Is the Sydney Olympics of 2000 still the best ever games in your mind? With Nikki Webster cementing her place as a national icon, Christine Anu shining as she sung My Island Home, Midnight Oil getting political with Sorry T-shirts, and of course Kylie bringing the glitter!

► High-profile hurdler Michelle Jenneke arrived in Rio out of shape and needs to make athletics a higher priority if she wants to  continue being funded and to make it at the world level, Australian head coach Craig Hilliard said in a sharp rebuke.

The dancing hurdler, who was one of the international faces of Coca-Cola, said after her elimination in the heats that athletics was only one priority in her life.

► The Olympic Games doesn't end in gold medals and glory for every athlete. For some, competing on the world's biggest sporting stage is an exercise in pain, both physical and mental.

From agonising injuries in the gymnastics and weightlifting, to the disappointment of an Olympic dream unfulfilled, here we take a look at some of the most punishing moments of Rio 2016.

Need a national news snapshot first thing? We've got you covered. But also check out what's happening around regional Australia …

►NEWCASTLE: The RSPCA has confirmed the skeletal remains found dumped in bushland at Swan Bay last week belonged to a greyhound, that was “almost certainly” killed by blunt force trauma to the head. 

The greyhound would have been between one and two years of age at the time of death and appeared to have been killed by “a blow or blows to the head with a blunt instrument”, a veterinary pathologist has found.

► ILLAWARRA: BlueScope is expected to announce a profit of almost $600 million when it releases its financial year results on Monday morning.

However, it is understood the Port Kembla steelworks could still be in the red.

In the first half of the financial year, the steel maker reported an after-tax profit of $200 million.

► DUBBO: A member of the LGBTIQA+ community at Dubbo says a proposed delay of a same-sex marriage plebiscite to 2017 is concerning but he is more determined than ever to push for change.

On Sunday it emerged it was unlikely Australians would be asked this year to vote on whether to allow same-sex marriage, but the Turnbull government would not publicly confirm a February plebiscite.

►  BALLARAT: The jewel of Ballarat’s crown is set for a $20 million revamp.   

The Ballarat City Council unveiled its Lake Wendouree Master Plan which detailed nine different concepts ranging from from creating lake lighting, an urban beach, recreational and gym facilities to landscape development and the Prisoners of War Story Centre.

Hundreds of people poured through the doors of the Robert Clark Centre at the Ballarat Botanical Gardens on Saturday to have their say on the master plan at a drop-in session on the development. 

► TAMWORTH: Rio has been the focus of all things sport this year, but in September Tamworth will take a trip to this colourful South American city for a night of entertainment Latin-style.

The Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service has used this year's Olympic city as the inspiration for its annual Tamworth ball, promising a night of music, dancing, fine food and a few surprises.

This year's event is on Saturday, September 24, at the William Cowper Campus and planning is already well under way.

► BATHURST: A tourist park in the shadows of Mount Panorama could be built in coming years to address a shortage of family accommodation across the Bathurst region.

Bathurst is currently home to just one tourist park – the Big 4 caravan park on the Sydney Road at Kelso – and Bathurst Regional Council believes there is a significant gap in the local accommodation market.

►VICTORIA: A CFA water bomber has been removed from the south-west, prompting concerns for the region’s safety this summer.

The 7500-litre Erickson Air-Crane was based at Ballarat, but will be moved to Moorabbin, in Melbourne. 

Member for South-West Coast Roma Britnell said it would mean longer response times across western Victoria and left the region exposed.

“It’s a surprising decision and one that I don’t understand,” she said.

► TAS: One of Tasmania’s oldest living residents Iris Roden has celebrated her 105th birthday and has revealed “clean living” as her secret to a long and happy life.

“I never smoked, or drank,” she said.

“I was a good girl.”

Born on August 21 in 1911, Mrs Roden said she had seen a lot change over the past century.

► The average family from western Sydney is paying around $22,000 a year in transport costs, representing as much as 17 per cent of total household income, a new report from a national motoring group finds.

The first national Transport Affordability Index, released by the Australian Automobile Association, whose members include the NRMA, shows a two-car Sydney household faces weekly transport costs of $419 per week.

► The political furore over the embarrassing website outage on census night appears to have had a silver lining with the Bureau of Statistics receiving about 1.5 million more completed census forms than expected at this stage of the collection process.

Over 6 million of Australia's 9 million households have now submitted a census form online or by post, well above the 4.5 million responses the bureau had anticipated receiving at this point.

► 1849 – The first air raid in history. Austria launches pilotless balloons against the city of Venice.

► 1932 – The BBC first experiments with television broadcasting.

► 1945 – Vietnam conflict begins as Ho Chi Minh leads a successful coup 

► 1968 – Pope Paul VI arrives in Bogotá, Colombia. It is the first visit of a pope to Latin America.

► 2004 – Versions of The Scream and Madonna, two paintings by Edvard Munch, are stolen at gunpoint from a museum in Oslo, Norway.

►  DENPASAR: The Denpasar Police Chief has revealed that blood belonging to Byron Bay woman Sara Connor and her British boyfriend David Taylor had been found at the crime scene where a Balinese police officer was killed.

Grand police commissioner Hadi Purnomo said this and other evidence led to the couple being declared murder suspects over the grisly death of Wayan Sudarsa, who was found near a smashed Bintang beer bottle with 42 wounds.

► USA: His brutality is breathtaking, his ruthlessness unforgivable. Even as a celebrated conservative provocateur, Kevin Williamson might have mustered just a shred of sympathy for American "hillbillies" – if only because their votes could be key to blocking a Clinton return to the White House.

At the heart of Donald Trump's election campaign there is a daredevil's gamble that a foul-mouthed, risk-taking candidate can so demonise and offend black and brown voters that whites, especially the poorly educated, will rush to make him president – hence the courtship of the so-called hillbilly vote.

HARRY Cressy was a 22-year-old who looked younger and who, in the months before he was shot dead in France, had a tendency to describe things that excited him as “bosker!”

Today’s equivalent is probably “awesome”, Catherine Murray, the World War One Private’s great niece, told a gathering at Sandgate Cemetery on Tuesday for the centenary of the Battle of Fromelles. 

Such bursts peppered Harry’s diary of the war. His notes later took their place among the gifts he sent home from Egypt and France.

Read more of Harry’s story here.