Canberra Now: Molonglo exempt from EIS, Briolette in Manuka to close

Another fresh start for the second day of July, with the bureau predicting a low of minus 2 degrees, rising to a 13 degree maximum. Fog lights at the ready, drivers, with patchy fog and frost in the morning and light winds later.

Here's a taste of our coverage this winter Monday:

A major government housing development was exempted from environmental assessment requirements despite sewage contamination and concerns over explosive ordnance waste.

Stage three of the ACT government’s Molonglo Valley urban development, located behind the National Arboretum, is expected to house about 27,000 people over 800 hectares.

A 2017 report from environmental consultants Umwelt identified the potential presence of unexploded ammunition at the site.

Steve Trask has the story here.

It was once Canberra's answer to Rodeo Drive; a bustling block of expensive boutique clothing and jewellery stores that lured the women of Griffith, Red Hill and Yarralumla in for hours of shopping and a quick coffee at Caph's afterward.

But it's a much quieter time for retailers at the Manuka shops in 2018, as Bree Winchester reports.

Canberra's Bianca Elmir has been pushing boundaries throughout her boxing career; a journey that's now been profiled in a new documentary, Bam Bam.

Melbourne filmmaker Jemma van Loenen spent two years filming Elmir’s quest to be world bantamweight amateur boxing champion, culminating in her representing Australia in the far flung city of Astana, Kazakhstan in 2016.

‘‘She’s very inspiring, she’s extremely articulate and she has very much a no-holds-barred approach to life," van Loenen said.

Read Carolyn Webb's story here.

The Tradies Club has secured 73 poker machine authorisations from its old Woden club, ahead of a report that will help determine the future of the ACT's pokies trading scheme.

Read my report here.

Respected former Defence Department and ASIO chief Dennis Richardson has been refused entry to Russia in a diplomatic jab at Australia because of its own sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s circle of oligarchs.

Mr Richardson was holidaying with his wife Betty when he was turned away on Thursday by Russian immigration officials at St Petersburg in apparent retaliation to the Australian government's travel bans against senior members of Mr Putin’s network after Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014.

David Wroe has the story.