TEAM WORK: Youth Council members Amy Zuell, Letesha Stephens, Brienna Kamp and Brodae Kamp with rapper Mitchell Burgess discussing plans. Picture: Siobhan CalafioreFunworkshops, inspiring guest speakers and live music arepart of a program designed by youth for youthputting the spotlight on mental health and wellbeing.

City of BallaratYouth Council’s Change Your Story event hopes to equipyoung people with the tools to help themselves put their wellbeing first through self-care and creative methods.

Youth Council member Letesha Stephens said guest speakers Ben Pettingill and Mike Rolls would offer a refreshing take onovercoming adversity and challenges.

Mr Pettingill lost 98 per cent of his eyesight at 16 froma rare genetic syndrome, while Mr Rolls lost his legs when he survived Meningococcal septicaemiaat 18.

There will also be live music, creative arts, theHealthy Hub Wellness Centre’s workshop onnutrition and a free lunch provided.

Ballarat rap artist Mitchell Burgess, known asEMBE, will lead a songwriting and hip hop workshop through Project Origin, where he will discuss lyrics, beats and help participants gain the confidence toshare their stories.

“When I started writing stuff down it was a chance to vent andit has helped me so much creating music,” Burgess said. “For me to share that and try to get other people to use thatsame medium is really important, it’s creative but you also get to speak about something you might not feel like you could have spoken about before.”

Meanwhile, organisations such as Ballarat Community Health and Headspace Ballarat are involved in the Chill Out Zone, which includes beanbags, giant gamesand the StoryPod –a space to record a messageandhelp form a mental health video.

Youth Council member Brienna Kamp hoped the event would help young people feel more connected.

“Mental health is a big problem around youth community because our brains are still developing and we don’t have as much experience in the world,” she said.

“A lot of the time we feel a little bit alone and are hard on ourselves… we face bullying, puberty and all of this hard stuff soit’s really helpful to know there are people out there who understand.”

The eventtakes place at Morshead Park on April 20and is aimed at people aged 12-25 with school groups encouraged to attend. To book your place visithttps://www.eventbrite苏州夜总会招聘.au/e/change-your-story-tickets-43541454663.

Stawell Gift – then and now | photo gallery 1968: In cold wintry conditions Jean Louis Ravelomanantsoa produced a memorable run by winning the Stawell Gift from scratch.

1961: Peter Donovan won the Stawell handicap over 880 yards and the following year set a new world record for the 600 yards. Photo: Stawell Gift

1981: Scotsman George McNeil won the 1981 Stawell Gift and celebrated by singing O Flower of Scotland to the crowd. Picture: Stawell Gift

1996: Cathy Freeman stormed home to win the Women’s 400m at the 1996 Stawell Gift.

1977: Warren Edmonson was the second fastest run recorded clocking 12 seconds from 1.25 metres. Photo: Stawell Gift

1958: After his first Stawell Gift victory John McCracken went on to win seven races at Stawell. Picture: Stawell Gift

2014: Ballarat schoolgirl Grace O’Dwyer became the first to win the Stawell Women’s Gift with prizemoney on parity to the title race. Picture: Pat Scala

2013: Jamaican sprint superstar Asafa Powell became the biggest international athlete to race at Stawell. Powell pulled out from the semi-finals with a hamstring.Picture: Lachlan Bence

2011: Mitchell Williams (in white) pulls a hamstring metres out from the finishing line but holds on to win the Gift, dedicating the effort to his cancer-striken mother. Picture: Joe Armao

2010: Champion pole-vaulter Steve Hooker was run out in heats but reinstated to semis when deemed disadvantaged due to track mis-measurement. He later pulled out with groin soreness. Picture: Lachlan Bence

2013: Olympian Tamsyn Manou (nee Lewis) reaches the semi-finals in her final Stawell Gift carnival. Manou bid farewell after 17 appearances at Central Park.

2011: Outspoken Olympian John Steffenson was run out as backmarker in Stawell Gift heats. Picture: Adam Trafford

Sarah Blizzard, Ararat, with her dad Neil, after winning her heat in the Stawell Strickland Family Women’s Gift

Luke Versace, black, wins the 2014 Stawell Gift.

Victorian Grace O’Dwyer, blue, took out the 120 metre Post Strickland Family Women’s Gift. This is the first year the women’s Gift has the same prize pool as the men’s. 2015 Woolworths Stawell Gift

Andrew Robinson wins the 2013 Stawell Gift. Robinson is the first Tasmanian to win the gift in 73-years (1941), with his coach Ray Quarrell

Stawell Women’s Gift winner Talia Martin on the shoulders of training partners and past Stawell Gift winners Holly Dobbyn and Grace O’Dwyer.

The moment O’Dwyer knew she won. Victorian Grace O’Dwyer, blue, took out the 120 metre Post Strickland Family Women’s Gift. This is the first year the women’s Gift has the same prize pool as the men’s. 2015 Woolworths Stawell Gift

Queenslander Murray Goodwin, white, took out the 120 metre Woolworths Stawell Gift. Goodwin is only the sixth Queenslander in the history of the Gift to win the event. 2015 Woolworths Stawell Gift

Kate Jones, pink, wins semi final 1 of the 2016 Womens Stawell Gift.

Holly Dobbyn wins the 2014 Womens Stawell Gift, celebrating with team mates.

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Wayne Bennett says agrees with an NRL referees crackdown on players consistently breaking the rules.Brisbane coach Wayne Bennett has urged the NRL not to blink as it tries to erase the bad habits that have crept into the game over the last three years.

Referees were under the gun on Friday night when 33 penalties were blown in Cronulla’s stop-start defeat of Melbourne that saw both Luke Lewis and Cameron Smith sin-binned.

But Bennett has backed the clamp down and says if his players break the rules against Gold Coast on Sunday they deserve to cop the consequences.

“It’s for the officials to decide and they’ve made a decision they’re going to clean up the play the ball and 10-metre area and I’m a fan of it because it’s going to give us a better game,” Bennett said.

“All we are trying to do is give the game back to the fans, that’s the way I see it.

“We’re in this state at the moment because the last three or four years there have been a lot of things let go.

“If the game blinks, well the coaches will be back in control but if the game stays strong, well we’re going to have to make sure our players are adhering to the rules.”

Bennett doesn’t expect a repeat of what transpired on Friday night against the Titans at Suncorp Stadium.

But he says it’s on him and his fellow coaches to tidy their teams up.

“The coaches in the end will get it under control; we got it out of control we’ll get it under control,” he said.

“If that’s the way the game goes, I don’t think it will be, and we’re breaking the rules then I understand the consequences.

“That’s all they’re doing, just enforcing the rules, they haven’t made any new ones.”

The Titans were embarrassed 54-8 by St George Illawarra last weekend and were trounced 54-0 by the Broncos in their last meeting.

Gold Coast current rank last in points, tries and line-breaks conceded, while also missing a league-high 40.3 tackles and 13.3 offloads per game.

Brisbane’s outside centres, particularly former Titan James Roberts, will rightfully be licking their lips despite Bennett expecting stiffer resistance this weekend.

“They’ll be trying to get some respect back,” Bennett said.

“We had that happen to us a couple of weeks ago (against the Dragons in the opening round) and I’m pretty confident of the mood they’ll turn up in.

“It won’t be hard for them to be motivated, they’re always a danger and trying to redeem some credibility after what happened last week.”

STATS THAT MATTER

– Brisbane has its best record of any current team against the Titans, winning 18 of 23 matches against them (78.3 per cent), including the last eight and 15 of the last 17.

– The Broncos are being awarded the fewest penalties (6.3) this season.

– Gold Coast has lost their past five away games and failed to score more than 16 points in any of them.

An IOC delegation led by President Thomas Bach (c), have discussed NKorea joining future Olympics.International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach has met Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang and says the North Korean leader is committed to having his country participate in the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics and the Beijing Winter Games in 2022.

Bach has told the Associated Press the two had a 30-minute formal meeting followed by 45 minutes of casual discussions while watching a football match on Friday afternoon at Pyongyang’s May Day Stadium.

He called the talks productive and said Kim expressed his appreciation for the IOC’s role in helping North Korea compete at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea last month.

“We had a very fruitful meeting where it became clear that the supreme leader has a clear vision of the role that sport can play in a society with regard to education, with regard to health,” Bach said.

He added that Kim told him the North’s participation in the Pyeongchang games and marching together with South Korean athletes were an “important contribution to a peaceful dialogue”.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency published a report on the meeting on Saturday, saying that Bach expressed his “heartfelt thanks” to Kim over the North’s participation in the Pyeongchang Games that made the event “symbolic of peace”.

In response, Kim told Bach he was “very thankful” that the IOC took special measures to allow for North Korean athletes to compete in South Korea and called for further cooperation with the IOC in developing winter sports and other sports activities in North Korea, the agency said.

Bach arrived in Pyongyang on Thursday to discuss development of sports in North Korea and the preparation of its athletes to qualify and participate in upcoming Olympics.

He is the first foreign official to meet Kim since the North Korean leader returned earlier this week from a summit in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Bach, who also met with North Korea’s sports minister, said he received a commitment from the county’s National Olympic Committee to participate in Tokyo in 2020 and Beijing in 2022, along with competing in the respective youth Olympic Games.

Both the North and South hailed the Pyeongchang Games as a significant step toward easing tensions on the Korean Peninsula that reached dangerously high levels last year as the North stepped up its missile tests and detonated its largest nuclear device to date.

Since the Olympics, the North has pushed forward with a flurry of diplomatic moves.

After his summit with South Korea President Moon Jae-in, Kim is to meet President Donald Trump by May, though the date and location of that summit have not been announced.

Hopes have been raised that the North Korean leader may be willing to discuss his nuclear weapons program and other measures to reduce the threat of war, possibly in exchange for security guarantees and an easing of the international sanctions that have severely pinched the already struggling North Korean economy.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres wants an independent investigation into the violence in Gaza.UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for an independent investigation into deadly clashes in Gaza between Palestinians and Israeli troops.

Security Council members have urged restraint on both sides, however, they have not decided on any action or joint message after an emergency meeting on Friday.

Kuwait convened the talks hours after the bloodiest day in Gaza since the 2014 cross-border war between Israel and Hamas.

Some 15 people were killed and more than 750 wounded by Israeli fire as thousands of Palestinian protesters marched to Gaza’s border with Israel, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

The Israeli military said that thousands of Palestinians threw stones and rolled burning tyres toward troops, that Palestinian gunmen fired toward soldiers in one incident and that militants were trying to conduct attacks under the cover of protests.

Mr Guterres wants “an independent and transparent investigation” into the violence, spokesman Farhan Haq said.

Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour said he was disappointed the Security Council did not unite to condemn what he called a “heinous massacre” of peaceful demonstrators, or to support his call to provide protection for Palestinian civilians.

“We expect the Security Council to shoulder its responsibility” and “defuse this volatile situation, which clearly constitutes a threat to international peace and security,” Mr Mansour said.

Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon said “the international community must not be deceived” by what he termed “a well-organised and violent terror-gathering” under the banner of a peaceful march.

“The Palestinians sunk to a new deceitful low so that they could use the UN to spread lies about Israel” while its representatives were not there because of the Passover holiday, Mr Danon said in a statement.

Some Security Council members suggested an investigation and emphasised that Israel should ensure force is only used proportionally.

Some also made a point of noting Israel’s security concerns and calling on demonstrators to avoid violence.

They all expressed alarm at the flare-up of conflict in a volatile region.

“The situation is extremely worrisome,” said Swedish deputy Ambassador Carl Skau.

The US, which often complains about what it sees as anti-Israel bias at the UN, urged all involved in the conflict to lower tensions.

Russia and China, meanwhile, emphasised a need to step up diplomatic efforts toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a whole.

Israel and Hamas have fought three cross-border wars in recent years.

The protests come as Gaza is in the 10th year of a border closure.

Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade after Hamas seized Gaza from forces loyal to the militants’ rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in 2007.

Malcolm Turnbull says there is no justification for Russia’s expulsion of two n diplomats.Moscow has given two n diplomats a week to leave Russia in retaliation for Canberra booting out two of its spies.

In a joint statement on Saturday morning, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said there is no justification for the expulsions by Russia.

“This is a disappointing, although not unexpected, reaction by the Russian Government to the decision of the n Government to expel two Russian diplomats working as undeclared intelligence officers,” the statement said.

“‘s action was in concert with 28 other nations expelling a total of 153 Russian diplomats in an unprecedented demonstration of global solidarity with the United Kingdom.”

On Wednesday Ms Bishop announced two Russian spies had been given six days to leave , in a show of solidarity with the UK over the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury.

Labor leader Bill Shorten supported the government’s decision, calling it an appropriate and proportionate response.

“The Russian Government must understand there are real consequences for engaging in attacks on foreign soil and refusing to tell the truth about them,” he said in a joint statement with Labor senator Penny Wong on Saturday.

“We have to act in the way that we believe is in ‘s national interest, and on this occasion that was sending a strong signal that we reject Russia’s action and we stand with our friends and allies.”

‘s ambassador to Russia Peter Tesch was among the diplomats summoned to the Russian foreign ministry on Friday to be told of the expulsions.

The diplomatic mission in Moscow has 10 staff.

In total, Russia will expel 59 diplomats from 23 countries following on the expulsion of 23 British and 60 American diplomats earlier in the week.

Former n cricket vice-captain fears his international career may be finished. Former n cricket vice-captain David Warner fears his international career may be finished.

A distraught David Warner fears his international career is over because of his “inexcusable” role in cricket’s ball-tampering scandal and is considering retirement.

Warner revealed during a press conference in Sydney on Saturday that he was weighing up whether or not to to attempt to return following his 12-month ban handed down by Cricket .

The former vice-captain admitted he faced a long road back from the scandal which has rocked the game to its core.

“In the back of my mind I suppose there is a tiny ray of hope that I may one day be given the privilege of playing for my country again, but I am resigned to the fact that that may never happen,” Warner said.

Asked if retirement was an option, Warner, 31, said: “That’s something that I will continue to sit down with my family and weigh up all my considerations before I make any decisions.”

Warner and axed captain Steve Smith received one-year suspensions for their role in the affair while batsman Cameron Bancroft has been banned for nine months.

Addressing the media for the first time since Bancroft was caught tampering with the ball during the third Test against South Africa in Cape Town last week, Warner said he took responsibility for his actions.

“To all ns, whether you’re a cricket fan or not, I apologise for the impact those actions have had on our country’s reputation,” Warner said, fighting back tears.

“I’ve only ever wanted to bring glory to my country through playing cricket.

“I failed in my responsibilities as vice-captain of the n cricket team.”

But Warner frustrated reporters and a nation demanding answers by repeatedly deflecting questions about whether any teammates outside the banned trio knew of the cheating plot or whether he had tampered with the ball on previous occasions.

“I am here to talk about the part I played in this. It’s inexcusable. I am sorry,” Warner said.

“In the coming weeks and months, I’m going to look at how this happened and who I am as a man.

“I will seek out advice and expertise to help me make serious changes.”

Warner’s wife Candice sat in the back of the Cricket NSW amphitheatre and was clearly emotional as Warner fielded answered questions about the saga for the first time.

He refused to call himself a scapegoat after being fingered as the architect of the plot.

Asked whether South African wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock’s remarks about his wife and other taunts from sections of the hostile crowds played a part in his decision to engage in ball tampering, Warner said: “It’s tough for me to talk about where my thought space was on that day given the circumstances that happened in Durban but I’m here to take full responsibility of my actions of the part that I played on day three in Newlands.

“I am extremely sorry and I really, really regret it. It’s a decision that will stick with me for the rest of my life.”

The 31-year-old’s bans will cost him millions of dollars, with his $2.4 million IPL contract torn up, as well as lucrative sponsorships.

But Warner indicated he had accepted Cricket ‘s 12-month ban and said he supported the governing body’s probe into the culture of the n team.

When asked if he was surprised by the furore that had erupted and whether he had misjudged the mood of the nation, Warner said: “I’m not surprised at all.

“We let our country down. It was a bad decision, I played my part in that.

“It’s going to take a long time to earn respect back from the public.”

Former n Test Cricketer David Warner fronts the media at Moore Park. Picture: Brook Mitchelln cricket vice captain David Warner said the decision to partake in the ball tampering scheme was one he “will regret for the rest of his life”.

In a press conference in Sydney, a tearful Warner addressed media and cricket officials.

“In the back of my mind there is a tiny ray of hope that I may one day be given the privilege of playing for my country again,” he said.

Picture: Brook Mitchell

“I am resigned to the fact that mightnever happen.”

Warner said he will take the next months to think about “how this has happened” and “who he is as a man”.

Related Coverage

CA investigation: Futures of Smith Lehman hang in the balanceSteve Smith breaks down, takes full responsibility for ball tamperingSmith, Warner and Bancroft sent home, heavy sanctions to followDark day for n cricket as Steve Smith admits plan to cheatWarner extended the apology to his wife and daughters.

“Your love means more than anything to me,” he said.

“I will never put you in this position again.”

Watch LIVE: David Warner speaks to the media in Sydney https://t苏州夜场招聘/Psybip9QLZ

— cricket苏州夜总会招聘.au (@CricketAus) March 31, 2018

Warner said he takes full responsibility for his part in the scheme.

When asked if the scandal was his idea, Warner responded he was here to take responsibility for his part.

“It is extremely regrettable,” he said.

Warner said he was “not surprised at all” as to how the n public had reacted to the scandal.

Captain Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft were also embroiled in the scandal which unfoldedon the third day of the South Africa test in Cape Town

Anita Shreve, author of 19 novels, including The Pilot’s Wife and The Weight of Water, has died.Anita Shreve, the best-selling novelist who explored how women responded to crises past and present in her native New England in favourites such as The Pilot’s Wife, Testimony and The Weight of Water, has died. She was 71.

Publisher Alfred A Knopf said Shreve, who had been battling cancer, died on Thursday at her home in New Hampshire.

Shreve had announced her illness last year on Facebook, writing that a “medical emergency” would prevent her from touring for what became her last novel, The Stars Are Fire.

Knopf editor Jordan Pavlin said in a statement on Friday that Shreve’s “writing has touched the lives of millions of readers around the world, and she did some of her most elegant, rich, and unforgettable work in the last years of her life”.

Fellow writers, from Jodi Picoult to Terry McMillan, also offered tributes.

Sue Monk Kidd tweeted that Shreve was “an amazing writer who offered unparalleled generosity to other writers, including me”.

Shreve’s novels sold millions of copies, especially after Oprah Winfrey chose The Pilot’s Wife for her book club in 1999.

Shreve was also a favourite source for Hollywood. The Pilot’s Wife, Resistance and The Weight of Water all were adapted into movies.

Her literary honours included an O.Henry Prize for the story ‘Past the Island, Drifting’ and being a finalist for England’s Orange Prize for The Weight of Water. Shreve wrote 19 novels in all, and preferred to work in longhand.

“The creative impulse, the thing that gets deep inside me, goes from the brain to the fingertips,” she told The Writer magazine.

“When you’re writing by hand, even when you’re not consciously thinking about it, you’re constructing sentences in the best way possible. And I still get the thrill of the clean pad of notepaper and the pencil all sharpened.”

Born in Dedham, Massachusetts, and a graduate of Tufts University, she began writing fiction while a high school teacher in Reading, Massachusetts, and worked for a time as a journalist in Kenya.

As teenager, she had loved Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night and aspired to “the romantic angst of a tragic writer”. Around the same time, she spent a snowy afternoon reading Edith Wharton’s spare and bitter Ethan Frome and would cite it as a lasting influence.

“The universe within Wharton’s enduring tale is snowbound and isolated, just as frozen and stark as the world outside my window that day,” Shreve wrote in Winfrey’s magazine “O” in 2004.

“Never before had I experienced reality and fiction merging so powerfully. I have said often that this book was the beginning of my life as a novelist.”

She wrote of women haunted or traumatised.

“It doesn’t interest me to write about women who aren’t real,” Shreve told The Writer in 2014.

“My mother once said, ‘The minute I read that a character is beautiful, I flip the book over my shoulder.’ It lacks authenticity.”

Shreve was married twice, mostly recently to John Osborn, and had two daughters.

FAMILY AFFAIR: Shelly Ives and her daughter Katey Ison are two of the host of officials working at the Bathurst 6 Hour. Photo: CONTRIBUTED

Come Sunday afternoon it will be drivers who are spraying champagne on the Bathurst 6 Hour podium at Mount Panorama, but they would not get the chance to do so without the hard work of officials.

Up and down Pit Laneand across the mountain, officials are working hard to make sure the Bathurst 6 Hour runs as smoothly as possible.

​Someone that knows all about the importance of officials is Shelly Ives. She has beenofficial in some capacity for 25 years, having started at out Lakeside in Queensland.

“I just walked in there, I was the only girl and I started in the dummy grid area. I worked in the Pit Lanearea–I did that for about four years or so,” she said.

“Then I started travelling to Bathurst and Indy and I went to Clipsal then I became CRO, which is Competitor Relations Officer. That’s a little bit like being an adviser between the driver and the stewards –you help the driver out.”

Ives filled that official role for nine years –travelling totracks across the nation –before switching to another motor sport job.

She became the first female team manager in the Konica Development Series and from the contacts she created in that role, was offered a chance to work as an official for a Supercars outfit.

Ives had a host of regulations to familiarise herself with and learned pit strategy by “sitting there and doing it”.

“Their rule book was like a frigging door stop. I was with that Konica team for two or three years and I helped out a main game team –V8s –for half a year,” she said.

Ives spent more time working for both teams in the development series and Supercars, before moving again into the V8 Utes category.

There she filled a host of roles:“I was pit manager, I was operations manager, I did PR, I’ve done commentating at this circuit and other circuits, I had a catering business.”

Nowadays Ives is category manager for n Production Cars, while at Mount Panorama over the weekend she worked as a member of the6 Hour Fibre 15 team.

She helped that outfit with data about their pit stops, but Ives knows firsthand thatofficials who were busy across the mountain at the same time were just as important.

“You can’t run a race meting without officials,” Ives said.

“It’s a safety aspect, you need people out there with flags. You can have lights, but somebody has got to activate them, somebody has got to be there if there’s a fire, somebody has got to be there if there’s an accident, so you can not have motor sport without officials.”

Ives clearly has a passion for what she does –one she now shares with her daughter Katey Ison –but she would love to see more people become involved in motor sport as officials.

“It’s great, I love it.My daughter Katey comes along now … I’ve trained her and she helps out with the team. Her and I are a team within a team,” she said.

“Being an official, it just opens up so many doors. It’s great camaraderie with everybody –the good thing now is that I can go to a track and I know the officials, all the team people, it takes half an hour to walk two garages because you keep getting stopped.

“At the end of the race they thank officials, but they really do need more acknowledgement and we need more people to come along and join up.

“The thing is, the officials who are up the top, they are getting older, so we need new blood coming in so we can start training them to one day take over.

“If you like drivers, you get to meet them, you actually get to be more personal with them and get to see what goes on in a team –it’s a win-win situation.”