State of the nation | Sunday, February 26, 2017

► ILLAWARRA, NSW: Dapto wildman Andrew Ucles is on the comeback trail after losing his health, his TV deal and - almost - his mind.  Andrew Ucles disappears into the upstairs level of his parents’ Horsley home and returns holding a small vial of clear fluid with a maggot-like botfly larva suspended inside.  More here.

► GOULBURN, NSW: A former Salvation Army officer will again front court in May. John Dalziel McIver, 77, faced Downing Centre Local Court on Thursday. He was charged in November with six counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, four of common assault and two of indecent assault on a male. More here.

► CAMDEN, NSW: Two drug overdoses and 28 drug detections were made at an electronic music festival south-west of Sydney on Friday. More here.

► NEWCASTLE, NSW: GOUGH Whitlam wrote a letter to Pope Benedict XVI in October, 2012, nearly four decades after his government granted formal diplomatic recognition to the Vatican, and only weeks before another Labor prime minister, Julia Gillard, established a royal commission that would expose the extent of child sexual abuse within the Australian Catholic Church. More here.

► TAREE, NSW: Ed Caruana, a Rural Fire Service volunteer, has written a heartfelt poem about fighting the ferocious Pappinbarra bushfires. More here.

► BENDIGO, VIC: It was a week that saw major breakthroughs in the mysterious disappearance of Avondale Heights woman Karen Ristevski. More here.

► BALLARAT, VIC: Researchers are a step closer to finding a cure for cancer following another successful Relay For Life in Ballarat. More here.

► KATHERINE, NT: Hidden in the heart of outback Queensland is a man with an unusual hobby. Located 28 kilometres south of Mount Isa on Rifle Creek Station, Ian Campbell spent his wet season breaking in mules. More here.

► TASMANIA: Good news, Penny and Phillip. That sterling silver pendant one of you lost 37 years ago; Paul Musson found it and he wants to give it back. More here.

►TASMANIA: When the parliamentary inquiry into gambling in Tasmania resumes on Tuesday, the committee will hear from two of the most ardent opponents of poker machines in the country. More here.

► QUEENSLAND: ​It's off - the 2017 Burrumbuttock Hay Run is on its way north to Queensland. More here.

► WHYALLA, SA: State Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis has once again put pressure on the federal government to contribute $100 million to help a new owner upgrade the Whyalla Steelworks. More here.

►BUNBURY, WA: The students from Grace Christian School looked beautiful all dressed up for their Winter Wonderland themed school ball. More here.

► MANDURAH, WA: Premier Colin Barnett has promised $40,000 for new and upgraded lighting at the South Mandurah Tennis Club if he is re-elected on March 11. More here.

► THE Catholic Church is a world organisation “struggling to come to terms with the safety of children and its responsibilities in that area”, two members of Pope Francis’s child protection commission told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. More here.

►CONCERNS have been raised about the risks of releasing a killer-virus into Australia’s carp population. More here.

► Parts of the Great Barrier Reef are enduring sustained periods of heat stress worse than at the same time during last year's record-breaking coral bleaching event, raising fears the natural wonder may suffer another hammering. More here.

►Eman Sharobeem's life story reads like an inspiring tale of overcoming the odds: forced into an arranged marriage to her first cousin as a teenager, then widowed at 29 with two young sons, having endured a violent 14-year marriage. More here.

► In the Kimberley, Australia's great north-western wilderness, the late-afternoon sun hangs above the horizon like a ball of fire. It dazzled Josh Warneke as he drove round a bend on his way home to the coastal town of Broome after a camping trip. Realising too late that there were cattle on the road ahead, the 21-year-old swerved to the right, then over-corrected and veered into the powdery red soil to the left of the bitumen.  More here.

► He was the love of her life - "best friend and soul mate" - and he was brutally murdered with a pool cue after trying to break up a fight in a South African bar. More here.

► Family members of the Indian men shot at a bar in Olathe, Kansas, in a possible hate crime said they feared the current atmosphere of fear and xenophobia in the United States means the country is not a safe place for Indians, with one father exhorting parents not to send their children there. More here.

► Actress Emma Thompson has said she is not taking part in a short "Love Actually" sequel for Britain's Comic Relief charity appeal because it is "too soon" to reprise her role in the romantic comedy after the death last year of co-star Alan Rickman. More here.

1863 - U.S. President Lincoln signed the National Currency Act. 

1916 - Mutual signed Charlie Chaplin to a film contract.

1932 – Musician Johnny Cash was born

1970 - The Beatles album "Beatles Again" was released in the U.S. It contained the song "Hey Jude."  

1975 - Sonny and Cher's divorce became final. 

1987 - The U.S.S.R. conducted its first nuclear weapons test after a 19-month moratorium period.

1993 - Six people were killed and more than a thousand injured when a van exploded in the parking garage beneath the World Trade Center in New York City. The bomb had been built by Islamic extremists. 

1998 - Tommy Lee of Motley Crue was formally charged with abusing his wife Pamela Anderson Lee, and one of their sons, Dylan. 

2008 - Apple announced that the iTunes Store had surpassed Best Buy to become the second largest music seller in the U.S. The number one seller at the time was Walmart . 

Sister Kay Carmody has been in the nursing game so long, she now works with some of the babies she used to look after decades ago.

The tresillian nurse has celebrated 25 years at Amcal Max Rutherford, having been on board since the baby clinic first started. More here.