– With AAP

1. Two-year-old boy dies while waiting in emergency for more than two hours.

A family is searching for answers after their two-year-one son died while waiting for treatment at a Melbourne hospital.

Shadrach Sumaru and Kathryn Ram said their son Isaiah suffered a cardiac arrest and died on September 26 after waiting in Dandenong hospital’s emergency room for more than two hours.

Nine News reports the parents had first noticed their son’s fever two days earlier and called an ambulance. They said they were told to give him some paracetamol instead.

The boy became sicker overnight and his parents took him to their local GP – who called an ambulance, immediately rushing him to emergency.

There, while waiting for treatment with an increasingly sick boy, his parents saw him collapse in their arms.

"My son was in Shad's lap and his last word was 'juice', so I gave him juice," Kathryn told Nine News.

"He took that juice and all of a sudden his tongue swelled up, his eyes started rolling.

"Then I started screaming 'something's happening to my son'."

Isaiah went into cardiac arrest and died later that afternoon.

It's believed he may have contracted pneumonia - but Shadrach and Kathryn are waiting on the results of a coroner's report to know what killed their son.

Monash Health said it would review its processes, while Ambulance Victoria is also looking into their side of what happened.

But in the meantime, Isaiah's parents are waiting for answers, and struggling to come to terms with a life without their son.

"It kills me to wake up in the morning and know he's not beside me."

2. NSW police launch manhunt after mother was killed metres from where her baby slept.

Kristie Powell was killed overnight in her Bellambi home, a few metres from where her baby boy was sleeping. https://t.co/grTt7WF8en

— Angela Thompson (@AngelaThomps0n) October 5, 2018

Police investigating the death of a woman in her Wollongong home have identified a man they're seeking who may be able to help with their inquiries.

Detectives are hunting the killer of 39-year-old Kristie Powell who was found dead in the early hours of Friday as her unharmed baby slept in the next room at Bellambi.

They say they want to speak to Bhanu Kirkman, 29, who is described as being of Indian or sub-continental appearance, about 180-185cm tall, with a large build and black hair.

He is known to frequent the Illawarra, Shoalhaven and Sydney areas.

Anyone who sees him is urged not to approach him but to call triple zero.

Ms Powell earlier in the year posted to Facebook saying she had a stalker who had been sending her death threats.

3. Fury over Sydney Opera House being turned into a 'billboard' for racing event.

PM Morrison declares the Opera House Sydney’s ‘biggest billboard’ | The New Daily https://t.co/E1sgolicKV

— Andrew Nimmo (@NSWChapterPres) October 7, 2018

Tens of thousands of people are petitioning to block plan by Alan Jones to turn the Sydney Opera House into a 'billboard' for a horse race event after the prime minister said he thought it was a "no-brainer".

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Friday pulled rank over Opera House management to allow Racing NSW to advertise the up-coming Everest Cup horse race on the sails of the iconic venue.

The premier denied she caved into bullying from broadcaster Jones when she intervened.

Jones on Friday harassed Opera House chief executive Louise Herron who'd ruled against allowing words or branding to be projected onto the venue because "it's not a billboard".

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he'd put the Bathurst 1000 motor race on the Sydney Harbour Bridge if it drove up attendance.

"This is one of the biggest events of the year why not put it on the biggest billboard Sydney has," the prime minister told reporters in regional NSW on Sunday.

As of Sunday night, more than 78,000 people had signed an online petition to "protect" the cultural building from the shock jock Jones and his "gambling mates".

"I wanted to show support for Louise Herron's resistance to putting gambling advertising on our city and state's most recognisable landmark," petition organiser Mike Woodcock wrote on Sunday evening.

The son of Peter Hall, the architect who completed the building, described the plan as a "desecration".

"My father would have been sickened by it ... he would not have condoned advertising on the building in any way, lucky he's not around to see the desecration of our beautiful iconic masterpiece," Willy Hall told Fairfax Media on Sunday.

4. Limo crash at popular US tourist spot kills 20 people.

"Horrific. ... This is the most deadly transportation accident in this country since February of 2009," says Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, after 20 people died in a limo crash in upstate New York https://t.co/Z4HiuFRLX7 pic.twitter.com/rPhtgowS6q

— CNN (@CNN) October 7, 2018

A crash involving a limousine at an upstate New York tourist spot has killed 20 people, officials say.

Eighteen of the victims were in the limousine and two were bystanders, a person with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

It's understood the limousine was carrying guests travelling to wedding.

The limousine speeding down a hill hit bystanders on Saturday afternoon at the Apple Barrel Country Store in Schoharie, about 270 kilometres north of New York City, local officials told the Times Union of Albany.

State police on Sunday confirmed the death toll and said the crash involved two vehicles.

The store is a popular stop for tourists on autumn foliage trips.

Customers in the car park were killed when they were hit by the limousine coming down a hill at "probably over 60 mph", (96km/h) the store manager, Jessica Kirby, told The New York Times.

5. Indonesian quake toll hits 1763 as 5000 more remain unaccounted for.

VIDEO: Aid pours into the disaster-ravaged Indonesian city of #Palu after days of delays as efforts ramped up to reach 200,000 people in desperate need following a deadly quake-tsunami pic.twitter.com/rzMb3ACQah

— AFP news agency (@AFP) October 7, 2018

Indonesia's disaster agency says the death toll from the earthquake and tsunami that struck Sulawesi island has risen to 1763.

Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho says an estimated 5,000 people from Petobo and Balaroa - two villages where homes were sucked into a sinkhole during the September 28 earthquake - remained unaccounted for.

"If they are not found as of October 11, they will be declared missing," he said.

Some limited searching might still be undertaken but large-scale searches with many personnel and heavy equipment would cease, he said.

Sunday's announcement came after the updated death toll from the 7.5 magnitude quake and a tsunami.

Bodies are still being recovered, especially from ruins of buildings in the small city of Palu and from neighbourhoods hit by liquefaction, a phenomenon that turns the ground into a roiling quagmire, in the south of city.

Many hundreds of people are still buried in mud and debris in the south of Palu, where neighbourhoods were obliterated by liquefaction and desperate relatives have been seeking help to find loved ones.

Dozens of rescuers removed 34 bodies from one place on Saturday.

Nugroho said the debris would be removed from those places and they would be turned into public spaces like parks and sports venues.

"We don't want the community to be relocated to such dangerous places," he said.

Most of the dead have been found in Palu, the region's main urban centre. Figures for more remote areas, some just reconnected to the outside world by road, are trickling in.

Sulawesi is one of Indonesia's five main islands and, like the others, is exposed to frequent earthquakes and tsunamis.

In 2004, a quake off Sumatra island triggered a tsunami across the Indian Ocean that killed 226,000 people in 13 countries, including more than 120,000 in Indonesia.

A big aid operation is gearing up to help hard-hit communities where some 70,000 people have been displaced.

Australia announced extra aid on Saturday, taking the nation's total assistance to $10.25 million.

Indonesia has often been reluctant to be seen as relying on outside help to cope with disasters.

The government shunned foreign aid this year when earthquakes struck the island of Lombok but it accepted help from abroad for Sulawesi.

The government says it particularly needs aircraft, generators, tents, water treatment and field medical facilities.