At least 41 people were killed after a Moscow plane sped down the runway engulfed in flames, & more in news in 5.

-With AAP.

1. At least 41 people were killed after a Moscow plane sped down the runway engulfed in flames. 

Russian authorities say 41 people have been killed when a Sukhoi Superjet 100 crash-landed at Moscow Sheremetyevo airport.

“There were 78 people on board, including crew members,” the Russian Investigative Committee said in a statement on its website late on Sunday (Monday morning AEST).

“According to updated information, 37 out of them survived.”

Israel Folau‘s future remains no clearer after his landmark code of conduct hearing was forced into a third day following a weekend stalemate at Rugby Australia headquarters in Sydney.

Folau’s defence counsel and RA’s legal team will return on Tuesday after more than 15 hours of legal arguments weren’t enough for the three-person independent panel to start considering a decision.

RA chief executive Raelene Castle was asked to provide verbal evidence for the second day running, with NSW Waratahs supremo Andrew Hore also called as a witness on Sunday.

Folau is fighting to save his career after Castle issued the dual international with a “high-level” breach notice last month and threatened to tear up his four-year, $4 million contract following his latest round of inflammatory social media posts.

The superstar fullback, who reportedly rejected a $1 million offer to walk away from Australian rugby last week, joined Castle and Wallabies coach Michael Cheika in providing evidence on Saturday.

Folau’s solicitor Ramy Quatami, and barrister Adam Casselden, have argued that Folau’s Instagram post claiming hell awaits homosexuals and other sinners unless they repent and turn to Jesus was merely a Bible passage and not his direct words.

They also put forward the fact that RA didn’t include a specific social media clause when the John Eales Medallist signed a new contract in February.

But after being formally warned last year when he posted similar passages claiming gays were destined for hell, RA’s legal unit believes the 30-year-old has breached both the player code of conduct and social media policies.

Both Folau and RA will have until 72 hours after any decision is handed down to appeal.

Sunday’s developments came after former rugby league international Ian Roberts, that code’s first player to come out, aired his grave concerns about how Folau’s posts could impact on young homosexuals.

“These types of remarks can and do push people over the edge. There can’t be any tolerance of bigotry,” Roberts told Channel Nine’s Sports Sunday program.

“I do feel sorry for Israel but there are consequences to your actions.

“I don’t say this lightly and what I’m about to say, the language I use, is hard and it’s for a point, it’s to get that message across – there are literally kids in the suburbs killing themselves.

“I say that with the greatest sense of respect and I’m not implying that Israel is responsible solely for that – please don’t take it that way – but it’s these types of comments and these types of off-the-cuff remarks when you have young people and vulnerable people who are dealing with their sexuality, confused, not knowing how to deal with it.”

While Cheika last month said he would find it “difficult” to pick Folau for Australia again and senior teammates including Test captain Michael Hooper condemned him for his provocative stance, Folau has not been without support.

“Seriously… might as well sack me and all the other Pacific Islands rugby players around the world because we have the same Christian beliefs,” Folau’s Wallabies teammate Taniela Toupou posted on Facebook last Tuesday.

If he does have his contract terminated, Folau would be the first professional athlete in Australian sport wiped out for expressing their extreme religious beliefs.

4. Veteran environmental activist Bob Brown says “it is up to us” to stop Adani.

Veteran environmental activist Bob Brown has told thousands of climate action supporters they can’t rely on divine intervention to prevent the Adani coal mine. “It is up to us”.

The former federal Greens leader led the stop-Adani convoy that began in Hobart just before Easter, and travelled to Clermont in central Queensland before reaching its final destination in Canberra on Sunday, where a rally was held on the lawns of Parliament House.

Organisers estimated there were 2,500 people at the rally – “a bigger crowd than Bill Shorten will face today and a bigger crowd than Scott Morrison will ever face”, Dr Brown said.

He told the crowd that neither of the big parties were willing to stop the Adani mine to secure the planet for Australia’s kids.

“There will be no divine intervention, it is up to us,” he said to applause from the crowd.

Dr Brown’s appearance came after a line of supporters addressed the rally, including songwriter Paul Kelly who sang My Island Home.

Booker prize-winning Australian author Richard Flanagan said he was prepared to blockade the Adani site.

“I’ll be there,” he said to cheers from the crowd.

Dr Brown told reporters the convoy had been peaceful and law abiding but participants had endured hardships along the route.

“We had rocks thrown at us, we had people spat on, some people were actually physically abused.”

A fake Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten received boos from the audience as they went on stage to brandish posters like ‘ADANI COAL MINE? YES!’

In contrast, supporters, wearing their black and red Stop and Adani tee shirts, carried banners reading: ‘We are here for our grandchildren … and the world’.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale told reporters Australia was in the midst of a climate election.

“Right now the Adani coal mine is a test of whether Liberal or Labor are serious about stopping climate change and right now,” he said,

“Liberal and Labor have failed the test.”

However, he said the Greens wanted to negotiate with a new Labor government and “turf this lot out”, he said referring to the Morrison government.

Meanwhile, the major parties continued to bicker over their own climate policies.

In Brisbane, where Labor was holding its campaign launch, Mr Shorten said there was a clear choice at this election.

“You can have cowardice and chaos on climate change or courage and action,” he said.

But Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said climate change shouldn’t be seen as a binary choice between doing something and doing nothing.

“We’re taking action. But what Bill Shorten has failed to do is come up with realistic targets, costed policies and practical solutions,” he told ABC television’s Insiders program.

“He has been very tricky. He has failed to answer the obvious question 63 times – what is the cost to the economy on the policy?”

5. Brexit deal could be done in next few days.

Prime Minister Theresa May could reach a Brexit deal with the opposition Labour Party within days, a leading Conservative Party figure says, after senior ministers urged compromise following poor local election results.

Ruth Davidson, the Conservatives' leader in Scotland, told party members a cross-partisan agreement on Brexit was needed before this month's European elections, or Britain's major parties would face an even bigger backlash from voters.

The Conservatives lost 1332 seats on English local councils that were up for re-election, and Labour, which would typically aim to gain hundreds of seats in a mid-term vote, instead lost 81.

Many voters expressed frustration at May's failure to take Britain out of the European Union almost three years after the country decided to leave in a referendum.

"If we thought yesterday's results were a wake-up call, just wait for the European elections on the 23rd of May," Davidson told a party conference in Aberdeen on Saturday.

Speaking to reporters afterwards, she said there had been progress in the weeks of talks between the Conservatives and Labour to find a Brexit deal that passes parliamentary muster.

"There is a deal that could be done in the next few days ... and I really hope we can get to that point," she said, describing the results as "a kick up the backside".

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Friday there was now a huge impetus on every MP to get a Brexit deal done.

But even if the Conservative and Labour Party leaderships reach a Brexit compromise, there is no guarantee that it will pass through parliament, which has roundly rejected May's proposals three times already.

In an indication of the hostility May faces from the most pro-Brexit wing of her party, former leader Iain Duncan Smith renewed his call for her to step down soon, calling her a "caretaker prime minister" after the local election losses.

Complicating the picture, the main beneficiaries of the swing against the two major UK parties were the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, who campaigned on a demand for a new referendum, aiming to reverse Brexit.

Foreign minister Jeremy Hunt also saw a "glimmer of hope" that there might be a deal with Labour soon.

But an EU customs union that prevented Britain from striking its own trade deals was not a viable long-term option for the world's fifth-largest economy, he said.

Earlier on Saturday, Buzzfeed News reported sources saying that May was optimistic about a deal, and that behind closed doors the government had already compromised on a customs union.

"In the last week government ministers and officials presented Labour with a new offer on a customs arrangement that would effectively see the UK remain in the key aspects of a customs union with the EU," the sources familiar with the talks said.

One source told Buzzfeed "the offer would be tantamount to the government accepting in full Labour's demands".

The political editor of the Spectator magazine, which has close links to the Conservatives, said in a column for The Sun newspaper that there had been an agreement to an initial "comprehensive customs arrangement" very like a customs union.

With AAP.