US school siege ends in bloodshed

Platte Canyon High School is about 56km from DenverA gunman has died and a teenage girl has been critically injured after police stormed a high school in the US state of Colorado, authorities say.
The violent end to the siege at Platte Canyon High School came after the gunman reportedly threatened to harm the two girls he was holding hostage.
The injured girl was airlifted to hospital, Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener said. The other was unhurt.
The gunman initially took six girls hostage, before releasing four of them.
Staff and pupils were evacuated from the school, in the town of Bailey, after the gunman entered the building shortly after noon.
TV pictures showed a long line of people streaming away towards school buses, and students comforting each other.
'Rucksack bomb'
Before police stormed the building, Colorado radio journalist Jerry Bell told BBC News 24 that the gunman was holding two girls in a classroom on the second floor.
He was said to be carrying a bomb in a rucksack, the journalist added.
A newspaper in Park County, where Bailey is situated, quoted what appeared to be police radio reports.
One message described the gunman as arriving at the school with a "black squarish-looking gun" and firing a single shot when a teacher refused to do what he asks.
Platte Canyon High and neighbouring Fitzsimmons Middle School have about 800 students enrolled between them.
"The two schools have been in lockdown," an official in the Park County Sheriff's office told AFP news agency.
Bailey lies 56km (35 miles) south-west of the state capital, Denver.
Police have been called in from neighbouring Jefferson County where in 1999, two students killed 13 people at Columbine High School before taking their own lives.