Russia shattered weeks of relative calm in the Ukrainian capital with long-range missiles fired toward Kyiv early Sunday, an apparent Kremlin show-of-force as Western leaders meet in Europe to strengthen their military and economic support of Ukraine.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the missiles hit at least two residential buildings, and killed one person and injured six others, including a 7-year-old girl and her mother. Associated Press journalists saw emergency workers battling flames and rescuing civilians from the buildings.

The strikes also damaged a nearby kindergarten, where a crater pocked the courtyard. US President Joe Biden called the attacks “barbarism” after he arrived in Germany for a Group of Seven summit.

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Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said the first air-launched weapons to successfully target the capital since June 5 were Kh-101 cruise missiles fired from warplanes over the Caspian Sea, more than 1500 kilometres away.

Kyiv's mayor told journalists he thought the airstrikes were “maybe a symbolic attack” ahead of a NATO summit in Madrid that starts Tuesday. A former commander of US forces in Europe said the strikes also were a signal to the leaders of G7 nations meeting Sunday in Germany.

“Russia is saying, ‘We can do this all day long. You guys are powerless to stop us,’” retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of US Army forces in Europe, said.

“The Russians are humiliating the leaders of the West.”

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The G7 leaders were set to announce the latest in a long series of international economic steps to pressure and isolate Russia over its war in Ukraine: new bans on imports of Russian gold.

Standing with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the three-day meeting's host, Biden said of the missile strikes on Kyiv: “It’s more of their barbarism.”

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A Ukrainian parliament member, Oleksiy Goncharenko, wrote on the Telegram messaging app that preliminary information indicated that Russia launched 14 missiles toward the capital region and Kyiv itself, suggesting that some were intercepted.

In a phone interview, retired US general Hodges told The Associated Press that Russia has a limited stock of precision missiles and “if they are using them, it’s going to be for a special purpose.”

Russia has denied targeting civilians during the four-month-old war, and Hodges said it was hard to know if the missiles launched Sunday were intended to strike the apartments buildings.

Russian forces tried to seize control of Kyiv early in the war. After Ukrainian troops repelled them, the Kremlin largely shifted its focus to southern and eastern Ukraine.

Russian rocket strikes in the city of Cherkasy, about 160 kilometres southeast of Kyiv, killed one person and injured five, regional governor Ihor Taburets said Sunday.

In the east, Russian troops fought to consolidate their gains by battling to swallow up the last remaining Ukrainian stronghold in Luhansk province.

Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said Sunday that Russia was conducting intense airstrikes on the city of Lysychansk, destroying its television tower and seriously damaging a road bridge.

“There’s very much destruction. Lysychansk is almost unrecognisable,” he wrote on Facebook.

For weeks, Lysychansk and the nearby city of Sievierodonetsk have been subject to a bloody and destructive offensive by Russian forces and their separatist allies aimed at capturing all of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.

They have made steady and slow progress, with Haidai confirming Saturday that Sievierodonetsk, including a chemical plant where hundreds of Ukrainian troops and civilians were holed up, had fallen.

Commenting on the battle for Sievierodonetsk, Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said late Saturday that Russian and Moscow-backed separatist forces now control not only the city but the villages surrounding it. He said the Russian military had thwarted Ukrainian forces' attempt to turn the Azot chemical plant into a “stubborn centre of resistance.”

Capturing Lysychansk would give Russian and separatist forces control of every major settlement in Luhansk. At last report, they controlled about half of Donetsk, the second province in the Donbas.

On Saturday, Russia launched dozens of missiles on several areas across the country far from the heart of the eastern battles. Some of the missiles were fired from Russian long-range Tu-22 bombers deployed from Belarus for the first time, Ukraine’s air command said.

On the economic front, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said banning imports of Russian gold would represent a significant escalation of sanctions.

“That is the second-most lucrative export that Russia has after energy,” Blinken told American news channel CNN.

“It’s about US$19 billion ($27.4 billion) a year. And most of that is within the G7 countries. So cutting that off, denying access to about US$19 billion of revenues a year, that’s significant.”

Peter Overton had a small message for viewers on Sunday night who might have noticed him looking a little differently on TV.

Towards the end of reading the Sydney bulletin, the Nine veteran shared that he had a burst blood vessel in his eye.

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https://twitter.com/9NewsSyd/status/1540969336684298240

"Well you might have noticed my right eye isn't looking its best tonight. All is okay," he said.

"I have a burst blood vessel and it looks worse than it actually is.

"Indeed it's getting better by the day, so there you go."

He also shared the update on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/PeterOverton/status/1540966574978646016

Overton has been the chief newsreader for Sydney's 6pm bulletin since 2009.

When the couple awoke to the rumble of war on February 24, they'd been dating for just over a year.

Russia was invading and Ihor Zakvatskyi knew there was no more time to lose.

He fished out the engagement ring he'd bought but, until then, not yet been ready to give to Kateryna Lytvynenko and proposed.

If death do us part, he figured, then let it be as husband and wife.

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"I did not want to waste a single minute without Katya knowing that I wanted to spend my life with her," Zakvatskyi, 24, said as he and his 25-year-old bride exchanged vows and wedding rings this month in the capital, Kyiv.

The newlyweds joined a growing army of Ukrainian couples who are speedily turning love into matrimony because of the war.

Some are soldiers, marrying just before they head off to fight.

Others are simply united in determination that living and loving to the full are more important than ever in the face of so much death and destruction.

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Ukraine's wartime martial laws include a provision allowing Ukrainians, both soldiers and civilians, to apply and marry on the same day.

In Kyiv alone, more than 4,000 couples have jumped at the expedited opportunity . Before the war, a one-month wait was the norm.

After a three-month interruption in normal service, Kyiv's Central Civil Registry Office is fully open again and working almost at a prewar pace.

Since Russia withdrew its badly bloodied invasion forces from around Kyiv in April, redirecting them to front lines east and south, many people who'd fled the fighting have returned.

Weddings have increased accordingly.

The returnees include Daria Ponomarenko, 22, who fled to Poland.

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Her boyfriend, Yevhen Nalyvaiko, 23, had to stay, because of rules preventing men aged 18 to 60 from leaving the country.

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Reunited, they quickly wed — because "we don't know what will happen tomorrow," she said.

Jealously guarding their intimacy after their painful months apart, it was just the two of them, without friends and family.

Rather than a puffy bridal gown, she wore a Ukrainian embroidered shirt, the traditional Vyshyvanka chosen now by many brides to stress their Ukrainian identity.

In peacetime, they would have opted for a traditional wedding with many guests. But that seemed frivolous in war.

"Everything is perceived more sharply, people become real during such events," he said.

Anna Karpenko, 30, refused to let the invasion crimp her wedding — she arrived in a white limousine.

"Life must go on," she said.

She and her new husband dated for seven years, often talking about marriage, before the war turned the plan into action.

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Pavlo and Oksana Savryha already had 18 years of civil marriage under their belts before the invasion prompted them to renew their vows — this time in a small 12th-century church in the war-damaged northern city of Chernihiv.

"Our souls told us to do so. Before the invasion, we were constantly running somewhere, in a hurry, and the war forced us to stop and not postpone the important decisions until tomorrow," Pavlo said.

With Oksana sheltering in the basement of their home, her husband took up arms, joining a territorial defence force, when Russian forces surrounded and bombarded Chernihiv in the initial failed stage of the invasion.

He subsequently joined the regular army. They celebrated their love in church this month.

The next day, he was sent to the front.

A detention centre in Western Australia has erupted into chaos 10 days after a man was stabbed to death.

Masked riot police stormed Yongah Hill Detention Centre as inmates turned violent and the entire compound sent into lockdown.

Footage shows one detainee swinging a weapon and another being whisked away by security, before the riot squad swoops in and takes two inmates into custody.

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Turkish national Gokhan Can was killed at the Northam facility earlier this month after allegedly being stabbed to death while sleeping in his cell by Iranian national Mohammad Al Lami.

Ian Rintoul from the Refugee Action Coalition criticised authorities.

"I think we've seen an unnecessary, very heavy-handed police response that's only aggravated the tensions and anxieties of people inside Yongah Hill," he said.

This time no one is believed to have been hurt.

Australian Border Force is investigating.

Firefighters who heard screams had to force open the door of a locked room to rescue three teenagers from a burning apartment in Sydney.

Crews tackled a fire in the downstairs business on John Street, Lidcombe at 1am on Sunday, when they heard people shouting for help in the apartment above.

Wearing breathing apparatus, firefighters went room to room of the second-floor apartment, looking for people, shouting "where are you?"

After hearing a reply, firefighter Cem Dincer broke open the door and found two teenage girls and a boy huddled by a bed.

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Dincer guided the teens to a rescue ladder placed against an open window.

"I was so happy when I saw those two girls in there," he said.

The teens were not seriously hurt, and the rescue was captured by the firefighter's helmet camera.

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Investigators say the fire was started by an e-bike charging in a downstairs kitchen.

Fire and Rescue NSW said the last person inside the shop, a 31-year-old man, escaped before they arrived.

Incident controller Timothy Horder said the teens did the right thing by closing their door.

"By closing their bedroom door, that action is thought to have saved their lives," he said.

A man who escaped custody while being transported to prison in Levin on June 18 has been arrested.Police had been appealing for information and sightings of 41-year-old Marley Gregory since.Police said today he had been located…

A man has died after a light aircraft crashed into a paddock west of Brisbane on Sunday afternoon.

Emergency services say paramedics were called to the scene, near Bowenville, north-west of Toowoomba just after 2.15pm.

Police say the pilot, a man aged in his 60s, was declared dead at the scene.

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Initial investigations indicate the aircraft crashed onto powerlines on Malu Road.

Police are investigating.

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A Texas group that helps women pay for abortions halted its efforts on Saturday while evaluating its legal risk under a strict state ban.

Mississippi's only abortion clinic continued to see patients while awaiting a 10-day notice that will trigger a ban.

Elected officials across the USA vowed to take action to protect women's access to reproductive health care, and abortion foes promised to take the fight to new arenas.

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A day after the Supreme Court's bombshell ruling overturning Roe v. Wade ended the constitutional right to abortion, emotional protests and prayer vigils turned to resolve as several states enacted bans and both supporters and opponents of abortion rights mapped out their next moves.

In Texas, Cathy Torres, organising manager for Frontera Fund, a group that helps pay for abortions, said there is a lot of fear and confusion in the Rio Grande Valley near the US-Mexico border, where many people are in the country without legal permission.

That includes how the state's abortion law, which bans the procedure from conception, will be enforced.

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Under the law, people who help patients get abortions can be fined and doctors who perform them could face life in prison.

"We are a fund led by people of colour, who will be criminalised first," Torres said, adding that abortion funds like hers that have paused operations hope to find a way to safely restart.

"We just really need to keep that in mind and understand the risk."

Tyler Harden, Mississippi director for Planned Parenthood Southeast, said she spent Friday and Saturday making sure people with impending appointments at the state's only abortion clinic — which featured in the Supreme Court case but is not affiliated with Planned Parenthood — know they don't have to cancel them right away.

Abortions can still take place until 10 days after the state attorney general publishes a required administrative notice.

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Mississippi will ban the procedure except for pregnancies that endanger the woman's life or those caused by rape reported to law enforcement.

The Republican speaker of the Mississippi House, Philip Gunn, said during a news conference on Friday that he would oppose adding an exception for incest. "I believe that life begins at conception," Gunn said.

https://twitter.com/PhilipGunnMS/status/1540341420195815425?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Harden said she has been providing information about funds that help people travel out of state to have abortions.

Many in Mississippi already were doing so even before the ruling, but that will become more difficult now that abortions have ended in neighbouring states like Alabama.

Right now Florida is the nearest "safe haven" state, but Harden said, "we know that that may not be the case for too much longer."

At the National Right to Life convention in Atlanta, a leader within the anti-abortion group warned attendees on Saturday that the Supreme Court's decision ushers in "a time of great possibility and a time of great danger."

Randall O'Bannon, the organisation's director of education and research, encouraged activists celebrate their victories but stay focused and continue working on the issue.

Specifically, he called out medication taken to induce abortion.

"With Roe headed for the dustbin of history, and states gaining the power to limit abortions, this is where the battle is going to be played out over the next several years," O'Bannon said.

"The new modern menace is a chemical or medical abortion with pills ordered online and mailed directly to a woman's home."

Protests broke out for a second day in cities across the country, from Los Angeles to Oklahoma City to Jackson, Mississippi.

In the LA demonstration, one of several in California, hundreds of people marched through downtown carrying signs with slogans like "my body, my choice" and "abort the court."

Turnout was smaller in Oklahoma City, where about 15 protesters rallied outside the Capitol.

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1540788169938874371?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Oklahoma is one of 11 states where there are no providers offering abortions, and it passed the nation's strictest abortion law in May.

"I have gone through a wave of emotions in the last 24 hours. … It's upsetting, it's angry, it's hard to put together everything I'm feeling right now," said Marie Adams, 45, who has had two abortions for ectopic pregnancies, where a fertilized egg is unable to survive. She called the issue "very personal to me."

"Half the population of the United States just lost a fundamental right," Adams said.

"We need to speak up and speak loud."

Callie Pruett, who volunteered to escort patients into West Virginia's only abortion clinic before it stopped offering the procedure after Friday's ruling, said she plans to work in voter registration in the hope of electing officials who support abortion rights.

The executive director of Appalachians for Appalachia added that her organisation also will apply for grants to help patients get access to abortion care, including out of state.

"We have to create networks of people who are willing to drive people to Maryland or to DC," Pruett said.

"That kind of local action requires organisation at a level that we have not seen in nearly 50 years."

Fellow West Virginian Sarah MacKenzie, 25, said she's motivated to fight for abortion access by the memory of her mother, Denise Clegg, a passionate reproductive health advocate who worked for years at the state's clinic as a nurse practitioner and died unexpectedly in May.

MacKenzie plans to attend protests in the capital, Charleston, and donate to a local abortion fund.

"She would be absolutely devastated. She was so afraid of this happening — she wanted to stop it," Mackenzie said, adding, "I'll do everything in my power to make sure that this gets reversed."

The Supreme Court's ruling is likely to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states.

Since the decision, clinics have stopped performing abortions in Arizona, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Women considering abortions already had been dealing with the near-complete ban in Oklahoma and a prohibition after roughly six weeks in Texas.

In Ohio, a ban on most abortions from the first detectable fetal heartbeat became law when a federal judge dissolved an injunction that had kept the measure on hold for nearly three years.

Another law with narrow exceptions was triggered in Utah by Friday's ruling.

Planned Parenthood Association of Utah filed a lawsuit against it in state court and said it would request a temporary restraining order, arguing it violates the state constitution.

Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, where abortion remains legal, signed an executive order shielding people seeking or providing abortions in his state from facing legal consequences in other states.

https://twitter.com/GovTimWalz/status/1540714071791702017?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Walz also has vowed to reject requests to extradite anyone accused of committing acts related to reproductive health care that are not criminal offenses in Minnesota.

"My office has been and will continue to be a firewall against legislation that would reverse reproductive freedom," he said.

In Fargo, North Dakota, the state's sole abortion provider faces a 30-day window before it would have to shut down and plans to move across the river to Minnesota.

Red River Women's Clinic owner Tammi Kromenaker said on Saturday that she has secured a location in Moorhead and an online fundraiser to support the move has brought in more than half a million dollars in less than three days.

Republicans sought to downplay their excitement about winning their decades-long fight to overturn Roe, aware that the ruling could energize the Democratic base, particularly suburban women.

Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, said she expects abortion opponents to turn out in huge numbers this fall.

But Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, said on Saturday he believes the issue will energise independents and he hopes to translate anger over Roe's demise into votes.

"Any time you take half the people in Wisconsin and make them second-class citizens," Evers said, "I have to believe there's going to be a reaction to that."