US: A MAN killed eight children, including seven of his own, and shot two women in Louisiana on Sunday.

Mourners laid flowers outside the single-storey house in Shreveport, and people lit candles for the victims at an evening prayer vigil in a nearby parking lot.

The children, three boys and five girls, were 3 to 11 years old.

The gunman, identified as 31-year-old Shamar Elkins, died after a police pursuit that ended with officers firing on him.

JAPAN: AN EARTHQUAKE registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.7 off northern Japan today prompted a short-lived tsunami alert and the advisory of a higher risk of a possible mega-quake for coastal areas there.

The Cabinet Office and the Japan Meteorological Agency said there was a 1 per cent chance for a mega-quake, compared to a 0.1 per cent chance under normal circumstances, in the next week or so following the powerful quake near the Chishima and Japan trenches.

AUSTRIA: Countries across Central Europe pulled baby food off the shelves today after rat poison was discovered in some jars of the HiPP brand over the weekend.

Austria’s health minister told parents, nurseries and day care centres to use utmost caution when feeding young children HiPP.

The company recalled some of its baby food jars because samples there as well as in Slovakia and the Czech Republic tested positive for rat poison.

SPAIN: People began applying to legalise their immigration status today after the country launched a mass legalisation measure that could affect hundreds of thousands living and working there irregularly.

Spain’s approach sharply differs from prevailing attitudes elsewhere in Europe, where many governments have been trying to curb arrivals and step up deportations. The government has defended the measure as an economic one with the support of business owners and unions.

With an ageing population, the government has said it needed more workers to maintain its growing economy, pay taxes and contribute to social security.