PM briefing: Amtrak train kills five in van

1 Five die in accident

Authorities are investigating after an Amtrak train collided with a van killing five people, including three children, in Colorado. The Colorado State Patrol released a statement saying a 2005 Chrysler Town & Country failed to yield right of way to the train and was struck just outside Trinidad. The van's driver and four of the passengers were killed. The TV station Denver7 reports that a girl in the van was flown to Children's Hospital in Aurora, Colorado, with serious injuries. More than 280 passengers were on board at the time of the crash and remain stranded in the area. No one on the train was injured.

2 Woman falls from escalator
A woman is in hospital with extensive injuries after falling two storeys down an escalator at a Gold Coast shopping centre. The woman, aged in her 20s, suffered serious head and facial injuries as well as a fractured hip and wrist, in the fall at Broadbeach's Oasis Shopping Centre. She was taken to the Gold Coast University Hospital and is reportedly fighting for her life.

3 Win for Rajoy
Spain's caretaker Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, says his centre-right People's Party (PP) has won a parliamentary election and therefore has the right to govern. The PP won 137 seats in the election, up from 123 in a previous election in December, but short of the 176 needed for an outright majority.

4 Pope says gays due apology
Pope Francis says gays - and all the other people the church has marginalised, such as the poor and the exploited - deserve an apology. Francis was asked en route home from Armenia if he agreed with one of his top advisers, German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who told a conference in Dublin in the days after the deadly Orlando gay club attack that the church owes an apology to gays for having marginalised them. Francis responded with a variation of his famous "Who am I to judge?" comment and a repetition of church teaching that gays must not be discriminated against but treated with respect. He said some politicised behaviours of the homosexual community can be condemned for being "a bit offensive for others". But he said: "Someone who has this condition, who has good will and is searching for God, who are we to judge?" Francis added: "I think the church must not only apologise ... to a gay person it offended, but we must apologise to the poor, to women who have been exploited, to children forced into labour, apologise for having blessed so many weapons" and for having failed to accompany families who faced divorces or experienced other problems.

5 Poll shows signs for Coalition
A 1 per cent movement in an opinion poll - well within the statistical margin of error and the not the first since February - has suddenly become a surge in the Australian election. The latest Newspoll - the second last before polling day - was published in the Australian. The story behind the inconsequential change in the standing of the major parties is better news for the Government than it is for the Opposition. First-vote support for the Coalition rose two points to 43 per cent on the back of another drop in support for independents and micro parties. After preferences, the Coalition leads Labor 51-49 per cent. With five days to go, a third of voters say they're not fully committed to their choice. Six per cent say they haven't made up their mind. Electoral history shows that in the last week of a campaign uncommitted and undecided voters generally break more strongly for the Coalition than Labor.

6 Wearable sunlight sensor
Australian researchers have developed a new wearable sensor that tells you when you have been exposed to too much ultraviolet sunlight. The simple paper-based UV sensor, to be unveiled at this week's International Nanomedicine Conference in Sydney, changes colour in the sun and could provide an affordable tool to help prevent deadly skin cancers. Chemists from the Australian Centre for NanoMedicine at the University of NSW, who designed the the low-cost sensor, say it can be worn like stickers on the skin and uses food dyes that change colour after sun exposure. Stick-on patches can be tuned to suit individual skin types.

7 Seven injured at rally
At least seven people were injured at a rally in Sacramento, California as members of a white supremacist group clashed with counter-protesters, authorities say. The melee erupted during a rally outside the California state Capitol building which had been staged by the Traditionalist Worker Party, described by the Southern Poverty Law Centre as a white nationalist extremist group.

- agencies