Last Top Stories: Child abuse royal commission: Inquiry to hear from Ballarat victims, notorious ...

Child abuse royal commission: Inquiry to hear from Ballarat victims, notorious ...

The child abuse royal commission is set to hear details of the "gross violations of victims" by members of the Catholic Church in the regional Victorian city of Ballarat. The Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse began public hearings ... >> view original

Pony sex farmer Noel Mitchell avoids jail on bestiality charges

In sentencing Mitchell, Justice Pilgrim urged Corrections Victoria representatives at Ballarat to thoroughly read two psychiatric reports on Mitchell and act accordingly. Mitchell apologised to the community and his estranged wife through his lawyer ... >> view original

Faith in the church was lost, faith in justice returns to Ballarat

Cold rain fell heavy and hard on the roof of the former church hall next to the Ballarat Magistrates' Court. These days it is a restaurant, on Tuesday it provided overflow seating for those who came to listen to day one of the Royal Commission into ... >> view original

Ballarat breakfast report, Tuesday May 19, 2015

A YOUNG Ballarat man who repeatedly bashed his pregnant girlfriend, on one occasion smashing her head into the ground before trying to punch her in the stomach, has been told the "despicable" offending is the precise type which leads to murdered ... >> view original

Ballarat under Royal Commission spotlight

MARK COLVIN: We've seen the child abuse Royal Commission examining churches, children's homes, and other institutions, but for the next three weeks it'll be looking at a whole town. The commission will be looking at the concentric circles of damage ... >> view original

Ballarat-Bendigo rivalry to reach fever pitch when local leagues meet in AFL ...

North Ballarat City's Marcus Darmody and Darley's Rhys Ellis are among the players who have withdrawn from the initial squad. Skontra said the Ballarat FL was expecting their opponent, which beat Gippsland in last year's championships, to bring a ... >> view original

Perth teen Yestin Eades finds a place in Vic Country and snowy Ballarat

It snowed in Ballarat, on the day Yestin Eades moved there nine months ago. The teenager was ready to move into the boarding house at St Patrick's College, prepared for the routine and rules. He knew playing football in Victoria would be very different ... >> view original

'You are not going to have my kid' - Ballarat man bashes pregnant partner

The court was told of another violent incident on May 10 in which the man threatened to stab the victim with scissors before punching her in the hand and taking a phone which she was using to call police. Using the phone to call his mother, the court ... >> view original

'Sea Sparkles' put on sensational light show in southern Tasmania

Parts of the River Derwent shoreline are lighting up like neon at night thanks to a flash mob of billions of minute marine organisms that glow in the dark. Over the past few nights around Hobart, blooms of single-cell organisms called dinoflagellates have ... >> view original

How space can be scarier than you think

The distances, sizes, and beauty of everything involved leaves us somewhat awestruck, even if it paints us as such a small part of the bigger picture. Sadly, the universe's beauty doesn't keep up with its infinite capacity to end us. Even empty space, alone, with ... >> view original