Good morning Canberra and welcome to Thursday. Friends fans might keep track of the week by remembering it as the week's third day, as advised by Joey, after Monday ("one day"), Tuesday ("two day") and Wednesday ("when? Huh? What day?"). Maybe not such a useful rule of thumb.
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More useful is the weather forecast, although there are the obvious detractors. The Bureau of Meteorology says Thursday will reach a top of 27 and will be mostly sunny. As for tomorrow, Canberra's weather should max out at 30 degrees in temperature, and again stay mostly sunny. Because it's just in that sort of mood.
Let's take a look at the top headlines this morning.
Tom Banks' no-fear mindset for Super Rugby season
Flying fullback Tom Banks will start the biggest year of his career when the Brumbies play against the Melbourne Rebels at Canberra Stadium in the first game of the season.
He's on the Wallabies' radar for the World Cup this year, as a conversation with Brumbies coach Dan McKellar has given him a licence to play without fear and unlocked his attacking brilliance.
Banks is the attacking spark the Brumbies have been searching for, leading a revival towards the end of last season but ultimately falling short of their finals goal.
"The biggest thing was just about playing without fear. I think that has helped me a lot," he told Chris Dutton in our special Super Rugby season guide out today.
'West Side Story' likes to live in the ACT
You won't have to buy a plane ticket to see it.West Side Story will hit Australia's shores in a multi-million dollar production of the popular musical this year.
Canberra has been announced as the final stop on a global tour of the New York tale.
Producers are hoping to follow the success of the 2017 season of Mamma Mia, which sold a record-breaking 33,000 tickets at Canberra Theatre and generated an estimated $4.5m in economic activity in Canberra.
Canberra bites the dust, a lot
The national capital turned into a brown hued, post-apocalyptic dustscape on Tuesday. But it was no standalone phenomenon.
Scientists say record levels of dust unseen in the territory have bombarded Canberra this summer.
Monitors at Wagga Wagga, the ACT's closest dust-monitoring station, recorded 48 dust hours in January. The last time the Canberra region saw this much dust was 2009, where monitors recorded 37 hours in November that year.
Finbar O'Mallon has the details in this story.
Question: What came first, the lizard or the egg? Answer: Both
The old chicken and egg conundrum has a new spin if you factor in the lizards of South America's Andes Mountains. They laid eggs, evolved to birth live young, then evolved to lay eggs again.
Australian National University researcher Damien Esquerré and colleagues have found species of the Liolaemus lizards have basically broken Dollo's Law.
"[Dollo's Law says] once you lose a structure like limbs in a snake, or eyes in cave animals, or eggs in lizards, it's very, very unlikely to regain it," Mr Esquerré said.
Breaking it is a very rare occurence, now discovered in this species of lizard, writes Finbar O'Mallon.
Canberra Capitals lose game two thriller
Less than one second remained on the clock but that was all the Adelaide Lightning needed to give their future a pulse.
The Canberra Capitals have let their grasp on the WNBL trophy slip following a heartbreaking 74-73 loss to the Adelaide Lightning at Adelaide Arena on Wednesday night.
It leaves Canberra’s pursuit of an eighth title in jeopardy while Adelaide’s hunt for a sixth - and potentially the club’s future - is alive and well.
Just like that, we are on the way back to Canberra.
Caden Helmers was in Adelaide for game two.
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