One person has died following a water incident in Taupō this evening. A police spokeswoman said the incident happened at Two Mile Bay. Emergency services were alerted at 6.07pm.”Sadly attempts to revive the person were…

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called a special meeting of National Cabinet this Friday to discuss strengthening Australia's COVID-19 protocols for returning travellers.

Announcing the unscheduled meeting via social media, Mr Morrison said the UK's new highly transmissible strain will be discussed.

It's thought measures such as mandatory testing of passengers before they board a flight to Australia will be considered.

READ MORE: Four new local cases of coronavirus in NSW

"This afternoon I contacted Premiers and Chief Ministers to convene a special meeting of National Cabinet on Friday morning," Mr Morrison wrote.

"The meeting is to consider a proposal that I requested through our Chief Medical Officer, Professor Paul Kelly, from our national expert medical panel, the AHPPC.

"The proposal is to further strengthen the COVID safety of end to end international travel processes (from arrival at Airport of embarkation in the exit country, to final clearance from hotel quarantine in Australia). This is being done particularly in the context of the UK strain."

Mr Morrison said the rollout of a vaccine within Australia will also be discussed.

READ MORE: 'You will not be charged for testing', NSW Health confirms

"The AHPPC has continued to meet every day during this most recent outbreak, and had an initial discussion of their proposal today," Mr Morrison wrote.

"They will discuss the proposal further tomorrow before making a formal submission to National Cabinet.

"The meeting will also provide an opportunity to further update National Cabinet on the Federal Government's vaccination programme, where considerable progress is being made over the break."

READ MORE: Singapore COVID-19 contact tracing data can be accessed by police

Debate between state governments has raged over the way internal quarantining of overseas travellers has been conducted.

Currently, Sydney accepts the majority of international travellers and that is where they undertake hotel quarantine before taking a connecting flight to their home state.

You can get up-to-date information from the Federal Government's Coronavirus Australia app, available on the App Store, Google Play and the Government's WhatsApp channel.

Beyond Blue's Coronavirus Mental Wellbeing Support Service is a 24/7 service free of charge to all Australians. Visit the site here or call 1800512348

For coronavirus breaking news alerts and livestreams straight to your smartphone sign up to the 9News app and set notifications to on at the App Store or Google Play.

People across the country have rallied together to help the owners of a beloved Auckland café get back on their feet after a burglary. Rockys Restaurant & Café was burgled earlier in the week. Read More Auckland cafe burglary:…

Flooding has occurred in parts of North Queensland after torrential rain from ex-Tropical Cyclone Imogen drenched the region.

Shops, cars and houses were inundated in Ingham, north of Townsville, after 122 millimetres fell in one hour this morning.

Dominic Zighoni spent the morning laying sandbags outside his seafood shop as the water rose.

The Ingham local told 9News this morning's downpour was unusually heavy.

"That was a bit of a wake-up call, I haven't heard one like that for a while," he said.

"It's unreal. Ten days a go we were in drought and now we've got 30 or 40 feet in the river running through."

The Severe Weather Warning for the region has now been cancelled but forecasters say the risk of severe thunderstorms and localised rainbands which may lead to flash flooding remains.

Drivers are being urged to take care, with dozens of roads still flooded across the state.

The SES has received more than 100 calls for assistance since Sunday.

The father of two young boys killed in an alleged hit-and-run by an unlicensed driver says it feels as though his heart has been ripped from his chest.

Shane and Sheldon Shorey, aged six and seven, were hit by a car about 4.30pm yesterday in Wellington, near Dubbo in regional NSW.

The boys both died at the scene. Their mother, 34, and two other boys, aged nine and 10, were also struck and injured.

The group was walking along grass by the side of the road on the way home from after leaving a local swimming pool when they were hit by a Holden Commodore.

"I have lost two beautiful boys who are just starting their lives," father Joseph Shorey said.

"It leaves my heart ripped out. I feel gutted, I feel empty.

"Two babies gone. I gotta bury two kids, I'd never wish that upon anyone."

Mr Shorey described his two sons as "the happiest kids in the world".

He said they were sporty, popular and loved playing footy at the oval near their home.

The heartbroken father visited the scene where his two sons were killed this afternoon, comforted by loved ones.

The boys, who lived in Queensland with Mr Shorey, had been in Wellington visiting their mother while on school holidays.

After the deadly crash, the boys' mother was airlifted to Westmead Hospital in Sydney where she remains in a stable condition.

The two other boys struck were both injured but are now stable.

The 10-year-old was also taken to Westmead Hospital with serious leg injuries and has undergone surgery.

The nine-year-old other boy suffered minor injuries and has been released from hospital.

The alleged driver Jacob Donn was arrested on nearby Elizabeth Street last night and has been charged today.

Police searched him and allegedly found he was carrying a prescription medicine.

He has undergone drug and alcohol testing, but results are still pending.

He has been charged with dangerous driving occasioning death – driving in a dangerous manner; negligent driving occasioning death; negligent driving occasioning grievous bodily harm; dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm – driving in a dangerous manner; two counts of causing bodily harm by misconduct in charge of motor vehicle; being a never licensed person driving a vehicle on a road; two counts of failing to stop and assist after impact causing injury; two counts of failing to stop and assist after vehicle impact causing death; failing to stop and assist after vehicle impact causing grievous bodily harm; and possessing a prohibited drug.

Mr Donn was refused bail to appear at Dubbo Local Court tomorrow.

Acting Commander of the Orana Mid-Western Police District Natalie Antaw said today the tragic accident sent shockwaves through the small community.

"Obviously, the incident is a complete tragedy – a tragedy for the families and the township of Wellington," she said.

"(It is) a tragic incident involving young children which always makes it that much more difficult."

She said the families of the children killed and injured were "obviously grief-stricken".

Police said they are not looking for anyone else who may have been in the car but asked anyone who many have witnessed the crash or have dashcam footage to come forward.

Investigations continue.

The prison staff union leader says it’s ludicrous to call six days of fiery destruction at Waikeria a “protest”.And prison authorities say the Waikato jail has insurance but it’s not yet known how much the damage will cost taxpayers.Corrections…

A group of people checking out a "haunted house" in South Carolina got a scare of a different kind after they found a dead body in a freezer.

The group visited the abandoned house in Norway, in Orangeburg County, on the weekend, police said.

Local news outlet WSOCTV reported that one of the group, an 18-year-old man, thought he smelled "rotting meat", which he traced to a freezer on the property.

Opening it, he and his companions saw what appeared to be decomposing human remains.

Police determined the remains were human, but the age, gender, identity and cause of death remain unknown.

In a further development, the house where the body was found burned down just today – early Tuesday morning local time.

Officers said the fire was being treated as suspicious, but a cause had not been determined.

A boom box with sentimental value belonging to a Wellington club rugby team called Mixed Veges has been stolen. The Mixed Veges was formed in 1986 by a group of Victoria University students including TVNZ presenter John Campbell,…

An Auckland mother was left frightened and angry after a rock she believes was thrown from a motorway overbridge struck her windscreen. Danielle Williams was travelling from the supermarket to her Te Atatu home at midday today when…

Is burying the dead a practice unique to Homo sapiens?

Or did other early humans such as Neanderthals lay their loved ones to rest under the earth?

It's a topic of long-standing debate among archaeologists.

Now, evidence of funerary behavior could shed light on the cognitive abilities and social customs of Neanderthals and whether, like modern humans, they were capable of symbolic thought.

Read more: New details revealed about preserved Neanderthal who fell down well

Dozens of buried Neanderthal skeletons have been discovered in Europe and parts of Asia over the course of 150 years.

The most well-preserved ones, however, were found at the beginning of the 20th century and weren't excavated using modern methods.

This has led to skepticism about whether Neanderthal burial practice was deliberate.

A new analysis of a 41,000 year-old skeleton of a Neanderthal child, found in a French cave in the 1970s, provides fresh evidence that the Stone Age hominins intentionally buried their dead.

French and Spanish researchers re-examined the remains using modern high-tech methods, re-excavated the original archaeological site where the bones were found in La Ferrassie, southwestern France, and reviewed the notebooks and field diaries from the original dig.

Their conclusion? The corpse of a two-year-old Neanderthal was deliberately laid in a pit dug in the sediment.

The absence of marks from carnivores who may have tried to scavenge an uncovered body and the fact that the bones were relatively unscattered with little weathering suggested that the body was rapidly covered, the researchers said.

The remains were also well preserved (better than the bones from animals found in the same layer of earth) despite belonging to a child.

Children's skeletons typically have more delicate bones.

The position of the skeleton also suggested the child had been placed there intentionally.

The head, which pointed to the east, was raised higher than the rest of the body even though the land inclined to the west.

"The origin of funerary practices has important implications for the emergence of so-called modern cognitive capacities and behaviour," the study said.

"These new results provide important insights for the discussion about the chronology of the disappearance of the Neanderthals, and the behavioral capacity, including cultural and symbolic expression, of these humans."

The researchers from the French National Centre for Scientific Research, the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris and the University of the Basque Country in Spain identified 47 bones belonging to the child's skeleton that hadn't been previously identified.

One piece of bone was carbon dated and found to be 41,000 years old.

Researchers confirmed the bone belonged to a Neanderthal by analysing the fragment's mitochondrial DNA.

Read more: Aztec 'tower of skulls' discovered in Mexico

The child was one of eight sets of skeletal remains found at the site.

Potential evidence of burial has also been found in one of the most famous Neanderthal sites, the Shanidar cave in Kurdistan, located in northern Iraq.

This site was home to the remains of 10 Neanderthal men, women and children.

They were found with ancient pollen clumps, suggesting that Neanderthals may have included flowers as part of their funeral rites.

More recent excavations of the Shanidar cave have turned up more Neanderthal remains, which early research has suggested were deliberately buried.

Other research has suggested that there was considerable diversity in how European Neanderthals treated their dead kin in the period immediately preceding their disappearance roughly 40,000 years ago – including cannibalism.

The team of researchers said today's analytical standards should be applied to the other skeletal remains at the La Ferrassie site to assess whether they too were buried.

The research was published in the journal Scientific Reports in December.