The World Today

It's taken sixty years of dreaming, planning and technical innovation, but now after a long wait, NASA is preparing to send a space probe to the sun. The space agency has announced it will launch the mission next year. It's hoped the probe will be able to send home data that will enable scientists to gain a better understanding of the star at the centre of the solar system.

Lizzie Gardiner stunned the Hollywood crowd when she wore a dress entirely made of credit cards to accept the Oscar for her costume design on the now cult film Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Now the girl from Dubbo is working again with the Priscilla writer. Their new film about the free-range parenting of the 1970s will be released later this year. And as the team behind the ABC podcast The Real Thing discovered, some parts of this film are uncomfortably close to Lizzie Gardiners own upbringing.

There are calls for the NSW horseracing industry to improve the way it handles complaints of bullying. Horse trainers say that the problem is rife and so bad for some that they've contemplated suicide.

The family of a Victorian schoolgirl has confirmed that she was one of the victims of a bomb blast in Baghdad on Monday night. Twelve-year-old Zynab Al Harbiya was killed at an ice cream parlour in the Iraqi capital, when Islamic State terrorists set off a car bomb. Family friends have described her as loving and fun; while the principal of her Melbourne school says prayers have been said for an energetic, outspoken and passionate student.

The head of ASIO is standing by his comments that there is no evidence linking refugees to terrorism. Duncan Lewis has been criticised for making the comments during Senate estimates last week. The director-general is standing by his remarks. He's told the ABC that he doesn't believe refugees are more susceptible to becoming extremists.

The heads of Australia's major commercial media organisations have launched a 'charm offensive' in Canberra today. They're trying to persuade the nation's senators to support the Government's plan to lift ownership restrictions on the industry that they say are outdated. They argue that the decades-old regulations that were intended to insure diversity are instead crippling their ability to compete with unregulated digital media players like Google and Facebook. But key senators have their own ideas on how to deal with that problem.

Despite the efforts of regulators, there's evidence that investors are still taking up the lion's share of new loans. The data came just hours after the Prime Minister gave the keynote address to a CEDA (Committee for Economic Development of Australia) conference in Canberra on what will drive future growth in the Australian economy.

The New South Wales coroner has determined that two men who died while working on one of the world's biggest coal carriers were victims of foul play. The chief cook of the MV Sage Sagittarius, Caesar Llanto, disappeared overboard in August 2012, while chief engineer Hector Collado was killed when the ship was docking at the Port of Newcastle two weeks later. A third crew member, highly experienced seaman Kosaku Monji, died weeks later onboard the same ship whilst it was moored in Japan. The inquest heard the deaths were highly suspicious and that on-board audio recordings were intentionally deleted.

Disgraced Australian entertainer, Rolf Harris, was free to head home today after a jury in London failed to reach a verdict on the latest indecent assault charges against him and the prosecution said it would not seek a retrial. Harris had only just been released from jail where he'd been serving time over his earlier indecent assault convictions.

The relationship between US President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel appears to be hardening further today. President Trump doubled down on his comments during the NATO meeting earlier in the week by taking to Twitter on his return home and attacking Germany over its trade and spending policies. Chancellor Merkel has restated her position that Europe must seek new alliances.