Max temps: Corowa 43, Culcairn 42, Wangaratta 41, Corryong 41, Bright 40, Falls Creek 26. 

Catch up on news here:

With temperatures soaring to 43 degrees today and 42 tomorrow, a heat health warning has been issued for the North East of Victoria and Southern NSW. Drink plenty of water and avoid going outside from 11am until 5pm when the sun is at its hottest More here

The floral tributes have been removed but witnesses of the attack say the horrific scenes from that day still haunt them. More here

A passenger on the Sunday 6.02pm Albury service has lodged a complaint with V/Line online, stating she was “absolutely disgusted” by their treatment of a blind man. More here

Producer Tait Brady said it was going to be a challenging few days for all involved when the production moves to Mitta and Jindera in the heatwave. More here

There is a severe fire danger warning for the Mallee, Wimmera and Northern Country, and very high-to-high fire danger warnings for the rest of the state. State Response Controller Steve Warrington said the combination of heat and strengthening northerly winds  had increased the fire risk. More here

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

► Australian man Thomas Keating has been formally charged with reckless driving causing death, after his partner was killed in a tragic jet-ski crash on the Thai resort island of Phuket.

Mr Keating arrived at Phuket police station on Thursday afternoon, supported by his family and the family of his girlfriend Emily Collie.

He was formally charged with reckless driving causing death and his passport was confiscated by authorities. More here.

► VICTORIA: Health authorities are warning Victoria could he headed for one of the worst seasons for mosquito-borne diseases in the past decade as reported cases of Ross River virus climb into the hundreds.

The Health Department is warning residents across the state to be vigilant for signs and symptoms of the virus, with 857 reported since January 1, well above the figure for the same time last year. More here.

► WAGGA: A day at Wagga's Oasis pool took a drastic and nearly deadly turn, leaving one local mum a live-saving hero.

Lisa Maynard, an anaesthetic nurse at Riverina Day Surgery, was enjoying a typical day at the pool with her children on Monday when she performed crucial CPR – saving the life of a middle-aged woman. 

On Monday night Ms Maynard received some pleasantly surprising news – the woman saved was a sister’s friend. More here.

► MORISSET: Meet Brock Speed Barber, 9, of Morisset. The ‘Speed’ is no nickname. It’s his real middle name. Says so, right there on the birth certificate.

Brock was named after the Australian motor racing legend Peter Brock. What’s more, he was born on October 12, in 2007, while the Bathurst 1000 race was on.

So it’s hardly a surprise, then, that young Brock should find himself immersed in motor sports. More here.

► TASMANIA: Tasmania’s Catholic Church will usher in a new era this year, with the introduction of an Australian-first child sex abuse reporting system.

It follows the handing down of condemning statistics from the Royal Commission in Sydney this week that heard more than 4000 allegations of child sex abuse had been investigated in the last four years, with up to 40 per cent of one mainland church group allegedly involved in pedophilia. More here.

► TAREE: Farmers travelled from across NSW to Taree on Wednesday to deliver a message to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) – they want change. 

Around 200 farmers attended the ACCC forum at Taree’s Club West as part of the inquiry called by Federal treasurer Scott Morrison last October into the competitiveness of prices, trading practices and the supply chain within the Australian dairy industry. More here.

► Victoria and NSW have been warned they could follow South Australia in being hit by electricity blackouts in years ahead unless Canberra comes up with a bipartisan national plan to deal with energy and climate change.

The Turnbull government leapt on the latest in a string of South Australian blackouts, which hit about 40,000 properties for 45 minutes during extreme heat early Wednesday night, to accuse the state Labor government of relying too heavily on renewable energy. More here.

► The federal government could reap an extra $6 billion in tax revenue over the four-year budget horizon if liquefied natural gas projects operating in federal waters are brought under a simple royalty scheme that already applies to competing gas projects in Australia.

A flat 10 per cent Commonwealth royalty would, for the first time, force multinational-owned mega-projects like Chevron's Gorgon plant to pay for the publicly-owned resource it extracts. More here.

► When posting comments about your workplace on social media, you should avoid saying anything you would not be willing to shout out in the middle of the office.

That is the advice from Peter Holland from Monash University business school and Macquarie University academics Alison Barnes and Nikola Balnave who will on Friday present a paper to a University of NSW workplace relations conference in Canberra. More here.

► Armed thieves have stolen a pet pug dog named Egg as his owner was walking him on a lead through Sydney Olympic Park in the city's west overnight.

The dog's owner is said to be distraught after three men held him at knife-point and stole his dog, as well as his wallet and backpack, about 10.30pm on Thursday. More here.

► INDONESIA: Indonesia's military chief says Australia has apologised over "very sensitive and painful" material found at an army base in Perth that insulted Indonesia's state ideology and promised "strict punishment" for all personnel involved. 

General Gatot Nurmantyo said he accepted the apology but a decision was yet to be made about the continuation of military cooperation between the two countries. More here.

► The greatest threat to world peace may well be the military build-up in the South Pacific – but it's not China we should fear, it's the United States.

That, at least, is the thesis of The Coming War on China, the latest polemic from the award-winning documentary-maker John Pilger.

The military build-up in the region "is now a flashpoint for a war between China and America," 77-year-old Pilger says in the film. "The United States and China may well be on a path to war, and nuclear war is no longer unthinkable." More here.

► US: These are scary days for big-named American businesses - if they stock Trump products, they can incur the wrath of a consumer boycott that is turbocharged by the power of social media; but if they drop the presidential brands, they incur the wrath of the Tweeter-in-Chief. 

Latest in the crosshairs is Nordstrom, a national chain of luxury department stores.

In caving in to the boycott by dumping first daughter Ivanka Trump's fashion lines, Nordstrom was assailed in a Wednesday morning tweet by Donald Trump. More here.

Glen Sparks reached his dream of becoming Australia’s youngest pilot when he took to the air at the Murrayfield Airport for his first ever solo flight on his 15th birthday last week.

In 2014, the minimum age for students to fly solo was reduced to 15 years, which was the trigger for Glen to set his goal of flying solo on the first day possible.

Born on February 1, 2002 in Dundee, Scotland (eight hours behind WA time), Glen was technically still 14-years-old when he took to the air.

But that didn’t phase the youngster, whose dedication was praised by Royal Aero Club of WA flight instructor John Crisp. Read more here.