Gang members are thought to be responsible for a spate of dangerous incidents, including alleged shootings and an assault, across Rotorua in the past few days. A temporary carriage order was issued for Rotorua police staff for nine…

The suspect in the 2018 killing of 17 people at a Florida high school is going on trial, but not for the slayings.

Jury selection begins Monday on charges Nikolas Cruz allegedly attacked a Broward County jail guard nine months after the February 14, 2018, shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

Mr Cruz, a former Stoneman Douglas student, brawled with Sargent Raymond Beltran after being jailed on charges of killing 14 students and three staff members and wounding 17 others.

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No date has been set for the murder trial, which has been delayed by the pandemic and arguments over witnesses and evidence.

It may start in the next few months.

“The accused murderer who took our children's lives is clearly violent and took that out on a guard. He needs to face the justice system for that,” said Tony Montalto, president of Stand With Parkland, a group comprised of victims’ families.

His 14-year-old daughter, Gina, died in the shooting.

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Mr Cruz, 23, faces a possible 15-year sentence if convicted of attempted criminal battery on a law enforcement officer and three lesser charges.

Mr Cruz will get either death or life in prison without parole if he is later found guilty of first-degree murder, but this trial still has relevance.

If Mr Cruz is convicted of attacking Mr Beltran, prosecutors can argue that is an aggravating factor when they seek his execution during the penalty phase of his murder trial if convicted.

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“If that is entered as an aggravating factor, it will be hard for that not to be in the back of the jury's mind," said Mark Dobson, a professor at Nova Southeastern University's law school and a former Florida prosecutor.

Prosecutors declined significant comment, only saying in a statement that "the jail video and evidence in the case speak for themselves.”

Mr Cruz's public defenders declined comment, saying they don't want to further traumatise the shooting victims' families by discussing their client.

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Mr Cruz's attorneys are expected to argue that Mr Beltran mistreated him previously and provoked the November 13, 2018, brawl, which occurred inside a Broward County jail recreation area and was captured on a soundless security video.

According to court records, Mr Cruz's lead attorney, Melisa McNeill, had complained six weeks before the fight to the Broward Sheriff's Office about Mr Beltran's treatment of Mr Cruz.

No details of the alleged mistreatment have been released, but his attorneys said at a recent court hearing that Mr Beltran is the only guard they have ever complained about.

Mr Cruz’s attorneys say the sheriff’s office erased video of the three hours Mr Cruz and Mr Beltran spent together before the fight, even though they asked within a day that it be preserved and were told it would be.

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The preserved video begins a couple minutes before the brawl.

It shows Mr Cruz walking alone in circles with his head down around tables with attached benches.

He is dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit, a white long-sleeve undershirt and sandals. Mr Beltran is sitting at a table in the corner.

Suddenly, Mr Cruz stops about three meters from Mr Beltran and the two appear to exchange words.

Mr Beltran told investigators he asked Mr Cruz not to drag his feet and damage his sandals.

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Mr Cruz flips both middle fingers at Mr Beltran and then charges the guard, who stands up to defend himself.

Mr Cruz, who weighs about 60 kilograms, throws the larger Mr Beltran to the ground, before the guard is able to flip him and briefly pin him.

Mr Cruz grabs Mr Beltran's stun gun and they fight over it as it goes off, apparently jolting neither, before the guard wrests it away.

Mr Cruz escapes Mr Beltran’s grasp and the two take boxing stances.

Mr Cruz punches Mr Beltran in the shoulder before the guard hits Mr Cruz in the head, staggering him.

Mr Beltran then rearms his stun gun and points it at Mr Cruz, who had sat on a bench.

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Mr Cruz lies face down on the ground and is handcuffed. The fight lasted almost exactly a minute. Neither was seriously hurt.

Because of Mr Cruz's infamy in South Florida, jury selection is scheduled to last three days. In a typical jail battery trial with a defendant the public doesn't know, it would likely take a few hours.

The court plans to screen 400 people to seat six jurors plus alternates. The typical pool for jail battery trials and similar felonies is 22, according to The Florida Bar.

Mr Cruz's attorneys will want to eliminate any candidates who can't separate their knowledge of the Stoneman Douglas massacre from the only considerations jurors are supposed to make during this trial: Did Mr Cruz attack Mr Beltran and, if so, was he provoked?

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Testimony about the killings will not be permitted as that is irrelevant to the assault charge and would be prejudicial.

Once the jury is selected, the rest of the trial is only expected to last one to three days.

The murder trial is expected to last months. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer has been holding frequent hearings in recent weeks to consider issues that must be resolved before it begins.

"The wheels of justice grind slowly and that is especially true with our group of families," Mr Montalto said.

Mr Cruz's attorneys have said he would plead guilty to 17 murders in exchange for a life sentence.

Prosecutors have declined the offer, saying this is a case that deserves a death sentence.

A woman from California found a 4.38 carat yellow diamond in the Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas.

Noreen Wredberg was visiting the park with her husband Michael when she decided to explore the Crater of Diamonds park, said the state Parks Department to NBC news.

"I first saw the park featured on a TV show several years ago," Ms Wredberg told the Parks Department.

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"When I realised we weren't too far away, I knew we had to come."

The couple visited the park after days of rain, which meant the soil was slightly dry making it ideal diamond-searching conditions.

Ms Wredberg had only been looking for about an hour before she notice the large diamond.

"I didn't know it was a diamond then, but it was clean and shiny, so I picked it up!" she said according to NCB news.

In the US Arkansas is the sole state with a public diamond mine.

Since 1906 over 75,000 diamonds have been unearthed at the Crater of Diamonds.

If a visitor finds a diamond they take it to the park's Diamond Discovery Centre, which then confirms if the diamond is actually real.

According to the Arkansas parks department, the diamond found by Ms Wredberg is the biggest in the last year.

Ms Wredberg is allowed to keep the diamond, but said she was unsure what she would do with it.

With Greater Sydney itching for lockdown to end, 9News.com.au can reveal where penned-in NSW residents are planning to holiday inside the state after Freedom Day and over Christmas-New Year.

Pokolbin, a wine town in the heart of the Hunter Valley, is attracting plenty of attention right now, according to new data provided exclusively to 9News.com.au by travel site Wotif.

The Hunter Valley vineyard hot spot is currently ranked number one on Wotif's top-10 trending list, beating out Ulladulla and Nowra, scenic towns on the NSW South Coast.

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Kiama and Jervis Bay, also on the South Coast, round out the top five.

Wotif's trending list shows destinations which are spiking in searches, but Sydney remains the undisputed king when it comes to the out-and-out most popular holiday destination in NSW.

Newcastle is currently second to the NSW capital, according to Wotif accommodation booking data, with Port Stephens, Port Macquarie and Pokolbin making up a top-five.

When NSW hits 70 per cent fully vaccinated, holiday movement across regional LGAs will be permitted, except for Central Coast, Wollongong, Shellharbour and Blue Mountains.

At 80 per cent, there are no travel restrictions inside NSW borders and LGAs for people who have had two doses.

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Wotif Managing Director Daniel Finch told 9News that search interest jumped a whopping 40 per cent on the day NSW's roadmap out of lockdown was announced last week.

With Greater Sydney at the pointy end of a grueling lockdown since the end of June, and home schooling about to grind into the start of Term 4, people are gearing up to relax over summer.

"The biggest spikes (for bookings) were seen across Christmas and New Year," Mr Finch said, now that people in NSW had a clear roadmap to plan off.

And tourism businesses on the North Coast could be in for a welcome boon over summer, with Mr Finch explaining that region of NSW was seeing a deluge of accommodation bookings.

Other data showed NSW travellers were preferring trips closer to home, he said, because people could quickly re-evaluate travel plans if needed.

In July, 9News.com.au reported how Sydney hotels were running at less than two percent occupancy, with operators hemorrhaging cash and jobs evaporating.

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Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki could face charges regarding his role in Saturday’s mass anti-lockdown protest. A police spokesperson said officials are considering charges in relation to the organisers of the event, and Tamaki…

Racing Victoria is investigating allegations a group of horse trainers allegedly breached COVID-19 restrictions by attending a potentially illegal luncheon in regional Victoria.

It is alleged about a dozen attendees, including trainers, attended a long lunch near Ballarat last week ahead of the Spring Racing Carnival.

Racing Victoria confirmed to 9News today they were aware of the allegations that the number of restaurant attendees may have exceeded the indoor capacity limit for hospitality venues.

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"RV is aware of allegations that the number of attendees at a luncheon involving licensed participants at a regional restaurant may have been in excess of that permitted indoors at hospitality venues in regional Victoria under the current Government restrictions," the statement read.

"RV is continuing to investigate these allegations."

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When asked about rule-breakers in light of the potential breach, Victoria's Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton said people had to "see the risk in every potential interaction".

"We don't make (the rules) up because we want to constrain people's lives in unnecessary ways," he said.

"We've had enough death and dying of COVID globally. We just need to minimise that to the fullest extent possible."

An Adelaide woman pulled her car onto the side of the road to answer a phone call to find out she had just become a multi-millionaire.

The woman, in her 60s from Melrose Park in the city, scooped $3.3m on the lottery.

"You've made my day; you've made my life," The Lott said she replied to them.

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"I'm just on the side of the road. I've pulled over. I don't think I can drive home at the moment," she said.

The woman was one of three winners in the Saturday X Lotto draw, with the other people in her car apparently erupting into celebration when they realised what was going on.

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She said she had been playing the lottery for "decades".

She plans to retire early and spend her windfall on holidays.

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The South Island is leading the way in full vaccination despite having no cases of Covid-19 in the community.Data supplied by the Ministry of Health shows as of Monday, the top six districts with the most fully vaccinated people…

One of the largest oil spills in recent US history fouled popular beaches and killed wildlife in southern California while crews scrambled today to contain the crude before it spread further into protected wetlands.

At least 572,807 litres of oil spilled into the waters off Orange County, according to a statement from the city of Huntington Beach.

"The spill has significantly affected Huntington Beach, with substantial ecological impacts occurring at the beach and at the Huntington Beach Wetlands," the statement said.

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The oil created a wide sheen in the ocean and washed ashore in sticky, black globules along with dead birds and fish. Crews led by the US Coast Guard deployed skimmers and floating barriers known as booms to try to stop further incursion into the wetlands and the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve.

A petroleum stench permeated the air throughout the area, said Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley.

"You get the taste in the mouth just from the vapors in the air," she said.

The closure stretched from the Huntington Beach Pier nearly 6.4 kilometres south to the Santa Ana River jetty amid summerlike weather that would have brought beachgoers to the wide strand for volleyball, swimming and surfing. Yellow caution tape was strung between lifeguard towers to keep people away.

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Officials cancelled the final day of the annual Pacific Air Show that typically draws thousands of spectators to Huntington Beach, a city of about 199,000 residents about 50km south of downtown Los Angeles. The show featured flyovers by the US Navy Blue Angels and the US Air Force Thunderbirds.

The oil slick originated from a broken pipeline connected to an offshore oil platform known as Elly, Ms Foley said on Twitter. Elly is connected by walkway to another platform, Ellen, located just over 14km off Long Beach and operated by Beta Operating Company, according to the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

Beta and its parent company, Houston-based Amplify Energy Corp didn't immediately return phone messages and emails seeking comment.

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Ms Foley said Newport Beach Mayor Brad Avery told her that he encountered the oil slick while in a boat traveling back to the mainland from Santa Catalina Island.

"He saw dolphins swimming thru the oil," Ms Foley tweeted.

The Huntington Beach statement early Sunday said "while the leak has not been completely stopped, preliminary patching has been completed to repair the oil spill site," with additional repairs planned.

The spill comes three decades after a massive oil leak hit the same stretch of Orange County coast. On February 7, 1990, the oil tanker American Trader ran over its anchor off Huntington Beach, spilling nearly 1.6 million litres of crude. Fish and about 3400 birds were killed.

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In 2015, a ruptured pipeline north of Santa Barbara sent 541,313L of crude oil gushing onto Refugio State Beach.

At a news conference Saturday night, Orange County officials expressed concern about the environmental impacts of the spill and hoped crews could stop the oil before it flowed into sensitive wetlands.

"We've been working with our federal, state and county partners to mitigate the impact that could be a potential ecological disaster," Huntington Beach Mayor Kim Carr said.

The area is home to threatened and endangered species — including a plump shorebird called the snowy plover, the California least tern and humpback whales — a fishing industry, and migratory birds on the Pacific Flyway.

"The coastal areas off of Southern California are just really rich for wildlife, a key biodiversity hot spot," said Miyoko Sakashita, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's oceans program.

The effects of an oil spill are wide-ranging, environmentalists said. Birds that get oil on their feathers can't fly, can't clean themselves and can't monitor their own temperatures, Ms Sakashita said. Whales, dolphins and other sea creatures can have trouble breathing or die after swimming through oil or breathing in toxic fumes, she said.

"The oil spill just shows how dirty and dangerous oil drilling is and oil that gets into the water. It's impossible to clean it up so it ends up washing up on our beaches and people come into contact with it and wildlife comes in contact with it," she said.

"It has long-lasting effects on the breeding and reproduction of animals. It's really sad to see this broad swatch oiled."

Melbourne has endured more time in lockdown than any other city in the world after roughly eight months.

The city, passing into its 246th day under stay-at-home orders on Monday, claims the dubious title from the Argentinean capital of Buenos Aires.

By October 26, when it's hoped 70 per cent of the state's over 15's will be fully vaccinated, triggering rule relaxations for the protected, Melburnians will have racked up more than 260 days at home since the coronavirus pandemic hit last year.

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It's a bitter milestone to pass as Victoria regularly records more than 1000 new cases a day two months into Melbourne's sixth lockdown —  significantly higher than even the worst day of last year's 112-day confinement.

But the Delta variant has proven seemingly impossible to eradicate since it took hold in Sydney, which has itself just marked 100 days of stay-at-home orders, in June.

Melbourne's record-breaking lockdown is costing the state economy $700 million a week.

Australian Industry Group's chief executive Innes Willox said the record was a "pretty grim" milestone for what has previously been known as one of the world's most liveable cities.

"It's the record nobody would want, the record no-one expected," he told Today.

"Melbourne's a sad, tired place at the moment.

"It's two emotions running through the place. Fear and defiance.

"The Premier's made it clear he will extend that if he needs to. That's not very heartening for people as we break a world record."

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Mr Willox said Melbourne faced a "really tough" road to recovery.

"It's not going to be a sort of snapback or another V-shaped recovery, particularly in Melbourne," he said.

"It's going to take a long time. Melbourne's lost all of the attributes that made it strong – events, strong culture, the education sector.

"The CBD is just sort of a graffitied wasteland. There is a lot of work to restore confidence. Business confidence is low. Consumer confidence is low.

"It is going to take a huge effort to get together and really reimagine Victoria."

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has justified his capital's continuing lockdown, saying there was little alternative to keep the virus at bay.

"I simply say how proud I am of every Victorian for giving so much, for working so hard, to save lives to get through this," he said yesterday.

"It has been bloody tough, we know that, but the Victorian community have been so, so impressive along the way."

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But those on the other side of politics have been far less positive in marking the global milestone.

"Lockdowns are not a sign of policy success, they're a sign of policy failure," state Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said.

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, going a few days early, said people had "had enough" of "the longest lockdown in the world here in Melbourne".

"People are at their wit's end. They want their kids back at school. They want businesses to reopen," he said.

"They are getting the jab in record numbers because they believe that's the part of the pact they have with their governments, federal and state, that when they get the jab, the restrictions will ease and that is what state governments need to provide."

Some counts put Tuesday as Melbourne's official date to claim the lockdown crown and there are also varying interpretations about what exactly constitutes a "lockdown".

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In parts of Italy and Spain people were blocked from exercising and had to pick one household member to do the grocery shopping, while in other parts of Europe residents skated through without exercise time or travel distance limits.

The Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker, run out of the Blavatnik School of Government, currently lists Australia and New Zealand in the top 20 for lockdown strictness judged off the measures in place in the most locked down region.

It appears vaccinated Melburnians will need to wait about two weeks longer than their neighbours in Sydney to enjoy greater pandemic freedoms.

Argentinian authorities, meanwhile, have begun speaking about the "last stage" of the pandemic and will allow all tourists back in November.

"We are in a very positive moment, we know that the pandemic has not ended, we have to maintain care," Health Minister Carla Vizzotti said about two weeks ago, according to Reuters. 

"We are moving toward the full recovery of activities."