Beachwatch: After a wet Saturday and a windy Sunday it’s going to be a pretty good Monday with plenty of sunshine. The wind will be south-west to south with the swell from the south at a very solid 2 to 3 metres plus. Unfortunately most open beaches will be off limits due to the dangerous surf conditions with only a few big wave warriors expected to venture out. Around town try Stockton, the reef breaks at Nobbys, Flatrock, Merewether and Dudley. To the south try Blacksmiths and Catho. At Port Stephens try Fingal Bay and One Mile. Most beaches will be closed for swimming so be extra careful if you’re around the ocean and don’t even consider rock fishing. The water temperature is 17 degrees.

Trains: Good service on the Newcastle and Hunter lines.

Traffic: No major incidents reported on Hunter roads.

BEFORE a ball was kicked this season, the Newcastle Jets were confident they had greater depth and more selection options than in recent years. That theory was reinforced at Spotless Stadium on Sunday night, when they overcame the loss of two players to injury – and a 2-0 deficit – to salvage a competition point against Western Sydney Wanderers. Read more.

WOULD-be cowboy, Johno, came face-to-face with a dairy calf on Friday when Bobs Farm embraced its rural heritage. Read more.

LAKE Macquarie public schools will receive $2.5 million in additional needs-based funding in 2017. Read more.

DENTIST Chris Wilson faced some big decisions five years ago. This month he was made an honorary life member of the NSW Branch of the Australian Dental Association. Read more.

AS dawn warmed the Hunter Valley on Sunday, the technicolour bodies of sixteen hot air balloons took shape and took flight for the Balloon Aloft Fiesta. Read more.

LABOR’s Tim Crakanthorp has been forced off Newcastle City Council by the Baird government’s “get Clover Moore” laws stopping MPs from sitting on local councils. Read more.

A HUNTER company has been fined $240,000 for “wholly disregarding” the safety of a teenage work experience student who suffered permanent eye damage after welding for up to five hours without a safety visor. Read more.

POLICE late on Sunday urged anyone with information to come forward after an elderly couple were terrorised by two masked men armed with a large knife in a “cowardly” invasion at their Merewether Heights home. Read more.

State of the nation 

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

► BENDIGO: Violence again erupted at the Malmsbury Youth Justice Facility on Saturday evening, when officers were confronted by about a dozen young offenders who are understood to have caused significant damage to the Deakin Unit. 

The rampage began at about 7pm on Saturday and it took almost three hours for the Youth Justice Safety Emergency Response Team to regain control.

It is understood the group ripped benches from their fittings and armed themselves with metal legs before taunting guards at the facility north-east of Kyneton.

► NEWCASTLE: About  60 people gathered outside Newcastle Museum on Sunday and walked to Civic Park, to protest what they said is mounting prejudice in Australia against asylum seekers and refugees.

The “Walk Together” rally was part of a national day of inter-faith demonstration, and some in Civic Park held placards reading “Refugees and asylum seekers welcome” and “Keep calm and welcome refugees”.

Anglican priest Rod Bower, whose Gosford church has made headlines for its socially progressive messageboard, told those gathered that opponents of multiculturalism didn’t speak for Australia.

►BALLARAT: Opera singer Fiona Jopson has been without a day job for a year and she’s glad of it.

The Melbourne-based singer won the Herald Sun Aria last year and has since worked with Opera Australia and Victorian Opera.

On Saturday she returned to Her Majesty’s Theatre for a recital in the theatre’s Long Room, accompanied by Melbourne pianist Stefan Cassomenos.

► KILLARNEY BEACH: A call has been made to turn Killarney beach into a protected coastal park.

The Belfast Coastal Reserve Action Group (BCRAG) held a community day at Killarney beach on Saturday which attracted an audience of 120. 

Killarney resident and BCRAG member Shane Howard said the creation of a coastal park would help take commercial training of racehorses off Killarney beach.

► BATHURST: Two people have died and one person has been seriously injured after a single vehicle crash in the state’s Central Tablelands.

Just after 9.10am on Saturday emergency services were called to Burraga Road, Gilmandyke, about 50km south of Bathurst.

A Toyota Land Cruiser utility had reportedly lost control and crashed.

► HUNTER: Tony Jones disappeared without a trace in one of Australia’s most baffling cold cases.

The 20-year-old man from Perth, vanished while hitchhiking between Townsville and Mount Isa in November 1982.

On February 20, 2002 during an inquest into the disappearance, Coroner Ian Fisher ruled that Jones was a victim of homicide. 

"I am satisfied that the missing person is dead," the coroner’s findings stated. 

► EDUCATION: Australia's biggest private colleges have received up to $264 million a year from taxpayers despite having completion rates as low as one in 10 students, new data reveals.

One college, which has since gone into administration, received $114 million from the government last year while achieving a minuscule completion rate of just 1.7 per cent.

The figures, to be released by the Turnbull government on Monday, underline the stunning waste of taxpayer money that has occurred under the under the soon-to-be-scrapped VET FEE-HELP scheme.

► HOUSING PRICES: Treasurer Scott Morrison has put the states on notice over booming house prices, flagging a major push by the Turnbull government to increase supply and help first home buyers own their own home.

And Mr Morrison will promise the next meeting of state and federal treasurers, to be held in December, will focus on how state governments can do away with planning rules that stop, or delay, new houses being built.

He will also leave the door open to incentives for state governments to reform their laws and release more land, in a broadening of one of the key recommendations of the Harper review of competition policy.

► REFUGEES: After spending a year in the detention room of Istanbul's Ataturk Airport, Fadi Mansour smiles when he sees a plane passing at his home near Melbourne Airport.

His arduous journey spanning over a year and several countries underscores the lengths he went to in escaping the worsening turmoil in Syria, the source of the largest number of refugees worldwide.

The Syrian asylum seeker, 28, was resettled in Australia in June after the Australian government granted him a humanitarian visa.

► Riau, Sumatra: Haji Muhammad Yunus is in a cantankerous mood.

A diminutive man in a peci cap and blue batik shirt, Yunus is the head of a tiny village, Sering in the Sumatran province of Riau, one of the areas worst affected by last year's deadly haze crisis.

This toxic haze, which chokes South-east Asia year after year, is caused by fires on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra.

Most are deliberately lit because burning is the cheapest and easiest way to clear land for palm oil and other crops.

But there will be no fires in Sering if Yunus has anything to do with it.

► AMERICA: When Dr Tony Beam sits down before the microphone at 7am to begin his breakfast radio shift in rural South Carolina, he wears a pin in his lapel for the North Greenville University, the Christian college at which he is vice-president for student services, and a semi-automatic pistol on his hip.

He begins the show with a tin mug of coffee by his right hand a newsletter from Rush Limbaugh, the king of right-wing talk radio in America, at his left. (Campus security reports to him, he explains when he sees me take note of the gun under his blazer.)

Beam, a Southern Baptist evangelical pastor, is the host of Christian Worldview Today, in which he discusses politics from a Christian perspective. This campaign has been a difficult one for Beam, as unlike most of his listeners, he cannot support Donald Trump.

► 1949: The cornerstone of the United Nations Headquarters is laid.

► 1977: Veterans Day is observed on the fourth Monday in October for the seventh and last time. (The holiday is once again observed on November 11 beginning the following year.) 

► 2003:  Concorde makes its last commercial flight.

►2008: "Bloody Friday" saw many of the world's stock exchanges experienced the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices.

Salt Ash resident Jade Morgan’s hope for the newly reinstated Senate inquiry into Lyme disease is that the illness is formally recognised in Australia and brings an end to sufferers’ battles to be treated.

Miss Morgan, who has Lyme disease, fought for four years to have her illness accurately diagnosed. 

But life did not get better for the 24 year old after finding out she had the tick-borne disease. 

If anything, it has been harder she said, as the disease is not currently recognised by the Australian medical profession or the government. 

Many doctors refuse to believe it exists in the country. Read more of Jade’s story here.