Multi-Grammy award winner and ukulele player Daniel Ho.

The Hawaiian-born musician, producer, composer and song writer has led an impressive career, winning the Grammy for  Best Hawaiian Music Album six years in a row.

At the National Folk Festival he’ll perform and hold free workshops in the ukulele; what he describes as the  ”easiest instrument in the world to play”. He’ll also use the festival to release his new, and still unnamed, vocal album that he says has a contemporary acoustic sound, with elements of jazz, classical, folk and pop.

“The orchestration is piano based, with drums, slack-key guitar and ukulele.  The songs are about life in Hawaii and personal experiences,” he says.

“It’s sort of a culmination of everything I’ve done to date.”

Daniel arrives in Australia in April after touring Japan, Singapore and Taiwan. After the National Folk Festival, he’ll go on to tour Thailand, Kuala Lumpur and Korea.

National Folk Festival, April 5-9 at Exhibition Park. More information at  http://www.folkfestival.org.au/or call Venue Tix on 1300 235 849.

According to the Economic Development Directorate the decision was made to prevent damage to turf surfaces.

A spokesperson said a further assessment will be made later today and any decision on the sportsgrounds remaining closed will be made tomorrow morning before 9 am.

“Given the forecast for further heavy rain, the likelihood of the closures continuing remains high,” the spokesperson said.

“EDD apologises for any inconvenience.”

More information contact Canberra Connect on 13 22 81.

About 5.50pm, the offender, dressed in dark clothing, glasses and a bandanna over his face, entered the Lyneham Capital Chemist and walked to the back of the store.

Police said the offender told chemist staff he would not hurt them if they complied with his demands.

The offender was given various medications and placed them in a green enviro bag.

Anyone witnesses are urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000, or act.crimestoppers.com.au. Information can be provided anonymously.

“It will come as no surprise to residents of our national capital to hear it was Canberra’s coldest summer in 16 years,” The Weather Channel senior meteorologist Tom Saunders said.

“La Niña conditions caused below average temperatures this summer, the average temperature for the city was 1.1C below normal at just 18.7C, two degrees colder than our 2011 summer and over three degrees colder than our 2010 summer.

“Maximum temperatures of 25.5C were also below average, in fact nearly two degrees below.”

The Weather Channel  also recorded above average rainfall for the capital.

“Rainfall for Canberra was 208mm to 8am today, above the average of 168.7mm but well below last summer’s total of 382.2mm,” Saunders said.

“The La Niña operating for this summer was not of the same strength as that of 2010/11, and movement of tropical air as far south as the Australian Capital Territory were less frequent.

“Looking ahead, the above average cloud and rain we expect through autumn should again lead to cooler daytime temperatures warmer nights.”

sciencealert.com.au, an Australian science news website reached 1 million Facebook followers on Saturday night; the website already more popular than any other Australian news website on the social network, and sitting above “The Economist” and closely behind CNN on the worldwide top 10 list.

Managing director Chris Cassella, a father of three who runs the website from his home says people, particularly young people, love science.

“It’s not just Australia, it’s actually predominantly the world,” he said. “What’s really amazing is we are finding that young people from all over the world are engaged with science.

“About 1 per cent of our audience is Australian, a very small percentage.”

Mr Cassella, formerly a programmer with Microsoft in the US, came to Canberra to study at ANU to pursue a life-long passion for science. He studied neuroscience and later a Masters of Science Communication.

As part of his masters project he joined Science Alert, which was founded in 2004 by Canberra-based science author Julian Cribb. The website, publishes outcome-based science news coming out of Australian universities.

What started as a “labour of love” soon became a full-time job.

Mr Cassella says the key to its success is “content and conversation”.

The website posts between four to six stories a day, attracting more than 100,000 visitors a month. Since joining Facebook in 2012, the website found significant growth; with more than 1 million followers, its posts attracts up to 1000 likes.

Recently, Science Alert has recruited a content editor and a sub-editor. It’s also amidst creating an iPhone application with hope of creating an Android application and Spanish and Chinese versions of their Facebook page.

“The website, has become a smaller portion,” he said. “In the short term, we would like to figure out a non intrusive business model meaning that we can provide information to our audience that they won’t rebel against…

“One aspect, is to get it so it can fund itself, to make it self sustainable because right now it’s only been Julian and I putting in our time and money.

“Outside figuring out a business model, we’ll take the Mark Zuckerberg approach, we’ll grow our audience and then think about monetarising it later.

“Ultimately there’s something there but we have to be subtle about it.”

Event organisers are having “some fun with the leadership challenge” and hosting “The Julia v Kevin Pollock Pong challenge”. Maybe in this contest the outcome could be different…

Pollock Pong is one of the free activities in the outdoor entertainment precinct at Enlighten – which starts this weekend.

It’s not your typical game of pong – it’s mix of paint and ping pong, where players wear protective suits and use their bat and ball to create their own masterpiece.

The “game” was created by Perth-based artist Poppy van Oode-Grainger.

Pollock Pong, Venue Entertainment Precinct, East Zone. March 2, 3, 9 and 10 from 6.30pm to 11.30pm. Protective suits provided, suitable for ages 12+. Cost free.

The car crash involved two cars; the trapped female driver, in her 20s, was freed by firefighters.

She was taken to The Canberra Hospital with minor injuries.

“The drenching will start today over Victoria, South Australia and southern New South Wales,” senior meteorologist Tom Saunders said.

“Thunderstorms will drop up to 100mm of rain, enough to cause severe flash flooding, particularly in urban regions like Melbourne where drainage systems struggle to cope with intense rainfall. River flooding is also likely and a flood watch is in force for all Victorian catchments except in East Gippsland and the South West.

“The rain and storms will head north on Tuesday and stall over New South Wales and central Australia until at least Friday. Daily rain will exceed 50mm in some regions, enough to cause flash flooding.”

He said Canberra’s wettest days should be Wednesday and Thursday.

“The rain also has the potential to trigger widespread river flooding through much of northern South Australia and New South Wales,” Saunders said.

“Our nation is currently surrounded by very warm ocean temperatures, particularly off the west coast where the Indian Ocean has been steaming over three degrees higher than normal during the past few months. The warmer seas have increased evaporation which has allowed the atmosphere over Australia to become saturated with moisture, the perfect recipe for heavy rain and flooding.

“There is uncertainty in the forecast from Friday onwards but it is possible rain will continue across the weekend.”