WET WEATHER didn’t stop the action at a massive simulated training exercise for RFS volunteers in Glen Innes on the weekend. Almost 400 firefighters and support crew rolled into town for the 17th annual North Field Exercise. 

SPORT: South Tamworth pulled off a second preliminary final escape in as many years on Sunday to win through to their sixth consecutive Tamworth first grade grand final.

NEW ENGLAND:  NEW England surveyors and solicitors have expressed their opposition to moves by the state government to privatise part of the NSW Land Titles Registry. 

TAMWORTH:  Saturday's Golden Slipper delivered a Cinderella story for Tamworth couple Bianca and Andrew Pieper.The Piepers lived a real-life fairytale as part-owners of speedster She Will Reign, the bargain buy that sealed ultimate glory in the $3.5 million group 1 race.

TAMWORTH: Calrossy Anglican School Acting ICT director Amber Chase and ICT integrator Lisa O’Callaghan will travel to Melbourne to take part in the National Future Schools Expo.

TAMWORTH: A Melbourne-based private investor has snapped up an existing KFC restaurant site in Tamworth for $4.47 million, reflecting a yield of 5.1 per cent. 

MANILLA: It was all fun and games in Manilla at the weekend as the town celebrated their annual show.  Here’s what Jim Maxwell told Ella Smith about the event.

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

►ILLAWARRA: A Spanish tourist has had a lucky escape after he was bitten on the bottom by a shark while boogie-boarding at The Farm on Sunday evening. Read more

► MANDURAH: 

Australia’s much-loved pop rock band Thirsty Merc took over Crab Fest’s music stage on Sunday afternoon bringing their much-loved, summery tunes to Mandurah. Read more

► UNANDERRA: “When I saw the drain … I was searching and I saw it and I knew then," she said. 

Thursday night at the Teasdale family home in Unanderra was long and excruciating.

Outside, the gutters babbled with racing stormwater. A relentless sheet of rain pelted the plastic coats of the grave-faced police and SES volunteers gathered two streets away, at the opening to a stormwater drain.  Read more

► BENDIGO: It was a simple stroll around Rosalind Park, but for hundreds of people at the Suicide Prevention Awareness Network walk on Sunday it was an emotional roller coaster. Read more

► NORTH EAST: A Chiltern man is facing up to 10 years in jail for allegedly importing a child sex doll from China. Read more

► LAUNCESTON: A Launceston father and son have had health struggles and felt forgotten while waiting for medical action. Stuart Lade was brutally assaulted in late 2013, deforming his nasal passage. Stuart’s father, John Lade, visited the same doctor three weeks later because of infected sinuses. The GP recommended the RHH to have his sinuses drained and he was also referred to the RHH. But progress stalled and both men are yet to undergo their surgeries. Read more

► NORTHERN TERRITORY: Some are calling it the Battle for Beetaloo. Beetaloo is an energy-rich El Dorado, a little known region in the remote Australian outback which, according to miners, can solve Australia’s natural gas problems for the next 30 years if not longer. Read more

► Sensitive employment data on another 53,000 federal public servants may have been supplied to a private firm conducting workplace ballots without the knowledge or consent of the workers. Read more

►Scott Morrison is planning to push the so-called "Google Tax" through Parliament. Read more

►Voters in some of the most conservative seats in Australia overwhelmingly support legalising same-sex marriage in 2017, according to a decisive new poll of a dozen Coalition seats. Read more

What’s coming your way ...

►DELHI: Going on stage at school and acting out scenes from your home life can uncover hidden truths. The stage at Prerna School for Girls in Lucknow is the place where the performers - girls from poor families in the surrounding slums - suddenly realise they are unequal. Read more

►DILI: The front-runner to be elected East Timor's president at elections on Monday has offered new hope for a breakthrough with Australia in a bitter stand-off over $40 billion in oil and gas fields. Read more

►BEIJING: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has appeared with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to say the two countries share the view that tensions on the Korean Peninsula have reached "a rather dangerous level". Read more

1602: The Dutch East India company, which was indirectly responsible for many discoveries in the Pacific, is formed.

1802: English explorer Matthew Flinders names Spencer Gulf in South Australia.

1974: An attempt is made to kidnap Princess Anne, only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II.

1991: Singer Eric Clapton's four-year-old son falls to his death from an open apartment window, 53 storeys up.

1995: A Tokyo subway is attacked with Sarin gas. 

Alan  Pham couldn’t have known that disassembling a timepiece at a young age were the first footsteps on a path that led him to a life in Leeton.

Mr. Pham’s first taste of Australia came when his family moved to Sydney from Vietnam when he was four.

One of three children, he remembered having a fascination with technology and machines starting at a very early age, but his curiosity came at a price.

“I would take a watch and take it apart,” he said.

“But I couldn’t get it back together.”

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