- Three people killed in a knife attack at a festival in Germany
- Electoral data shows vast majority of registered voters cast their ballot early in the NT elections
- Three Australians to compete for the world title in California next month
Three people have been killed and at least four seriously wounded in a knife attack at a festival in the western German city of Solingen.
Witnesses alerted police shortly after 9.30pm on Friday to an unknown perpetrator having wounded several people with a knife on a central square.
Police spokesperson Alexander Kresta said the perpetrator was on the run, and they so far had very little information on the assailant.
"We would like to have a precise description of the perpetrator. That is difficult. Witnesses are in shock or can't speak at the moment. They are all being looked after. We have to put everything together like a jigsaw puzzle so that we can now expand our search activities and look for the perpetrator."
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As voters head to polling booths across the Northern Territory today [[Sat 24 Aug]], electoral commission data shows 85 thousand of more than 150 thousand registered Territorians chose to vote before Saturday.
Key seats in Darwin's northern suburbs have seen a slightly higher pre-poll turnout, including Nightcliff, Fannie Bay and Johnston where there are strong independents vying for office.
However overall pre-poll data is down, indicating there are more people on the electoral roll this year but total turnout could decline.
Voters told ABC the key issues they were concerned about.
"The big issues really are health. Crime is an issue, but it's also been exaggerated by those with political motives, and I'm sort of concerned about the public services that may get cut.
"I'm a primary healthcare nurse, so I'm for prevention before it gets to an issue. So again, if we can fix it before crime becomes the issue, I dunno the answer, but I think that's the way that it should be approached."
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Warm weather is expected across Australia's east in the coming days, with central Australia bracing for particularly hot conditions.
Temperatures are expected to reach 40 degrees in northern South Australia, the southern Northern Territory and central west New South Wales.
These warmer temperatures have also been felt along the east, particularly in Queensland where temperatures over the weekend are forecast between 26 and 29 degrees Celsius before climbing to a maximum of 32 degrees Celsius on Monday.
Miriam Bradbury from the Bureau of Meteorology tells ABC these warmer temperatures are unusual for this time of year.
"As nice as these warmer temperatures may be, particularly through Southern Australia. They are fairly unseasonable, five to 15 degrees above average for large parts of central and Eastern Australia. Now what's driving that heat is a really warm air mass. So the atmosphere is really warm over central Australia and it's gradually pushing into the Eastern states as well. And we're not really seeing any strong cold fronts coming through to sweep that heat away."
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Nine newspapers has reported that almost half of Australia's migrants are working below their skill level and costing the economy $9 billion a year.
The report from Deloitte Access Economics research stated that about 620 thousand permanent migrants are working in jobs that do not match their skill levels.
James Arvanitakis is Director of the Forrest Research Foundation and told ABC these overseas qualifications are not being recognised amid an underlying sense of mistrust.
He says it's a problem that if fixed could easily address Australia's skills shortage.
"The second thing is Australia's immigration program is recognised around the world as very much focusing on skills-based migration. Now, if we're going out of our way to attract skills-based migrants, and we're not leveraging those skills, we're not leveraging this experience and the effort that they've put in, then we really, what's the point of having a skills-based program?"
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And to surfing, Australia will once again have three surfers challenging for a world title in California next month.
Ethan Ewing will join Jack Robinson and Molly Picklum, after Ewing moved up to number four thanks to his victory on Saturday morning over Hawaii's Barron Mamiya.
The world's top-five men and women will compete in a one-day, winner-take-all contest at Lower Trestles in California next month.
