Here's what you need to know this morning.
Open letter from Opposition Leader
The new Labor leader has written to the Premier requesting a briefing on the COVID-19 situation in NSW.
In the letter released by Chris Minns's office to the media, he again praises the job Gladys Berejiklian and her health minister have done in managing the pandemic.
But he said with the emergence of more easily transmitted variants, it was clear the threat was far from over.
He said he wanted to understand the nature of the current threat and the progress of the state's vaccination program.
Lower crop yields as mice plague looms
NSW's winter crop is forecast to be less than 2020's record of 18 million tonnes, with farmers concerned the mouse plague will make things worse.
The outlook from federal agency ABARES said the upcoming harvest is expected to be a third lower than last year, at 13 million tonnes.
Farmers are worried the mouse plague will damage winter plantings, with many already losing summer crops to the mice.
Cassilis landholder Ant Martin said all of his sorghum had been eaten.
"No grain left whatsoever. We're just trying to work out now how we're going to get rid of the crop. We're either going to slash and try and mulch it if we can," he said.
New vaccination hub to open
NSW's second mass vaccination hub has been earmarked to open in an old hardware warehouse.
The mass vaccination centre in Lake Macquarie will vaccinate more than 20,000 people a week, to boost the current Homebush centre's 5,000 inoculations a week rate.
Health Minister Brad Hazzard said the centre would employ up to 100 nurses, 25 pharmacists and more than 200 support staff in the Hunter region when it opens in mid-July.
The centre will administer both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccine.
Roberts-Smith hearing continues
Australian war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith will be back in the Federal Court today as the opening in his defamation case against three newspapers continues.
In an opening address which started yesterday, Mr Robert-Smith's barrister Bruce McClintock quoted former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill: "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would do us harm."
He said Mr Roberts-Smith was a skilled soldier who was doing his job when he killed insurgents in Afghanistan, including a Taliban fighter who used a prosthetic leg to conceal explosives.
The Victorian Cross recipient is suing the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and the Canberra Times over stories that allege he committed war crimes.
Part of the hearing today will be in closed court, to maintain the secrecy of national security information.
Police investigate man approaching children
Police are investigating if the same man was behind two separate instances of young children being approached in the Manly Vale area on Sydney's northern beaches on the weekend.
In the first incident, two six-year-old children were playing in a front yard on Saturday afternoon when a middle-aged man with grey hair called out to them from the car he was driving, offering them lollies.
Officers say a man fitting a similar description was seen acting in an "intimidating manner" towards another young person while she was walking along a street in the suburb later that same day.
Police were only told of both incidents yesterday (Monday) and have appealed for public assistance in their investigation to identify the man involved.
Idea to buy flood prone homes rejected
The Minister for Western Sydney has rejected an idea to buy-back homes in flood prone areas, saying it would be too expensive.
A NSW parliament inquiry is looking into the government's proposal to raise the Warragamba Dam wall to mitigate flooding in the Hawkesbury Nepean valley.
The inquiry heard a suggestion that the government should consider gradually buying back up to 5,000 homes in the most flood prone parts of the valley instead of raising the dam wall.
But Minister Stuart Ayres said that would be far more expensive than the current proposal, arguing it would be well in excess of $4.5 billion and drive housing prices up.
