9am: That's all we've got time for here day. We hope you have really enjoyed the Morning Grill. Enjoy your last day/s of holidays to all the school students out there!
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DUBBO | NARROMINE | WELLLINGTON | THE RIDGE | NYNGAN | WESTERN MAGAZINE
8.49: Checking out entertainment news for today
BOOKS: Jason Steger picks his top 10 Australian novels. Check out his favourites here.
CELEBRITY: Nicole Kidman looks set to prove her critics wrong, with her performance in the new Aussie thriller Strangerland drawing a rapturous reception from audiences at the Sundance film festival in Utah.
8.39: Is it your birthday today? If so HAPPY BIRTHDAY! We hope you have a fantastic day.
You share your birthday with Gone Girl star Rosamund Pike who turns 35.
8.31: Are you participating in the #MyDubbo challenge? You can check out some of the incredible photos in the competition and how to enter right here
This is one of my favourites from #myfridaynight (this may have something to do with my love of malteasers.)
Want to participate? Today's theme is Australian Made.
You can submit your photos using the hashtag #MyDubbo and tagging @dailyliberal on Instagram or Twitter, you can upload your photos to our facebook page, or you can email them to lpinkerton@fairfaxmedia.com.au.
8.24: Here's today's front pages from around the region. Check out all the Fairfax front pages here.
8.12: Taking a look at local sport
CRICKET: It was billed as the match of the season and it certainly did not disappoint as RSL-Colts defeated Newtown by one wicket in a heart-stopping top-of-the-table clash on Saturday. It was a low-scoring thriller, due largely in part to the damp No. 3 Oval pitch, with Newtown making 9-100 from their 40 overs before Colts reached the target with just one wicket in hand.
CRICKET: Rugby's season was on the line on Saturday, according to Jordan Moran, making their thrilling nine-run win over Macquarie all the more satisfying. The defending premiers had not won in the Whitney Cup since November and had slipped outside the top three but the win over the Blues at No. 1 Oval has them right in the hunt for a finals spot again.
CRICKET: South Dubbo captain Tim Berry has lamented the fact his side can not regularly field the same team after the Hornets got their hunt for the finals back on track with a five-wicket win over CYMS on Saturday. The Hornets have been the Whitney Cup's most inconsistent side this season, with impressive wins followed by disappointing losses and Berry admitted he would love to be able to have the same 12 players each week as he pushes for what he admits is an unlikely finals spot.
8.04: Getting stuck in things is one of the hardest aspects of being a kid. Check out these youngsters who found themselves in a sticky situation and their parents of course grab the video camera...
7.59: Taking a look at Australia Day from around the region
DUBBO mayor Mathew Dickerson summed up the Victoria Park Australia Day celebrations perfectly, saying "it's the one day of the year when it's OK to pat ourselves on the back". Cr Dickerson said the morning's proceedings could not have run any smoother, with the free barbecue breakfast kicking off shortly after 7.30am.
DUBBO'S NEWEST CITIZENS: Yesterday 29 people started the day belonging to 12 different nations and left as members of the one Australian community. The men, women and children undertook their citizenship ceremony at the Celebrating Australia Day in Dubbo event at Victoria Park. Mayor Mathew Dickerson conducted the ceremony and said it always reminded him of how great the country we lived in was.
NEW WELLINGTON OAM: Anne Jones says she is very humbled. The former mayor of Wellington is now the recipient of an Order of Australia Medal announced in today's national Australia Day Honours list. Cr Jones was awarded the honour for service to local government, and to the community of Wellington.
DUBBO CITIZEN OF THE YEAR: Australia Day will forever be a little more special for Dubbo resident, Phil Priest, after receiving the 2015 Dubbo Citizen of the Year award. Phil received the award his strong devotion to the community. Emcee Susan Wade said Mr Priest is 'very well respected in the community, and goes about his community work without fuss or fanfare'
WELLINGTON CITIZEN OF THE YEAR: This is the speech Master of Ceremonies Mark Griggs gave introducing Margaret Grasnick as Wellington's Citizen of the year. There’s not much in Wellington and districts that this year’s Citizen of the Year has not been involved in.
OTHER AWARDS
DUBBO SPORTS PERSON OF THE YEAR: Tim Cox
YOUNG CITIZEN OF THE YEAR: Grace Parker
WELLINGTON CITIZEN OF THE YEAR: Marlene Jones
Check out what the Wellington residents got up to once all the official dutues were done.
7.42: While you're sitting down to your weet-bix and muesli why don't you take a walk down memory lane with us?
Have you ever asked what was happening in January 2000 in Dubbo? Don't worry we've got your answers right here
Take a trip with the people from Nyngan as they travel back to January 2010
7.34: Here's national and international news
MEDICAL MARIJUANA: Australians suffering from chronic pain may get more relief from their symptoms using cannabis than they do from some conventional medications, researchers have found.
A large study of people suffering from chronic problems such as back pain, migraine and arthritis has discovered many are turning to cannabis to relieve their symptoms, despite already being prescribed heavy-duty opioid medications such as morphine and oxycodone.
In a finding that is likely to further intensify the debate about medical marijuana use, the National Drug and Alcohol Centre researchers found people who used the illegal drug said it was more helpful than the highly addictive and potentially dangerous opioid medications.
POLITICS: The Abbott government has lost a legal bid to force public servants to spend an extra week-and-a-half at their desks each year. But public service minister Eric Abetz has had a win with the Fair Work Commission rejecting a union's appeal to entrench generous superannuation guarantees in the new "modern award" for the Commonwealth bureaucracy. A government push to allow its bureaucrats to cash out their annual leave and to strip parental leave entitlements from the award also fell flat before the Commission's full bench.
CYBER LAW SUIT: A West Australian woman has won almost $50,000 in compensation from an ex-boyfriend who posted sexually explicit videos and photos of her on Facebook, in a significant ruling on personal privacy law. Caroline Wilson, a fly-in, fly-out worker at Fortescue Metals Group's Cloudbreak mine in the Pilbara, took her ex-boyfriend and former colleague Neil Ferguson to court after he posted 16 photos and two videos of her on his Facebook page. The court heard Mr Ferguson posted the sexually explicit material after Ms Wilson ended their relationship via text message.
A fractious mood, stoked by a series of backflips on policy and other unflagged direction changes has angered the backbench portending a difficult first party-room meeting in early February when MPs return to Canberra.
Liberals contacted on Monday questioned Mr Abbott's political judgment in making Prince Philip, Britain's 93-year-old Duke of Edinburgh, and the husband of Queen Elizabeth, a knight in the Order of Australia.
We want to know what you think, participate in our Daily Poll...
Answers to yesterday's poll
Moving more global
Costa Concordia: Italian prosecutors called on Monday for judges to show "no pity" to Francesco Schettino, the captain of the doomed Costa Concordia, demanding he serve 26 years and three months in jail for a shipwreck which killed 32 people.
"God have pity on Schettino, because we cannot have any," prosecutor Stefano Pizza said in his summing up speech, which accused the man dubbed "Captain Coward" by the media of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship.
THE WOMEN IN KIM JONG-UN'S LIFE: One sports a Christian Dior handbag and favours Western clothes. The other carries a notebook and wears dark uniforms. These fashion opposites are the two most influential women in North Korea.
While Kim Jong-un's wife Ri Sol Ju and younger sister Kim Yo-jong are currently allies in sustaining one of the world's most reclusive leaders, their overlapping influence makes them potential rivals in a regime where family ties aren't strong enough to protect against Kim's penchant for purges.
These women of Pyongyang offer insight to an opaque regime that, while struggling to feed its people, is capable of maintaining 1.2 million men under arms and threatening neighbours with nuclear annihilation. Read their story here.
WEATHER: The global climate is likely to become increasingly prone to extremes with super La Nina and El Nino events in the Pacific to almost double in frequency this century, according to Australian-led research.
In a study published on Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, an international team led by CSIRO's Cai Wenju found extreme La Nina events forming in the Pacific would increase from about one in 23 years to one every 13 years because of rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.
The work, based on 21 climate models, comes a year after a team led by Dr Cai published a paper finding extreme El Nino events would double in frequency from once every 20 years to once per decade. Total event numbers remain little changed but their intensity increases.
BALI NINE: Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, the Bali Nine members on death row, are unlikely to learn this month whether they will face the firing squad in the second round of executions to be held in Indonesia this year.
The Indonesian Attorney-General's office is evaluating the execution of six drug felons - including five foreigners - that were carried out on January 18.
A spokesman for the Attorney-General, Tony Spontana, said it was hoped the evaluation would be completed by the end of the month.
7.23: Here's what's making news around regional Australia
CRIME: A second man has been arrested over the alleged kidnapping and chaining of a man to a tree. Hours after 28-year-old Griffith man Brandon Kay appeared in Deniliquin Local Court charged with aggravated kidnapping, a 27-year-old man, also from Griffith, was arrested by detectives and charged with detaining a person in company with intent to obtain advantage. Police refused the man bail and he will face Griffith Local Court tomorrow. Kay was arrested last Tuesday, the day after a farmer found a 32-year-old man chained to a tree in Cocoparra National Park, near Yenda.
ORANGE FOOD AND WINE FESTIVAL: Orange Food Week’s tried-and-tested program has not changed for this year’s April 10 to 19 festival, with the popular night markets and Forage on the menu once again. The program has been released online and in booklet form, featuring the favourite 100 Mile Dinner, Sunday Producers Market and Brunch and FOOD HQ, as well as the night markets and Forage among the 80 events.
SPECIAL MIDDLE NAMES: A film crew from 60 Minutes were in Forbes for the weekend filming for a special Anzac story about well-known local family, the Dranes. The Nine Network’s current affairs program contacted former Forbes man Andrew Drane, son of Geoff and Chris, about doing a story on his great grandfather, World War I veteran Thomas Edward Drane and the tradition he began of giving sons the middle name Anzac.
CRIME: A teenager who allegedly stole a car and was chased by police along the Pacific Highway at nearly double the speed limit was refused bail on Australia Day. The black Holden was allegedly detected travelling north on the Pacific Highway at 157 kilometres per hour through an 80 km/h roadworks zone at 6.45am. Police had to abandon the pursuit because of safety fears near Cooperabung, but found the car crashed into a fence on Barrys Creek Road shortly after.
AUSTRALIA DAY WISH GRANTED: One boy's Australia Day celebrated not just a country but life itself. Ryan Healy has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. He was diagnosed at just six years of age. Ryan's father, Michael, said he would be lucky if he lived into his late teens or twenties. Yesterday during Australia Day celebrations at Lake Weeroona, the Make-A-Wish foundation granted two of Ryan's wishes - a trip to the Gold Coast with his family and a ride in a police car.
7.11: Let's take a look at local news today
CONDUCTOR LEAVES: It is the end of an era for Dubbo and District Concert Band's resident conductor Steve Smith. After more than seven years in Dubbo, Mr Smith is packing his bags to study a Masters of Conducting at the Sydney Conservatorium.
ROAD SAFETY: The roundabout at Myall Street and Cobbora Road has received a makeover. Council's manager parks and landcare operations Mark Kelly said the hedge at the roundabout was removed following a number of complaints from motorists.
PREGNANT THIEF: A pregnant woman from Dubbo will spend the next 10 months and one week in prison after she was convicted of stealing handbags to the value of $630 from a department store. Learnie Joy Riley was sentenced to an 18-month term of imprisonment with a non-parole period of 12 months for larceny, the latest offence in an extensive criminal history.
FREEDOM RIDE: Dubbo features in plans to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Ride, which is today credited as a "critical part of the awakening of the nation's conscience on Aboriginal affairs". A re-enactment of the 1965 bus tour by University of Sydney students - which put race relations in the spotlight - will bring original "Riders" and current university students and staff together.
7am: Good Morning everyone, happy Tuesday!
You're grilling with Grace from Narromine today, if you'd like to share something you want to see in the Grill please email me, grace.ryan@fairfaxmedia.com.au
DUBBO / TRANGIE / NYNGAN: are expecting possible thunderstorms. Dubbo will get to 26 with 90 percent chance of five to 10 mm. Winds will be between 26 and 28km/h all day. Trangie will see 26 as well with a 90 percent chance of 10 to 20mm. Winds will reach 22km/h in the afternoon. Nyngan will get to 28 with a 90 per cent chance of five to 10mm.
COBAR / BOURKE: will be cloudy. Cobar has a 90 percent chance of getting one to five mm. Bourke has a 70 percent chance of getting one to five mm. Winds are expected to be 21km/h in the morning.