Eight people have been killed and six injured in a shooting at a nursing home in North Carolina.
The incident occurred at the Pinelake Health and Rehab Center in Carthage, a small town about 25km north of Fort Bragg, home of the US army's 82nd Airborne Division.
North Carolina's WRAL TV station quoted Carthage police as saying that a 45-year-old gunman walked into the 90-bed nursing home, which offers care for Alzheimer's sufferers, and shot dead eight people.
WRAL cited Carthage Police Chief Chris McKenzie as saying the injured people, as well as the alleged shooter, who was also injured, were taken to Moore Regional Hospital.
Seven residents and one nurse were among the fatalities.
The gunman is not believed to be related to any of the residents at the home.
A hospital spokeswoman said six people were treated at the hospital, although one had already been discharged.
It was the third major shooting to occur in the southeastern US this month.
On 10 March, a 28-year-old man in Alabama killed ten people, including his own mother, in a shooting spree that ended when he took his own life.
A few days later in Miami, a Cuban immigrant shot and killed four people, including his estranged wife, before taking his own life.
