HORSHAM: An investigation is underway to determine the cause of a fire that has left a Horsham business with a $400,000 damage bill. MORE.

WAGGA: Culcairn farmer Scott Mitchell has been embroiled in controversy for the past week but it has not deterred him from looking for love. 

Mr Mitchell, 36, seemed like a done deal as one of the next farmers on reality show Farmer Wants a Wife but a phone call last week has thrown that in turmoil. 

Mr Mitchell wants to close this chapter of his life and move onto the next.

Mr Mitchell was told by a representative of Freemantle Media that he was one of the final six farmers they pitched to Channel Nine but that he was replaced by Married At First Sight’s Lachlan at the last minute. MORE.

BALLARAT: A Ballarat teenager who died after he was hit by a car in Black Hill has been remembered as an “amazing” and “unbelievable kid”.

Patrick Bell, 17, was tragically killed while crossing Chisholm Street on Tuesday.

The Ballarat East Secondary College student recently celebrated his 17th birthday with his twin-sister. MORE.

NATIONAL WEATHER RADAR

NATIONAL NEWS

Joe Hockey has become the first Australian politician to successfully sue for defamation over a tweet.

The decision highlights some of the legal pitfalls of social media, which rewards rapid-fire, snappy missives stripped of context.

But there is very little else that is novel about the Federal Treasurer's $80,000 payout for two tweets from The Age's Twitter account in May last year – or indeed his $120,000 payout for the same words on a newspaper advertising placard.

Aboriginal children are being removed from their families and placed with drug-dealing carers who are demanding that their parents pay to see them, the royal commission into child sex abuse has heard.

Australia's largest new coal project, one hailed by Prime Minister Tony Abbott as a poverty-busting "miracle", is unbankable in the assessment of Queensland's Treasury, which also has question marks over the development's transparency.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

SYRIA: A second Australian man has reportedly died fighting with Kurdish forces in Syria, less than two months after he joined the battle against the Islamic State group.

Described as a "beloved brother who came from far away to do what had to be done," 23-year-old Reece Harding reportedly died on June 27 when he stepped on a land mine during night operations with the YPG (People's Protection Units) in north-eastern Syria.

CHINA: China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, has submitted a new carbon intensity reduction target to the United Nations while reaffirming its goal to curb carbon emissions by 2030, or "even earlier".

Premier Li Keqiang made the announcement while during a visit to Paris, where the global climate conference will take place at the end of the year.

TUNISIA: At a makeshift memorial on the site of last Friday's deadly attack, a steady stream of tourists and locals gathered to lay flowers and notes to remember the victims of Tunisia's worst ever terror attack.

With their backs to the deep blue of the Mediterranean Sea, they faced a swathe of sun lounges that now sit mostly empty on the beach in front of the Hotel Imperial Marhaba where so many lost their lives.

FACES OF AUSTRALIA - Rideika Wright

An Albion Park teenager is proud to have helped launch a new national clothing label and can't wait to see people wearing her design.

Rideika Wright, 16, took part in the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience and was invited along with 21 others to participate in a paid internship, with her artwork featured on AIME Apparel T-shirts.

The square graphic features a lizard to represent the year 10 student, as well as showing four "communities" in each corner to depict the different places she has lived - Walgett, Newcastle, Batemans Bay and Wollongong. MORE.