposition Leader Bill Shorten finally revealed earlier in the day that Labor would fight the measures and block them in the Senate. Read more.

►17th June 1991: After 46 years, the racial segregation system known as Apartheid was brought to an end in South Africa. Under Apartheid, despite being the vast majority of the population, black people were deprived of citizenship along with many other basic human rights including political representation and the right to vote. Racial segregation filtered into every conceivable area of everyday life, from what public transport you could use and where you could shop to where you could live and who you could marry. Worldwide condemnation and boycotts built up pressure against the South African government and the offending document, quite harmlessly called the Population Registration Act, was repealed on this day 24 years ago, starting the slow path towards equality in South Africa.

► Photographs of thousands of US dollars handed to six people smugglers, which Indonesian police say is proof of bribery by Australian officials, have been provided to Fairfax Media, "We have given you the evidence," said General Endang Sunjaya, the police chief of Nusa Tenggara Timur province. "It's now up to you and other organisations to demand an answer from the Australian government." Read more.

► It's the 'selfie' that, according to VICE news, proves beyond argument that Russia sent soldiers to fight in Ukraine. VICE's reporter Simon Ostrovsky has stood in the same spot and mimicked the pose of a man who, he says, was a serving Russian soldier standing on the rubble of a destroyed Ukrainian checkpoint. The video report builds on previous research from open-source project Bellingcat, by the Atlantic Council and by other media outlets.

► It was a moment of unintended political irony. At precisely the same time ABC documentary Killing Season tore open the secrets of Julia Gillard's seizing the prime ministership on Australian television, in London she was telling a room full of schoolgirls they could be whatever they wanted to be. As Australia watched the Rudd government fail in its push to take action on climate change, Ms Gillard told the students "we can inspire change" and that life was full of ups and downs but "you pick yourself up and keep going forward". Read more.

After winning a competition through Jamie’s Italian - a chain restaurant owned by celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver - South Australian student Evie Basham had an opportunity to cook with a national chef David Clarke.

David Clarke, the executive chef for Jamie’s Italian restaurants, cooked with the Investigator College year four student and her class yesterday.

In a search for the next version of the celebrity chef, the restaurant ran a competition where children recorded a video preparing a spaghetti or pasta recipe and uploaded it to YouTube. Five videos were shortlisted and the public voted by ‘liking’ their favourite video on Facebook.

Evie’s video was one of them, which received the most amount of likes. Her recipe was a spaghetti bolognese - her favourite dish - with meat, tomato paste, onion, capsicum, celery, milk and Vegemite. Read more.