Good morning Bendigo! Hope you're having a great start to the weekend. If you're looking for something to do the Bendigo Home Expo Leisure Roadshow is on again today. Check out our pictures from Friday PICTURES: First day of the Bendigo Home Expo Leisure Roadshow
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Ice crisis: 'it will take a genius to get rid of it'
The drug ice has spread to every level of society in country Victoria, according to a drug agency that is about to report on the problem to the state government.
''Every part of the population [is being affected], from white-collar professionals to amateur football team members, to blue-collar workers and manual labourers. It's really across the board,'' said John Ryan, chief executive of the Penington Institute, which is about to present its findings to the Victorian government on the prevalence of methamphetamine, known as ice.
''That's why it's affecting small towns so much; it's not affecting one small part of the population, it's widespread,'' Mr Ryan said.
Meanwhile, the Bendigo Advertiser published Give up ice on Friday - the mother of a baby beaten to death by an ice addict calling on those using the drug to give it up - and urging others not to start.
Soothing tax cuts to follow budget pain
Tony Abbott is planning a generous income tax package in the lead-up to the 2016 election in a bid to offset the pain of his austerity budget and win back disaffected voters.
But any personal savings would not show up in people's pay packets until after the election unless the economy surprises on the upside, wiping away a forecast $10.6 billion deficit when the election falls due in the third quarter of 2016.
Sources in the Abbott government say the promise of cuts - probably to take effect from July 1, 2017 - would still come earlier than those quietly factored in to the current budget papers from 2018-19 as part of a commitment to keep tax as a proportion of the economy to a maximum ''cap'' of 23.9 per cent.
PICTURES: Bendigo among the first to perform new cardiac procedure
A revolutionary heart procedure is now being performed in Bendigo.
Clinicians at St John of God Hospital Bendigo are among the first experts in Victoria to implant the world's smallest cardiac monitor - the Medtronic Reveal LINQ ICM.
The miniature device is capable of diagnosing potentially dangerous irregular heartbeats and aims to disarm the "ticking time bomb" for those people who live unknowingly with chronic heart conditions.
Cardiologist Dr Joris Mekel implanted Bendigo's first Medtronic Reveal LINQ ICM in a patient on Friday.
If today is your big day, happy birthday!
You share a birthday with Walt Whitman, US writer (1819-1892); Gregory Harrison, US actor (1950-); Tommy Emmanuel, Australian guitarist (1955-); Lea Thompson, US actress (1961-); Todd McKenney, Australian TV personality (1965-); Brooke Shields, US actress (1965-); Sarah Murdoch, Australian model and TV personality (1972-); Colin Farrell, Irish actor (1976-).
1043 - Lady Godiva rides naked through the market square in Coventry, England.
1899 - George Whitehouse, a British engineer, decides to build a workshop for the Uganda Railway in a swamp where Kenya's capital, Nairobi, later grows.
1924 - China recognises Soviet Union.
1976 - Indonesia completes takeover of East Timor.
1999 - In the first large pullback from Israel-controlled Lebanon in 14 years, the Southern Lebanon Army evacuates a large enclave after years of casualties from guerrillas.
2000 - Hong Kong closes its last Vietnamese refugee camp, ending the quarter-century boat people saga in the territory and leaving about 100 people homeless.
2004 - A bomb rips through a Shi'ite Muslim mosque in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 16 people and wounding 38 others. Pakistan's government says the blast could be revenge for the assassination of the Nazamuddin Shamzai, a senior Sunni cleric who had been a strong supporter of the former Taliban regime in neighbouring Afghanistan and had met al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. Hundreds of Shi'ite youths riot after the explosion at the mosque, which came a day after unidentified gunmen killed Shamzai.
2005 - The fallen oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky is sentenced to nine years in prison, ending the biggest case in post-Soviet Russia. The year-long trial spurred accusations that it was linked to Khodorkovsky's opposition to President Vladimir Putin.
2005 - The Washington Post revealed that "Deep Throat", the legendary source who leaked Watergate scandal secrets to its reporters, was former FBI deputy director Mark Felt.
2009 - The world's most powerful laser, created to help keep tabs on the US nuclear weapons stockpile while also studying the heavens, is unveiled.
2010 - Israeli commandos rappel down to an aid flotilla sailing to thwart a Gaza blockade, clashing with pro-Palestinian activists on the lead ship in a botched raid that left at least nine passengers dead.
2013 - Turkish protesters are removed from Gezi Park in Taksim Square, Istanbul, in a violent crackdown by police after days of anti-government unrest.
What did one ocean say to the other ocean? Nothing, they just waved.
Have a great day,
Hannah