The early morning closure of Ngurah Rai airport sparked the cancellation of nearly 450 flights to and from the tropical paradise.

Mount Agung shot a tower of smoke and ash some 2,000 metres (6,500 feet) into the sky Thursday evening.

The airport was closed early Friday after a pilot flying overhead detected traces of volcanic ash as high as 23,000 feet.

Ash is dangerous for planes as it makes runways slippery and can be sucked into their engines.

Bali’s main international gateway will be closed until at least Friday evening, according to officials, who added that two other domestic airports were also shut.

The fresh activity threatens to create travel chaos after an Agung eruption in November stranded thousands and pounded Bali’s lucrative tourism industry and wider economy.

Tens of thousands of locals fled to evacuation centres after last year’s eruption.

The volcano is about 75 kilometres from Bali’s tourist hub in Kuta.

Australian visitor Rod Bird came early to the airport only to be told his flight back to Perth had been cancelled for the second time.

An earlier flight on AirAsia was called off before the airport was shuttered early Friday morning.

“They told us the volcano is going off so they rebooked us for this morning and we got here at 5:00 am only to be turned away again. So we’ve had two cancelled flights,” Bird told AFP.

“Well it’s Bali, these things happen and we are fine with it. We just miss the kids,” he added.

Some 446 domestic and international flights have been cancelled after the volcano roared backed to life, affecting about 75,000 passengers.

Thousands were stranded at the airport or hotels Friday, but it was not immediately clear how many tourists were unable to leave the island.

Despite the eruption, Agung’s status remained on alert status, the second highest danger warning.

There is a four-kilometre (2.5 mile) no-go zone around Agung’s peak.

Bali’s governor appealed for calm, and said activity at the crater has declined significantly since Thursday evening.

“We will try our best to find a solution so all visitors can continue their trip,” Made Mangku Pastika said.

Agung has been erupting periodically since it rumbled back to life last year.

Its last major eruption in 1963 killed around 1,600 people.

Indonesia is the world’s most active volcanic region and lies on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” where tectonic plates collide, causing frequent volcanic and seismic activities.

The suspect — who was being questioned in custody — was described as a white adult male armed with a rifle or a shotgun, who appeared to have acted alone and whose motive remained unknown.

Here are some of the deadliest mass shootings in the United States in the past three decades:

Vegas concert: 58 killed

A 64-year-old retired accountant shoots down from his hotel room at a crowd attending an outdoor country music concert on October 1, 2017, killing 58 people and wounding around 550 before committing suicide. It is the worst mass shooting in modern US history.

Florida club: 49 killed

A heavily-armed gunman opens fire inside a gay nightclub in the city of Orlando on June 12, 2016, killing 49 people. The attacker is killed in a shootout with police. He pledges allegiance to the Islamic State group, which later claims responsibility.

Virginia Tech: 32 killed

A 23-year-old student of Korean descent goes on a rampage at Virginia Tech University in the town of Blacksburg in April 2007. He kills 27 students and five teachers before committing suicide.

Sandy Hook: 26 killed

A 20-year-old man kills his mother in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012 before blasting his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School and shooting dead 20 six- and seven-year old children and six adults. He commits suicide.

Texas church: 26 killed

A 26-year-old man who was court-martialed while in the Air Force shoots dead 26 worshippers during Sunday services and wounds at least 20 others at a Baptist church in the small rural community of Sutherland Springs outside San Antonio, Texas, on November 5, 2017. The shooter flees and is later found dead in his car with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Texas restaurant: 22 dead

In October 1991, a man shoots dead 22 people at a restaurant in the town of Killeen, Texas and then kills himself. Another wounded victim dies later.

Florida high school: 17 dead

A 19-year-old former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who was expelled for disciplinary reasons returns to the school in Parkland, Florida, and opens fire on February 14, 2018, killing 14 students and three adult staff members.

California office party: 14 dead

A radicalized Muslim couple storm a Christmas office party at a social services center in San Bernardino in December 2015 and gun down 14 people, wounding 22 others. They are shot dead by police.

Fort Hood military base: 13 dead

In November 2009, a US army psychiatrist opens fire at his military base in Killeen, Texas, killing 13 people and wounding 42, before being overpowered by police.

New York immigrant center: 13 dead

A Vietnamese immigrant shoots dead 13 people at a civic center in Binghamton, New York in April 2009, before killing himself.

Columbine High: 13 dead

Two teenage boys shoot and kill 12 classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in April 1999, before killing themselves.

Washington Navy Yard: 12 dead

A former serviceman shoots randomly at workers at the Washington Navy Yard headquarters in September 2013, killing 12 people before he is shot dead by officers.

Denver cinema: 12 dead

A young man wearing body armor opens fire in a movie theater showing a late-night premiere of a Batman film in Aurora, Colorado in July 2012. Twelve people are killed and 70 wounded. He is sentenced to life in prison.

Police described the suspect — who was being questioned in custody — as a white adult male who was armed with a rifle or a shotgun and appeared to have acted alone.

A reporter for the daily, Phil Davis, tweeted a chilling account of how the “gunman shot through the glass door to the office and opened fire on multiple employees.”

“There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you’re under your desk and then hear the gunman reload,” Davis said.

There were five known fatalities, the acting police chief of Anne Arundel county, Bill Krampf, told a news conference in Maryland’s capital.

Lieutenant Ryan Frashure, a police spokesman, said three other people had been injured.

Anne Arundel county executive Steve Schuh added on CNN that the suspect “has not been particularly cooperative.”

Krampf said police had disposed of a suspected explosive device and that the four-story office building was now secure.

Still going to print

Capital Gazette editor Jimmy DeButts tweeted that he was “devastated & heartbroken. Numb.”

“I’m in no position to speak, just know @capgaznews reporters & editors give all they have every day. There are no 40 hour weeks, no big paydays – just a passion for telling stories from our community,” DeButts wrote.

Chase Cook, a reporter at the newspaper, said the shooting would not stop The Capital — the local print edition — from going to press.

“I can tell you this: We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow,” he tweeted.

Gracie Rustin, a dental assistant who was in the middle of a procedure on the second floor of the building when the attack took place, heard “loud noises” but did not immediately realize it was a shooting.

Then police rushed in and “were like, ‘Leave, leave, leave!'” Rustin told AFP.

While it was not yet clear if journalists were deliberately targeted, the shooting revived memories of a 2015 incident in Roanoke, Virginia in which two journalists were shot dead during a live broadcast on local television.

“Every shooting like this is horrific but one that occurs in a place of journalism is particularly disturbing and brings back the flood of memories of that tragic day for me,” said Andy Parker, whose daughter Alison was one of the Roanoke victims.

President Donald Trump, who has been at loggerheads with much of the media since taking office, tweeted a message of support.

“My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. Thank you to all of the First Responders who are currently on the scene,” he wrote.

‘Attack on every American’

“A violent attack on innocent journalists doing their job is an attack on every American,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders tweeted.

Several lawmakers also weighed in.

“My heart is with the families, friends and loved ones of the victims as we learn more about this terrible situation,” Chris Van Hollen, the state’s junior senator said. “We must unite to end the violence.”

“The senseless attack on a Maryland newspaper today is sickening. God bless these journalists,” House Speaker Paul Ryan tweeted.

A recent study found that Americans own 40 percent of the world’s firearms despite accounting for only four percent of the global population.

Of the 857 million guns owned by civilians, 393 million are in the United States — more than all of the firearms held by ordinary citizens in the other top 25 countries combined, according to the Small Arms Survey.

Advocates of tougher gun laws have stepped up their efforts in the wake of numerous school shootings this year, including the killing of 17 people at a Parkland, Florida high school in February and the killing of 10 people at a Texas high school in May.

So far the results have been relatively modest. Florida has raised the legal age to buy firearms from 18 to 21, while Texas Governor Greg Abbott focused on mental health and improving school safety in his list of recommendations following the Santa Fe shooting in the rural southeast of his state.

Images broadcast on Indian news channels showed flames and black smoke billowing from the area, which sits right next to several high-rise residential towers.

There were four people on the 12-seater aircraft, disaster management officials said, with witnesses reporting hearing a loud blast as it smashed into a half-built structure.

“There was a huge explosion and the adjacent tree caught fire and the fire spilled on the streets,” a man was quoted as saying on the NDTV news channel.

“Initially we assumed an electric box in the under-construction building must have caught fire but when we checked out the spot, we found the charred body of a man who apparently was on bike when the plane crashed,” he added.

Indian firemen work in the wreckage of a small plane that crashed into a construction site, killing five people, in Mumbai on June 28, 2018. A small plane crashed into a construction site in a densely populated area of India’s financial capital Mumbai on June 28, killing five people, officials said. // AFP PHOTO

A woman, who was also not named, reported hearing three loud explosions and described seeing a “major fire”.

Video footage posted online showed bright orange flames licking the side of a building next to a construction site.

Other images shot after the fire was put out showed firemen sifting through the twisted wreckage of the twin-prop plane as crowds looked on.

The white tailfin seemed to be the only recognisable part of the aircraft not consumed in the blaze.

India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said the plane was a turbo-prop King Air C-90 and had been on a test flight from the nearby Juhu airstrip.

“There were two pilots and two aircraft maintenance engineers on board. All on board (the) aircraft along with one person on ground are dead,” the DGCA statement read.

– ‘Completely charred’ –

A medical officer at Rajawadi hospital, where the victims were taken, said the dead included three men and two women.

“There bodies were completely charred due to the fire,” she told AFP, adding that two injured had also been admitted and were in a stable condition.

It was not raining at the time of the accident and weather did not appear to have been a factor in the crash.

DGCA said it was sending a team to investigate the cause, adding that the aircraft was owned by a private operator who had purchased it from the Uttar Pradesh state government.

Indian rescue firemen (C) and aviation officials gather around the wreckage of a small plane that crashed into a construction site, killing five people, in Mumbai on June 28, 2018. A small plane crashed into a construction site in a densely populated area of India’s financial capital Mumbai on June 28, killing five people, officials said // AFP PHOTO 

P Rahangdale, Mumbai’s chief fire officer, said several fire engines had rushed to the spot.

India’s National Disaster Response Force said it was also sending a team to make sure no there were no injured trapped under any rubble at the crash site.

Former Indian Aviation Minister Praful Patel tweeted his condolences and praised the pilot for the guiding the plane into an open area.

“Salute to the pilot who showed presence of mind to avoid a big mishap, saving many lives at the cost of her own life,” he wrote.

There have been several crashes involving small planes in India in recent years.

In 2015 a light aircraft belonging to India’s paramilitary border force crashed after taking off from New Delhi airport, killing 10 people on board.

Ten people were killed in 2011 after an air ambulance crashed into a residential area in Faridabad, near the capital. Seven people on board and three on the ground were killed.

The last deadly air crash involving a commercial plane happened in 2010 when an Air India Boeing 737-800 over shot the runway while landing at Mangalore airport in southern India.

At least 158 passengers were killed and nearly a dozen others survived the crash.

“We have lost 15 people from this tragedy this morning,” said regional coordinator Kangethe Thuku.

“We’re yet to establish the cause of this fire,” he said, which is believed to have started in a timber yard.

Shoddy wiring has been blamed for past fires at Gikomba, with traders saying there have been numerous smaller fires in recent months.

Thursday’s pre-dawn blaze began at 2am (2300 GMT) and left over 70 people injured, destroying many of the market’s wood and tarp stalls where second-hand clothes, shoes, vegetables and other items are sold on the eastern edge of the city.

A police officer at the scene said emergency services continued to search the area and that several people were missing

“We are still trying to get to some corner (of the market) which has heavy smoke, because part of the area has not been accessed due to live electric wires,” the officer said.

– Lives lost, property destroyed –

Hundreds of people crowded around the smouldering ruins of the market, desperately trying to retrieve their goods as gas canisters, swept up in the inferno, could be heard exploding.

“Oh God! What have we done to deserve this?” exclaimed one trader who had lost everything in the fire.

Maggy Njeri, a second-hand clothes trader, wept by the ruins of her stall. “This was my life. I don’t know where to start from,” she said.

Vincent Kimani stood by his stall clutching a wodge of burned banknotes in his hand. “What do you want me to say? You can see for yourself I am totally finished.”

Police officers stand in front of smouldering timbers after a huge fire burned down timber shops in Gikomba market in Nairobi, Kenya, 28 June 2018. // EPA-EFE PHOTO

Nine of the dead were found in a six-storey apartment block next to the market while six others — including four children — died of burns and smoke inhalation in hospital.

Many of the injured were taken to the city’s main Kenyatta National Hospital were distraught relatives roamed the corridors.

Rushing from ward to ward, Betty Kaveke desperately sought her three missing children.

“I have only found one, aged 14, the rest are nowhere to be seen and the house is destroyed,” she said.

– ‘Fires are mysterious’ –

Traders said there have been at least four fires at Gikomba in the last seven months, while the last major blaze, in October last year, destroyed much of the market.

“Gikomba fires are mysterious,” said George Basweti, a security guard who has worked there for many years and seen numerous blazes destroy part, or all, of the market.

“I am tired of losing property every now and then. There’s no progress,” said stallholder Esther Mwaniki, who complained that investigations into the causes of the fires were never carried out and safety measures never implemented.

Some suspect arson. “This is not just another fire incident. There’s more to it,” said a detective who did not want to be named.

In May 2014, 10 people died in a bombing at the market blamed on Al-Qaeda-aligned Shabaab militants.

Malaysian officers under the crackdown codenamed “Ops Mega 3.0” will reportedly arrest illegal workers and their employers. They may face fines of up to 50,000 ringgit (Bt410,000), five years in jail and six cane strokes, according to the Thai Labour Office’s Facebook page (facebook.com/ThaiEmbassyKL/).

It urged Thai workers who had already applied to the programme and were pending approval to ask their employers to contact the Malaysian Immigration Bureau for updates of the progress while calling for illegal workers, who had not joined the programme, to return to Thailand legally.

Those who later find that they are not eligible under the Rehiring Programme can also submit to the voluntary surrender “3+1 Programme” that will run until August 30 to return to Thailand voluntarily.

To apply to 3+1, each illegal Thai worker must pay a fine, buy a special pass for 400 ringgits and a ticket to Thailand, the office said.

The 2016 Rehiring Programme received applications from 744,942 illegal migrants by May 28, the statement said. Of these, 307,557 applicants qualified for work permits but over half of them were still pending medical certificates from the Foreign Workers Medical Examination Monitoring Agency (Fomema).

Only 110,489 immigrants were granted work permits, the Facebook post said.

On the night Liu Jinsong approached Yueyang in Hunan province, he admits he was a bit scarThe streetlights were dim and the road hilly and pebbly, with barely visible sections under repair looming here and there as he rode toward his first destination on a marathon mountain bike trip, his figure dwarfed by the trucks and tractors that roared past.

Liu, 46, had set out that morning, on April 26, from his hometown in Changsha, the capital of Hunan, bound for Moscow, more than 11,000 kilometres away.

Why Moscow? The 2018 FIFA World Cup is being held in Russia, with the final in the capital on July 15, and Liu is a soccer fan.

“I’ve always wanted to relate to the World Cup in my own way,” Liu said. “I can always show up in the stadium easily as long as I have money, but that’s not my way.”

Liu fixed his eyes on his bike, bought a year ago but left in a corner because he was busy running his little barbecue restaurant. Cycling to Russia would be difficult, but also fun and unique, he thought.

“I’m also a fan of rock music, and my understanding of rock is to follow you heart,” he said. “If I think about doing it, then I will do it. That way my heart remains the same, even if I fail to complete the task.”

After three days repairing and preparing his bike, Liu left his business, wife and son behind and hit the road on a drizzly morning, with no prior physical training or route planning. Smiling and motivated, he took pictures in front of his barbecue restaurant and announced his departure on social media.

Liu cycled past the Yangtze River and across vast canola plains, but the journey was far tougher than he expected. Five days after setting out he had serious bruises on his thighs and a strained tendon in his left leg, and he had to push his bike some of the time.

He reached Beijing on May 8, planning to collect his passport, Russian visa and credit card while taking a brief rest. The two-day break in Beijing, sharing a few drinks with friends, rejuvenated him. He said his body had grown accustomed to long-distance cycling and it would be no problem to stay in the saddle for more than 10 hours at a time.

But the adventure beyond Beijing was a journey into the unknown.

“I have no idea how and where I’ll stay next or if I will be able to find accommodation or food along the way, but it is these unknown things that make traveling most interesting,” he said.

On May 12, Liu ran into heavy rain that later turned into hailstones, forcing him to stop and seek shelter. As the night wore on, his GPS guided him onto a narrow country road, with the nearest hotel 100 km away.

A few dogs barked aggressively when he attempted to pitch his tent in a village, so he set it up in a clearing in front of an old temple, falling asleep with the chanting of monks as a lullaby.

On day 28, with 3,300 km conquered, Liu reached the China-Russia border at Manzhouli, in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, and crossed into a foreign country for the first time in his life.

Siberia was vast, but not flat, and the rough roads posed a constant risk of punctures to his tires. Wild animals could have been lurking in the primeval forest and valleys, but Liu was too tired to think about the danger.

“I’ve lost track of time,” he said. “I never want to stop, I’m just a bit tired and sleepy.”

Luckily, the people Liu met on the way greeted him warmly, offsetting Siberia’s chilly winds. He was offered cosy bedrooms more than once by Russian villagers when he was about to pitch his tent in the cold. He was also offered a ride by a truck driver when the road was too bad for cycling in the dark. The time Liu spent with his new Russian friends forged memories as strong as the vodka they offered him.

Liu is still heading to Moscow at full speed, averaging 160 km a day. He will make it to Moscow on July 15 if all goes as planned and will see if anyone is kind enough to give him a free ticket to the final.

“At this stage watching the World Cup is no longer necessary,” he said. “I will be satisfied just to feel the World Cup vibes.”

Liu’s social media posts on his journey have earned him the criticism of some netizens, because his journey has led to the closure of his restaurant, with his wife and son alone at home. He said he plans to start his business all over again and spend more time with his family after he flies home.

“I’m not trying to prove anything to anyone,” he said. “I just want to do it, and I believe I can.”

Soranet – set up in 1999 – held tens of thousands of illegal porn videos, including “revenge porn” and spycam porn videos of women secretly filmed at public locations.

Distributing pornography is illegal in South Korea, although many such videos are widely consumed on servers based in foreign countries or secretly shared on file-sharing sites.

Soranet – which once boasted more than one million members – was closed two years ago following complaints from women’s rights groups.

She was arrested on Monday for distributing or aiding the distribution of sex videos featuring minors, police said.

Her husband and another couple known to be co-owners of the site – all of whom have Australian citizenship or permanent residency – remain overseas.

They are also accused of abetting illegal activities by Soranet members who shared videos in which women were secretly filmed in public toilets, classrooms, changing rooms, subways and other public locations.

Some members were also accused of jointly planning gang rapes – some of which targeted minors – and posting videos of the victims on the site.

The owners are believed to have earned tens of millions of dollars from advertising promoting websites that arrange prostitution and gambling – both technically illegal but widespread in South Korea.

So-called spycam videos have become increasingly common in the country, where men caught secretly filming women – in schools and workplaces, toilets and changing rooms – make headlines on a daily basis.//AFP

The duo Wan Han, 37, and Zhang Na, 25, from China will be jailed seven days if they fail to pay the fine after pleading guilty to disorderly behaviour in public places before Magistrate Cindy Mc Juce Balitus on Wednesday (June 27).

They had committed the offence at about 4.30pm on June 23, on top of the wall outside the city mosque here.

During mitigation at the court, both of them whom were unrepresented, urged for a lenient sentence as they did not know what they did was wrong.

Prosecuting officer Inspector Albert Basiri asked for an appropriate sentence to serve as a lesson to them and others.

The duo paid their fines and were later escorted to the Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA) where they flew back to China.

Their acts were taped on video and went viral, causing uproar among netizens.

The city mosque management later issued a temporary ban for visitors and vehicles to the area, except for taxis registered with them. A police report was lodged against them the day after the incident.