But unlike the usual two or three falls the area experiences each year, this one carried a bit more clout.

WODONGA drivers are once again paying the highest petrol prices of any Victorian regional city.

This has been revealed in motoring organisation the RACV’s latest survey of petrol prices.

GREATER Hume Shire has enforced a developer contributions payment for a Culcairn house damaged by fire earlier this year.

The Kirndeen Street home sparked widespread media interest when snakes and lizards fled the property at the height of the January blaze.

You're thinking, "surely this is a set-up", right? But no, it's a true story. A toddler has become stuck inside a toy machine at a shopping centre in northern Queensland.

The boy was playing by the machine at a Cairns shopping centre when he crawled inside and managed to wedge himself between a penguin and a teddy bear.

A spokesman for the Mt Sheridan plaza shopping centre said the boy was stuck inside for up to three minutes, but he had no idea how the child managed to squeeze himself in there.

Fortunately there was no need to get out the claw. Read more.

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

► ARARAT: Have you seen Abbey Quinlivian? The Ararat 13-year-old was last seen at her home on Sunday, July 12, but has not been seen since. Police are appealing for public assistance to help locate her. Police have concerns for Abbey’s welfare due to her age. They believe she could be in the Ballarat area. 

► BATHURST: Five-times world Moto GP champion Mick Doohan would love to see a world class motorcycle racing circuit built at Mount Panorama. He yesterday said motorcycle racing was, in its day, a very big part of Bathurst – and he believes a second circuit would be a success. Doohan is no stranger to Bathurst, winning the final Australian motorcycle Grand Prix to be held in the TT (Tourist Troup) format at Mount Panorama before the race moved to Phillip Island the following year when it became a round of the World Championship.

► CANBERRA: Wind farm projects in the Canberra region received new hope on Wednesday when ACT Environment Minister Simon Corbell announced a second wind auction would be held this year. A number of planned wind farms are unable to move ahead without funding and the news gives them the chance at a guaranteed 20-year contract with the government. The new wind auction would bring Canberra close to meeting its target of 90 per cent renewables by 2020.

► CARGO: Living in a small town or village can be quaint, community-driven and less stressful than the city, but it could also be the secret to happiness. A long-term study of nearly 20,000 Australians called the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics Survey, released its annual results yesterday and found people who live in a town with less than 1000 people are the most satisfied with life, followed by those who live in bigger regional towns. Cargo General Store owner Cath Brand, who has lived in Cargo all her life, said it did not surprise her people in smaller communities were happier.

► DEVONPORT: A fully refurbished Spirit of Tasmania 1 is set to operate for the first time on August 1. TT-Line vessel project manager Massimo Soprano said a scheduled dry dock in Sydney's Garden Island dockyard meant crews could concentrate on refurbishing the vessel. Spirit of Tasmania 2 is being refurbished while continuing to operate trips between Melbourne and Devonport, with the works set to be completed by the end of August.

► KATHERINE: When you have a visiting French winemaker assisting with your vintage, you know you are taking winning at the Katherine Show to the next level. Well-known Katherinites Steven Rose and Danny Murphy have entered a delicious mango and dragonfruit drop in the S03 division of this year’s homebrew competition but are gearing up for a bigger and better showing in 2016 when they unveil a unique mango, dragonfruit and rosella wine. To ensure their entry is a cut above the rest, they have enlisted the assistance of backpacker Benjamin Louf – who coincidentally also happens to be a winemaker from France’s Loire Valley– to keep an eye on the fermentation process while he is staying in the region. Read more.

► ILLAWARRA: The teaching union fears two TAFE Illawarra campuses could face the same fate as Dapto, with staff worried dangerously low enrolments could force closures. NSW Teachers Federation TAFE organiser Rob Long said staff had informed him a minimal amount of students had enrolled at Moss Vale and Ulladulla for semester two, and wanted to raise this with the Minister for Skills and Small Business John Barilaro.

► ORANGE: Orange medical specialists, general practitioners and medical students will take a moral stand tomorrow against the Federal Government’s law that makes it a crime for people, including doctors, working in detention centres to speak out about any abuse they have witnessed. Orange urologist Dr Clair Whelan told the Central Western Daily that within an hour yesterday, of approaching some of her colleagues about what she sees as an injustice, about 50 of her colleagues working in medicine had replied they will attend tomorrow’s gathering. “This is not about politics - it is a moral issue,” Dr Whelan said. Read more.

► RAYMOND TERRACE: It began as another run-of-the-mill hazardous materials incident after an unknown type of white powder was found in a overseas package delivered to federal Member for Paterson Bob Baldwin. But the strange package, which somehow made its way to the Raymond Terrace office on Wednesday, has since prompted a police investigation, as well as some sniggers, after it was found the substance was a type of synthetic drug which mirrors the effects of cannabis. Read more.

► TAMWORTH: Not even an "Antarctic vortex" bringing some of the region's biggest snowfalls in decades could deter sweet tooths queuing up for the most unlikely of winter treats. The irony of opening the much-anticipated Cold Rock Ice Creamery during the freezing weather was lost on neither the franchisees, nor their eager customers. Several roads in the Tamworth district remained closed to traffic yesterday as snow, ice and fallen trees rendered them impassable.

► WAGGA: Wagga Leagues Club is no longer. The remaining pieces of the iconic structure were brought to the ground yesterday, signalling the end of a long journey for the embattled club. Demolition crews have been working to pad down steel and rubber with the work to be finalised by mid-next week. The land the club stood on – including Eric Weissel Oval – will be turned into housing, with work to start by year’s end. Photos here.

► Labor has been shaken by the leak of a confidential climate proposal that the Abbott government says reveals a "catastrophic" rift in the party's upper ranks and a plot to destabilise leader Bill Shorten. Mr Shorten and senior Labor MPs scrambled to play down the damaging leak on Wednesday, rejecting suggestions the plan amounted to a "carbon tax" and stressing the party's climate action policy has not been decided. The leak denied Labor the chance to craft the public message on one of its most politically sensitive policy areas, one which contributed to the demise of former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.

► Multinational fossil fuel companies behind Australia's biggest resources project are among a group of petrol and oil companies asked to explain tens of billions of dollars they hold in tax havens across the globe. In letters received this week, eight companies have been asked by the Senate's corporate tax avoidance inquiry to detail their networks of international subsidiaries and reveal the value of funds moved between countries over the past five years.

► Treasurer Joe Hockey has taken aim at the United States for dragging its feet on taxing multinationals such as Google, and says the Obama administration now wants to come after Australia's tax base. Australia has been working with the United Kingdom on a local version of Britain's 'Google tax' to try and collect more money from multinationals. The United States has been critical of such taxes, long arguing that it will not sign up to a plan that cannibalises its tax base.

► There is no earnings advantage to attending a sandstone university compared with less prestigious institutions, a major economic study has found. The latest Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey found graduates from the elite Group of Eight universities earn no more on average than those who attended regional universities and less than those attending other universities. The controversial finding has been disputed by the Group of Eight universities, which tend to require higher entrance scores and perform better on international rankings.

July 16, 1969: Apollo 11 launched from the Kennedy Space Centre with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins onboard - charged with landing the first people on the moon. Eight years earlier, president John F Kennedy had ambitiously announced that America would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade and that deadline was rapidly approaching. After the Mercury program (single astronaut vehicles) and the Gemini program (two astronaut vehicles), which gave America experience at putting rockets and people into space, the Apollo program would be the final stage in actually landing on the moon. Apollo 8 had taken a three man crew around the moon and returned them and it was Neil Armstrong, commander of Apollo 11, who would become the first man on the man just four days after the launch, uttering the now famous line "That's one small step for man, a giant leap for mankind."

► The barbaric acts and military gains of Islamic State have succeeded in sowing fear in Australia and other wealthy nations, with a new poll showing the extremist group is considered the biggest global threat in all but one advanced economy surveyed. But poorer nations overwhelmingly rated climate change as the top menace to global security, according to a report from the Pew Global Research Centre. Pew, a US-based research organisation, interviewed more than 45,000 people in 40 countries for the survey. Read more.

► Iran and six major powers – known as the P5+1 – have reached an agreement that places limits on Iran's nuclear program in return for lifting sanctions that have crippled its economy. Those major powers are the US, Germany, France, Russia, Britain and China. The US Congress has 60 days to approve the deal, and there is expected to be significant opposition from the Republican Party. Yet an agreement that would see Iran return as a normal player in international politics has far-reaching implications. Following is an explanation of what's changed, what's at stake and what the world may expect. Read more.

► The official investigation into the crash that killed 298 people continues, with a secret draft report currently being assessed by air crash authorities in Russia, Australia and other countries whose citizens died on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. The Western consensus has been that the plane was shot down by a BUK missile fired by pro-Russian separatists (probably because they thought it was a Ukrainian military transport), possibly with the direct or indirect support of the Russian military. But in Russia when Novaya Gazeta published thet headline "Forgive us, Netherlands," it was already a controversial position. Read more.

ONE is a teetotaller, who says she was ‘‘too good to be true’’ – never drank, smoked or gambled, while the other loves a glass of moselle and met the love of her life on a blind date at the Cricketers Arms Hotel.

But there was not much separating them on Wednesday when Joy Parkinson celebrated her 100th birthday, six days before her older sister, Ilma Race, turns 102.

It’s all in the genes, they say, with most members of their family living well into their 90s and their eldest sister, Clorine, making it to 103 before she died 10 years ago.

They have three children, 10 grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild, and another one on the way, between them.

‘‘I love my moselle, and I wondered why they didn’t have some here today,’’ said Joy.

While she certainly didn’t drink every day, she’d have one if it was put in front of her, she said. Read more.