Six people have been killed and at least 12 injured in a mass shooting in the downtown area of the United States city of Sacramento.

Police in California's state capital were searching for at least one suspect after the shooting as bars and nightclubs were closing early on Sunday morning (Sunday evening AEDT).

Sacramento Police Chief Kathy Lester said at a news conference that police were patrolling the area about 2am (7pm AEDT) when they heard gunfire.

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When they arrived at the scene, they found a large crowd gathered on the street and six people dead.

Another 12 either took themselves or were transported to hospitals. No information was given on their conditions.

Authorities don't know whether one or more suspects were involved and are asking for the public's help in identifying who is responsible. Chief Lester did not give specifics on the type of gun used.

Authorities recovered "at least one firearm" from the scene, a police statement said, and urged witnesses or anyone with recordings of the shooting to contact police.

This is "a very complex and complicated scene," Chief Lester said.

Chief Lester issued a plea to the public, asking for witnesses or anyone with recordings of the incident to contact police.

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Investigators were reviewing videos from social media that appeared to show an altercation before the deadly incident, the police statement said.

"We are currently working to determine what, if any, relation these events have to the shooting," the department said in the statement.

Shortly after the shooting, video was posted on Twitter that showed people running through the street amid the sound of rapid gunfire. Video showed multiple ambulances at the scene.

Kelsey Schar, 18, was staying on the fourth floor of Citizen Hotel when she said she heard gunshots and saw flashes in the dark. She walked to the window and "saw a guy running and just shooting," Ms Schar told The Associated Press in an interview.

Her friend, Madalyn Woodard, said she saw a crowd in the street scatter amid the gunfire and a girl who appeared to have been shot in the arm laying on the ground. Security guards from a nearby nightclub rushed to help the girl with what looked like napkins to try to stanch the bleeding.

The shooting — which occurred just two blocks from the state Capitol — was decried by top political officials.

Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement that his administration was working closely with law enforcement.

"What we do know at this point is that another mass casualty shooting has occurred, leaving families with lost loved ones, multiple individuals injured and a community in grief," he said.

"The scourge of gun violence continues to be a crisis in our country, and we must resolve to bring an end to this carnage."

Sacramento mayor Darrell Steinberg said words could not express his "shock and sadness".

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"The numbers of dead and wounded are difficult to comprehend," he said, on Twitter.

"We await more information about exactly what transpired in this tragic incident.

"Rising gun violence is the scourge of our city, state and nation, and I support all actions to reduce it."

Residents were asked to avoid the area, which is packed with restaurants and bars, including the London nightclub.

Kay Harris, 32, said she was asleep when one of her family members called to say they thought her brother had been killed. She said she thought he was at London.

Ms Harris said she had been to the club a few times and described it as a place for "the younger crowd".

Bars and clubs close at 2am and it's normal for streets to be full of people at that hour.

Ms Harris has spent the morning circling the block waiting for news.

"Very much so a senseless violent act," she said.

Steve Hicks was staying at the Citizen hotel with his fiancé and two daughters after attending a Tyler the Creator concert at the Golden One Centre. He said he did not hear gunshots but the sirens woke him up.

Police closed the streets around the club, with yellow police tape fluttering in the early morning breeze.

Berry Accius, a community activist, said he came to the scene shortly after the shooting happened.

"The first thing I saw was like victims," he said.

"I saw a young girl with a whole bunch of blood in her body, a girl taking off glass from her, a young girl screaming saying, 'They killed my sister''.

"A mother running up, 'where's my son, has my son been shot?'"

Police are hunting for a driver they say slammed into a cyclist, then fled the scene in Perth's north.

The rider was taken to hospital with severe leg injuries, and the horrifying moment was caught on camera

Security footage shows the moment of impact, before the cyclist is flung through the air and appears to land hard on the ground.

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The collision happened just after midday yesterday.

The rider was cycling south along Wanneroo Road in Westminster, and the car turned onto Arkana Road.

But police said instead of stopping to help after the collision, the driver sped away.

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The cyclist was left lying on the road with a severely broken leg.

He remains in Royal Perth Hospital.

Police are appealing for witnesses.

A man is in a critical condition and a woman is also injured after falling down a cliff in Sydney's north while attending a 21st birthday party.

Jordan Bowling and Emma Korell fell about 15-20m down a cliff near the party in Sydney's north on Saturday night.

The accident happened on Quarter Session Road at the edge of the Berowra Valley National Park at Westleigh, and sparked an hours-long rescue effort.

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The man whose birthday it was had gone looking for the pair after they wandered off from the small party.

He said Mr Bowling slipped first and Ms Korell fell trying to save him.

The pair was eventually winched to safety after specialist operations paramedics and Fire and Rescue NSW were called

Mr Bowling suffered head injuries and Ms Korell had leg fractures.

Inspector Charnan Kurth from NSW Ambulance described the area as dangerous

"Fortunately there was no rain last night but it has been very wet and the rough and very steep terrain is very dangerous as well for our paramedics," he said.

Neighbour Vicky Jacquet said it was a steep area.

"It's a bit sketchy getting down there. It can be very steep initially getting to the rock," she said.

The pair was rushed to Royal North Shore Hospital.

A man has been winched to safety after his boat capsized in rough sea in Sydney's south.

Emergency Services were called to reports a boat had washed up onto rocks at Kurnell at 3pm.

They found a man with injuries to his legs and face.

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He was rescued by the NSW Ambulance Toll Rescue Helicopter and taken to St George Hospital in a stable condition.

Insp Iain Donaldson from NSW Ambulance said paramedics were initially worried there were more people missing.

"Once more information came to light it became clear there was only one person on the boat," he said.

"A NSW Ambulance medical team were winched down to the patient and were able to provide treatment before winching the patient into the helicopter.

He reminded people to check conditions and always wear a life jacket.

A 17-year-old driver hit a wall in Wellington tonight, as he evaded police following a suspected vehicle theft.A police spokesperson told the Herald that a driver in a potentially stolen vehicle failed to stop for police in Karori…

By Brian Lovett, West Virginia University

When the rock now known as the Chicxulub impactor plummeted from outer space and slammed into the Earth 66 million years ago, cockroaches were there.

The impact caused a massive earthquake, and scientists think it also triggered volcanic eruptions thousands of miles from the impact site. Three-quarters of plants and animals on Earth died, including all dinosaurs, except for some species that were ancestors of today’s birds.

How could roaches a couple of inches long survive when so many powerful animals went extinct? It turns out that they were nicely equipped to live through a meteoric catastrophe.

If you’ve ever seen a cockroach, you’ve probably noticed that their bodies are very flat. This is not an accident. Flatter insects can squeeze themselves into tighter places. This enables them to hide practically anywhere – and it may have helped them survive the Chicxulub impact.

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When the meteor struck, temperatures on Earth’s surface skyrocketed. Many animals had nowhere to flee, but roaches could take shelter in tiny soil crevices, which provide excellent protection from heat.

The meteor’s impact triggered a cascade of effects. It kicked up so much dust that the sky darkened. As the sun dimmed, temperatures plunged and conditions became wintry around the globe. With little sunlight, surviving plants struggled to grow, and many other organisms that relied on those plants went hungry.

Not cockroaches, though. Unlike some insects that prefer to eat one specific plant, cockroaches are omnivorous scavengers. This means they will eat most foods that come from animals or plants as well as cardboard, some kinds of clothing and even poop. Having appetites that aren’t picky has allowed cockroaches to survive lean times since the Chicxulub extinction and other natural disasters.

Another helpful trait is that cockroaches lay their eggs in little protective cases. These egg cartons look like dried beans and are called oothecae, which means “egg cases.” Like phone cases, oothecae are hard and protect their contents from physical damage and other threats, such as flooding and drought. Some cockroaches may have waited out part of the Chicxulub catastrophe from the comfort of their oothecae.

Modern cockroaches are little survivors that can live just about anywhere on land, from the heat of the tropics to some of the coldest parts of the globe. Scientists estimate that there over 4000 cockroach species.

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A handful of these species like to live with humans and quickly become pests. Once cockroaches become established in a building, it’s hard to rid every little crack of these insects and their oothecae. When large numbers of roaches are present in unsanitary places, they can spread diseases. The biggest threat they pose to human health is from allergens they produce that can trigger asthma attacks and allergic reactions in some people.

Cockroach pests are hard to manage because they can resist many chemical insecticides and because they have the same abilities that helped their ancestors outlive many dinosaurs. Still, cockroaches are much more than a pest to control. Researchers study cockroaches to understand how they move and how their bodies are designed to get ideas for building better robots.

As a scientist, I see all insects as beautiful, six-legged inspirations. Cockroaches have already overcome odds that were too great for dinosaurs. If another meteorite hit the Earth, I’d be more worried for humans than for cockroaches.

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This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here.

After Fred Woods and two accomplices kidnapped dozens of California children from a school bus in 1976 and trapped them underground, they were sentenced to up to 27 life sentences without the possibility of parole.

Fast forward 46 years, and Woods is now on the brink of getting paroled.

Depending on whom you ask, that epilogue to the largest mass kidnapping in US history is either long overdue for a man full of remorse or a source of renewed trauma for victims who were buried alive.

A never-ending nightmare

It doesn't take much to trigger panic attacks for Lynda Carrejo Labendeira: the sight of a white moving van; construction lights; a small room that reminds her of being trapped.

As a fourth-grader at Dairyland Elementary School in Chowchilla, she, 25 other children and their driver were snatched from their school bus by three armed men in a plot to get US $5 million in ransom.

The kids, ages 5 to 14, and their bus driver were driven about 100 miles to a remote quarry near Livermore, California. With only some construction lights illuminating the dark quarry, the kidnappers ordered their 27 victims into what looked like a massive grave – a white moving van buried two metres underground.

One by one, the children climbed down a ladder and into the van, which was covered under several feet of dirt. After the last student entered, the kidnappers removed the ladder.

For 16 hours, the children waited for rescue or death. The younger ones cried helplessly. The older ones tried to comfort them. All of them buried in a "coffin," Labendeira said, with the stench of vomit and filth intensified by the searing California heat.

Labendeira remembers every detail of the horror. In the 46 years since, she's tried to avoid a normal full night of sleep.

"I would not allow myself to go into a deeper sleep because I didn't want to have that dream," said Labendeira, now in her mid-50s.

"So much of my life, people wonder how I ever sleep – if I ever sleep. Well, I've always tried not to go into the deeper REM sleep. Sure, there are times that I have. And I've always tried to wake myself whenever I start a bad dream."

The real-life nightmare ended thanks to the ingenuity of the bus driver, Edward Ray, and some of the students who planned a daring escape while the kidnappers were outside.

The hostages stacked mattresses that were in the moving truck high enough to help them reach a metal plate in the roof. But the plate was covered with a massive truck battery and a pile of dirt.

Ray and several of the older boys struggled to open the top.

"Edward's digging up and out, Mike's digging, Jeff's digging, Robert's digging," Labendeira recalled.

Eventually, they cleared enough space to escape. The children – some climbing up on each other's shoulders – fled while the kidnappers slept. The suspects were all taken into custody within days of the kidnapping.

For the rest of her childhood, Labendeira took a bit of solace thinking the three kidnappers – brothers Richard and James Schoenfeld and Fred Woods – would likely spend the rest of their lives behind bars.

Each was given 27 sentences of seven years to life in prison — without the possibility of parole.

But in 1980, an appeals panel overturned the original sentences, saying the men had caused no serious bodily injury and therefore should have the chance for parole.

Richard Schoenfeld was paroled in 2012. His brother James was released in 2015.

And on March 25, two parole commissioners recommended parole for Woods. The panel's decision is still subject to review by the Board of Parole Hearings' chief counsel, who could refer the case for review and a vote by the full board. A hearing panel member could also refer the case to the full board.

If neither happens within four months, the decision becomes final, and the governor gets 30 days to review it. In murder cases, the governor can reverse or modify a parole grant. But in cases like the Chowchilla kidnappings, he could only refer a parole grant back to the full board for review.

When Labendeira learned Woods could soon walk free, "I was in a state of shock," she said. "I was not expecting that."

Labendeira said she has attended every parole hearing since Richard Schoenfeld was released – including hearings for James Schoenfeld and Fred Woods.

At Woods' most recent hearing, the 70-year-old said he was deeply remorseful for the terror and trauma he inflicted as a 24-year-old.

But those words don't absolve him from the horror that victims still grapple with decades later, Labendeira said.

"It didn't change the act. It didn't change the outcome. It didn't change the years before," she said. "It didn't change all the memories of what happened. The memories never go away."

'He's not a monster'

Frederick Newhall Woods has been behind bars since he was 24. Now 70, he's missed most life opportunities and lost both of his parents while he was imprisoned.

No one denies his crime was heinous. But "he's not a monster," Woods' attorney Dominique Banos said.

"He is not the same person. He doesn't think the same way that he did when he was 24," she said.

Over the past several decades, Woods has reflected on his crime, worked as a prisoner in pest control and taken classes, including courses on empathy and victim impact, his attorney said.

"He's always felt remorse for what he did," Banos said.

There are a few possible reasons Woods has stayed in prison years longer than his accomplices.

Woods has been perceived as the ringleader of the kidnapping scheme, said Banos, who took on his case in 2017. He's also had some nonviolent infractions while in prison, such as having unauthorized cell phones.

But Woods is no longer a threat to society, his attorney said, and the kidnapping victims need not fear for their safety.

"Rick Schoenfeld was the first to be released (in 2012), and he's led a very quiet life," Banos said. "He hasn't committed any harm to anyone. James Schoenfeld was released in 2015, and it's the same thing."

As for her own client, "there's really not much more you can do to show he's a changed person," Banos said.

"He's spent 46 years in prison … and has not hurt a fly," she said. "It doesn't make any sense for him to be in there any longer."

Labendeira disagrees. She's been serving a life sentence of traumatic memories since she was 10 years old and believes kidnappers should complete life sentences.

"If your child was kidnapped and buried alive, how long is long enough?" she said. "How long is long enough for 26 children on a school bus to be kidnapped and buried alive?"

By RNZ A major fire at Awarua, south of Invercargill, is burning through about 1000ha of mānuka scrub and peat soils.The uncontained fire, which started late yesterday afternoon, is mainly on Department of Conservation…

Fire crews are tackling a large house fire in Brisbane's South.

Smoke from the fire in Gillan Street, Norman Park can be seen across the city.

A Queensland Fire and Emergency Services spokesperson said another house was also on fire.

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"Crews are currently working to bring the fire under control," it said.

"There's one house fully involved and there's a second that's partially involved,"

Queensland Ambulance said they treated a person with minor burns on their hand at 2.10pm.

They didn't need to be taken to hospital.

Fire authorities warned locals to close windows and doors and told drivers to avoid the area.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has rejected claims he was involved in 'racial vilification' against an opponent while seeking preselection in 2007.

Mr Morrison won pre-selection for the Federal seat of Cook in southern Sydney over his rival Michael Towke.

Allegations have been reported in the Sydney Morning Herald that the Prime Minister made negative remarks to party members not to support Mr Towke because he was from a Lebanese background.

https://twitter.com/ElizaEdNews/status/1510435451689377792

When asked if he had ever made remarks about Mr Towke's background, Mr Morrison emphatically denied the allegation.

"It's just simply untrue," he said.

"These are quite malicious and bitter slurs which are deeply offensive and I reject them absolutely.

It comes at an interesting time that these vicious personal attacks come on the eve of an election. I'll let people work out their their own findings on what's motivating these voices

"Bitterness can often produce all sorts of slings and arrows"