Bernie Jurcan was a true individual with a heart of gold and the rare ability to walk into a room and light it up. Read more.

Ballarat Base Hospital has topped its birth record for the last 12 months this January with 75 babies born to date and another 61 expected before the month is out. Read more.

The CFA has issued a stern warning to the public to follow its “Can I, Can’t I” rules when operating vehicles in dry grass during the fire danger period. Read more.

A 19-year-old suspended learner driver who sped off on police at 145km/h, narrowly missing a man who was whipper-snipping on the side of the road has been jailed. Read more.

Parking in central Ballarat will be further squeezed through the railway precinct redevelopment. Read more.

It's going to be mostly sunny but we could get a bit of rain tonight.

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

►GOULBURN, NSW: Tales of devastating losses have been shared at The Loaded Dog pub after fires sweep through the region.  Employee Vicki Bowes said she heard of one landowner who had lost 200 head of sheep at Lower Boro: “He lost stock in the fire before Christmas. He had just replaced those and now he’s lost more in this fire.”...read the full story. 

►MELBOUNRE, VIC: Rainbow Serpent Music and Arts Festival organisers are calling for a fresh approach to recreational drugs laws after a horror weekend in Melbourne resulted in three deaths…full story here.

►SYDNEY, NSW: 40 years on the memories of the Granville train disaster are still raw for rescuers like Gerry Buchtmann who pulled both the living and the dead from beneath a road bridge that had collapsed onto two commuter train carriages in the nation’s worst rail disaster.

► WAGGA WAGGA, NSW: If it’s so hot outside you wouldn’t walk your dog, why would you race a horse? animal activists ask.  This comes after a full cart of races went ahead on Tuesday in temperatures above 40 degrees...catch up on the full story. 

►Properties have been damaged and other homes remained under threat as bushfires raged into the evening across the Hunter Valley and near the ACT...catch up on the latest here.

►A toddler has been taken to hospital in a serious condition after he was pulled unconscious from a backyard swimming pool in Sydney's west.  The boy is the latest victim in a string of water-related incidents this summer...full story here.

► 2016 has been declared the hottest year on record.  The World Meteorological Organisation said temperatures in 2016 were about 1.1 degrees higher than the pre-industrial period...That beat the 2015 record by 0.07 degrees.

► Now will Julian Assange be extradited to the US to face charges? Last week, the WikiLeaks Twitter account, widely believed to be run by Julian Assange, tweeted: "If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to US extradition.”  But he has in the past promised much more than he delivered.

►INDONESIA: Permadi Arya became famous – or infamous, depending on how you look at it – for his satirical YouTube videos lampooning extremism.  One of them, You are Shiite, sends up those who preach that only Sunni Muslims will be guaranteed a plot of land in heaven.  But not everyone was amused.

With two generations of leather tanning in her blood and a love of nature, taxidermy was a natural progression for Hillston local Cassandra Hall.

Her grandfather was a drover and the source of Cas’ skills in leather working.

Not scared to get her hands dirty as a child, Cassandra would go out hunting with him and help mount his prized catches.

Full story and photos here.