A tanker truck exploded on a motorway just outside the northern Italian city of Bologna on Monday, engulfing the area with flames and black smoke, the fire service said, with local media reporting one person killed.

The explosion occurred near Borgo Paginale to west of the city, very close to Bologna airport, at around 2.00 pm (12pm GMT), the Italian fire service said on Twitter.

The cause of the blast is not yet known.

Italian news agency Ansa has reported that two people died and more than 60 others were injured following the blast.

A video published on Twitter by the Italian fire service shows a huge column of black smoke billowing from the wreckage of the truck on the city’s ring road.

Images released earlier by the fire service showed burning cars in an adjacent carpark.

One video filmed by a motorist circulating on Twitter shows the moment the tanker exploded, when a black plume of smoke was suddenly swept away by a powerful ball of flame that takes over the entire horizon.

Norwegian authorities said a polar bear on Saturday attacked and injured a polar bear guard who was leading tourists off a cruise ship on an Arctic archipelago. The polar bear was shot dead by another employee, the cruise company said.

The Joint Rescue Coordination for Northern Norway tweeted that the attack occurred when the tourists from the MS Bremen cruise ship landed on the most northern island of the Svalbard archipelago, a region between mainland Norway and the North Pole that is known for its remote terrain, glaciers, reindeer and polar bears.

The German Hapag Lloyd Cruises company, which operates the MS Bremen, told The Associated Press that two polar bear guards from their ship went on the island and one of them "was attacked by a polar bear and injured on his head."

The polar bear was then shot dead "in an act of self-defense" by the second guard, spokeswoman Negar Etminan said.

The injured man was taken by helicopter to the town of Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen island. He was not identified and no further information was given on him.

"He was flown out, was responsive, and is currently undergoing medical treatment," Etminan said, adding that the victim was not in a life-threatening condition.

She said all cruise ships traveling in the northern region are obliged to have polar bear guards aboard.

Svalbard – locator map

Arctic tourism to the region has risen sharply in the last few years and is now in high season. A Longyearbyen port schedule showed that 18 cruise ships will be docking at the Arctic port in the next week. 

A British woman has been stabbed to death while visiting a New York woman she had just met, who pounced on her in the living room and claimed she had to “rid her home of evil”.

Faye Doomchin, 66, from the town of Great Neck on Long Island, met the 60-year-old British woman on Monday.

The two women had lunch with a male mutual friend, and the trio then went back to Doomchin’s house for coffee and cake, and to hear the man play the piano. 

“While they were sitting in the living room, they were talking and Doomchin made statements that she did not like the woman from England,” said Detective Lieutenant Stephen Fitzpatrick, of Nassau County police.

At around 3:50pm, Doomchin, the detective said, “claimed she needed to rid the house of evil.”

“She then appeared from the kitchen with a kitchen knife, walked right over to her and stabbed her in the chest.”

The British woman, whose identity was not released, was taken to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead.

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“There was no premeditation to that. There were no incidents prior to that,” said Mr Fitzpatrick. 

“We’re still looking to find out what may have precipitated this as the investigation continues.”

Police say that the man, from the New York borough of Queens, introduced the victim – who was visiting New York on holiday — and Doomchin to each other the day of the murder.

“They never met before. They just met that day, had lunch and this incident happened,” said Mr Fitzpatrick.

He said that the British woman had known the man for 12 years. Doomchin and the man were friends who last saw each other eight months ago.

“They were friends, they socialised,” said Mr Fitzpatrick. “He played musical instruments and came over to play for everybody.”

Doomchin’s neighbours expressed shock at the murder, saying they never saw anything of concern.

"She’s such a loving mother,” said Negar Paknoush, speaking to her local TV station. “So kind."

Doomchin has one prior arrest on her record for second-degree assault in 1999 in which a weapon was used.

She has now been charged with second degree murder and is being held without bail after being arraigned. Her lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, tells Newsday his client suffers from mental illness.

British tourists have described their terrifying escape from a maqnitude 7 earthquake which struck the Indonesian holiday islands of Lombok and Bali on Sunday evening, killing at least 98 people.

Amid chaotic scenes, thousands, including many foreign tourists, were still waiting to be evacuated from the worst affected areas of Lombok on Monday night, as rescuers frantically rushed to save the injured and buried.

An estimated 20,000 are now homeless and more than 200 injured, with some being treated for gruesome crush injuries out in the open, next to damaged hospitals. Dozens are feared to still be trapped under a mosque in the village of Lading-Lading which collapsed during evening prayers.

Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the national disaster agency spokesman, tweeted a horrifying video of the ruins, telling reporters that the number of victims across the earthquake zone was expected to rise.

Among the tourists who had a narrow escape was Hannah Small from Bournemouth, who described to the Telegraph how she had been in the bathroom in her hotel in Ubud, Bali, when the walls began to sway.

“I was in the bath and the whole room started shaking viciously. Parts of our ceiling were falling down and the walls were cracking,” she said.

“My partner grabbed me out of the bath with a towel and we ran down three flights of stairs to reach the ground floor for safety. The hotel staff were panicking, which made the guests even more worried,” Ms Small added.

“Once the quake was over everyone was scared to go back to their bedrooms and spent a few hours sat outside together. Through the night there were small aftershock rumbles which kept everyone up.”

Ms Small was able to leave on Monday for the safety of Singapore. Tourists and locals in Lombok, particularly in the less accessible tropical Gili islands, host to popular diving resorts off the northwest coast, faced a traumatic evacuation, however.

Mr Sutopo said that 2,700 tourists had been removed from the islands so far. But many remained trapped for a second night outside.

“We’re still trying to get back to Bali from Lombok. There’s a lot of scared and battered people around,” tourist Becky Morris tweeted on Monday night.

Throughout the day dramatic footage emerged of frightened crowds jostling on palm-fringed sandy beaches and pushing over each other to access a limited number of rescue boats.

Helen Milne from Oxfordshire told the BBC that her daughter, Laura, was trapped on the island of Gili Trawangan.

She said: "They are stuck on the island and are reporting rioting, fighting, and people can’t get on boats. There’s no water, no food, the shops have been ransacked. It’s a rapidly deteriorating situation out there for them."

Mads and Tanni Jacobsen, from Denmark, told the Telegraph of scenes of panic as they tried to escape from Gili Air with their two children Alma, 3, and Signe, 11.

The family had spent Sunday night sheltering with locals in a nearby school, petrified by conflicting reports of an approaching tsunami.

Ms Jacobsen, a nurse, had helped to treat badly injured victims with a First Aid kit before the family joined the throngs waiting to be rescued from the beach.

“We stood in line and waited for two hours. It was difficult with the kids as people didn’t have good behaviour at that moment. Everyone was shoving, swimming with life jackets to catch the boat,” said Mr Jacobsen. The family were then charged $100 for one seat on a rescue vessel.

The Jacobsens are now in the relative safety of Lombok’s main airport in the town of Mataram, sleeping on floors with hundreds of other tourists waiting to fly out.

Fears are rising, however, for residents of the north of the island, a more residential and less developed area close to the earthquake’s epicentre, which is difficult for rescue teams to reach due to damaged roads.

Endri Susanto, who runs an organisation helping the relief efforts, told CNN that he had found a “totally broken” hospital in the north.

“I saw about 80 per cent of the houses, 80 per cent of the buildings had fallen down or collapsed because of the earthquake,” he said of the surrounding area.

One of Japan’s most prestigious medical universities marked down tests from female applicants as they were considered more likely to leave the profession after getting married and having children.

In a growing scandal that has triggered widespread anger and reflection over gender equality in Japan, Tokyo Medical University was also found to have accepted bribes to inflate the results of “priority” male applicants whose families were linked to the institution.

Critics declared "Japanese society is eating itself alive" as they decried the conclusion of an investigation into the university, with the managing director of the school admitting: "We have betrayed the trust of the public”

The investigation was triggered when prosecutors in July indicted Futoshi Sano, a former director general at the education ministry, on charges of helping the university secure Y35 million (£242,949) in government subsidies in exchange for a place for his son at the college. 

The probe quickly ballooned to reveal that a number of male students classified as “priority” applicants – often children of graduates of the university – had their test scores revised upwards to ensure they would have a place at the university and bring in donations from the parents, the report released by the investigators on Tuesday revealed. 

At the same time, university officials subtracted points from the test scores of every female applicant to the university. Officials even worked from a manual detailing how the scores were to be manipulated and indicating that the aim was to keep the number of female students at the university to around 30 per cent of the total. 

Senior university officials believed that male doctors were preferable because women were more likely to leave the profession after getting married and to have children.

The university has a network of affiliated hospitals and there was concern that women would cause staffing shortages when they stopped work or took time off to raise children. 

Initial reports suggested the policy had been implemented in 2011, although the investigation traced the first cases back to 2006, Kyodo News reported.

“This is a really regrettable incident”, said Kenji Nakai, a lawyer who took part in the investigation.

“By deceptive recruitment procedures, they sought to delude the people taking the tests, their families, school officials and society as a whole.

“There were also factors suggesting very serious discrimination against women”, he said, adding that the investigation has not yet been able to determine how many women missed out on places at the university. 

The probe has reportedly laid the blame for the university’s discriminatory policies on Masahiko Usui, the 77-year-old former chairman, and Mamoru Suzuki, 69, the former president.The report into the scandal stated that they accepted money from the parents of applicants who were later granted places at the university. 

Both Usui and Suzuki stepped down from their positions in July and have since been indicted on charges of bribery. 

Other school officials not accused of wrongdoing in the investigation have denied all knowledge of any inappropriate action towards applicants. 

“We have betrayed the trust of the public”, admitted Tetsuo Yukioka, managing director of the university, at a press conference at which he bowed deeply to demonstrate his regret. 

“Society is changing rapidly and we need to respond to that, and any organisation that fails to utilise women will become weak”, he said. 

School officials have stated they will consider compensating students who were not granted places because of their gender. 

The scandal has caused anger in Japan, where the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has taken a series of measures to promote equality and empower women in society. 

Why is Japan so obsessed with punctuality?

Seiko Noda, the minister of women’s empowerment, said the university officials’ actions havd been “disturbing”. 

“It is extremely disturbing if the university did not let women pass the exams because they think it is hard to work with female doctors”, she told national broadcaster NHK. 

In an editorial, the Asahi newspaper criticised the university for discriminating against female candidates – but suggested that the case may not be an isolated one. 

“It is hard not to wonder whether this university is the only organisation in this country that puts up barriers to women’s career development without tackling the structural problems that make it hard for them to continue working while taking care of family matters and children," it said. 

Cmmentators online demanded that the university be shut down because “there is so much fraud and corruption that their course and degrees are tainted and cannot be trusted”. 

A poster on the Japan Today website said the case is the “perfect example of how Japanese society is eating itself alive” by effectively penalising women in the workplace due to their gender.

"Women are pitied if they don’t, but Japanese women who are married and working and have kids end up sleeping less than anybody in the world," said another poster. "To now hear that even our skills are suppressed makes me shake with rage."

Another said: "I ignored my parents, who said women don’t belong in academia, and got into the best university in Japan. But in job interviews I’m told ‘If you were a man, we’d hire you right away.’

"My enemy wasn’t my parents, but all society itself."

New Zealand has banned most foreigners from buying homes as it tries to tackle runaway housing prices.

Previously the housing market was open to investors worldwide, but the government on Wednesday passed legislation that allows only New Zealand residents to buy homes.

In recent years, there have been many anecdotal stories of wealthy foreigners from Silicon Valley and beyond buying ranches in picturesque rural New Zealand as a "bolt hole" or escape option from a turbulent world.

There have also been stories of wealthy Chinese buyers outbidding New Zealanders on suburban homes in the main city of Auckland.

Statistics indicate about 3 percent of New Zealand homes are being sold to foreigners, but the amount rises to 5 percent in the scenic Queenstown region and 22 percent in central Auckland.

Last month, the directors of the International Monetary Fund executive board said they encouraged New Zealand to reconsider the ban, which they thought would be unlikely to improve housing affordability.

But the government says there is no doubt that foreigners are driving up prices, and the only question that remains is by how much. The new law fulfils a campaign pledge by the liberal-led government which came to power last year.

There are some exceptions. Foreigners with New Zealand residency status will still be able to buy homes, as will people from Australia and Singapore, thanks to existing free-trade agreements.

Foreigners who already own homes in New Zealand won’t be affected. And overseas buyers will still be able to make limited investments in large apartment blocks and hotels.

"We’re here today to take another step toward restoring the great New Zealand dream of home ownership," said David Parker, the associate finance minister.

He said it was the birthright of New Zealanders to buy homes at a fair price.

"This government believes that New Zealanders should not be outbid by wealthier foreign buyers," Mr Parker said. "Whether it’s a beautiful lakeside or oceanfront estate, or a modest suburban house, this law ensures that the market for our homes is set in New Zealand, not on the international market."

Opposition lawmaker Judith Collins said the bill was unnecessary.

Revealed: The areas that have seen house prices increase by more than six times in two decades

"We oppose the bill because we don’t believe that it actually fixes any problem," Ms Collins said. "It is, in fact, nothing more than an attempt to justify some of the policies of the incoming government."

Skyrocketing home prices in Auckland have been of particular concern to New Zealanders, although that market has cooled over the past year. Still, prices there remain among the most expensive in the world when compared with people’s incomes.

Figures released Wednesday by the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand indicate the median house price in Auckland is 835,000 New Zealand dollars ($547,000) while the median price across the country is NZ$550,000 ($361,000).