A few things on a couple of Doomsday Cults

Authorities in New Mexico have taken four children from a doomsday cult after being told about alleged inappropriate contact with the cult's leader.

A spokeswoman for the state says authorities are investigating alleged misconduct by cult leader Wayne C. Bent who is known to his followers as Michael Travesser, The Albuquerque Journal reported Wednesday.

Bent and members of The Lord Our Righteousness Church are featured in an episode of the show "Inside" to be broadcast May 7 on the National Geographic Channel. In a clip of the show, two young females tell of lying naked with Bent, who has denied having sex with minors.

Two of the children removed from the cult remain in state custody. A third child volunteered to be placed in foster care and the fourth has been released to her parents.

Romaine Serna, a spokesman for the Department of Children, Youth and Families, tell the Journal the agency is assessing whether parents of the children have neglected or abandoned them.

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Emergency crews in Russia’s Penza region have repaired the entrance to the cave where members of a doomsday cult are hiding. Some of the walls had collapsed, but officials say the repairs mean the remaining nine people in the bunker are now able to leave if they wish.

For now though, they remain underground. They are waiting for the end of the world, which they say will come at the end of May.

Officials say their lives are not at risk after walls at the entrance partially gave way during the spring thaw.

The nine people still holed up are the last of the 35 believers who barricaded themselves in a cave last autumn to wait for the Apocalypse.

They threatened to blow themselves up if force was used to get them out.

However, in March the spring waters started to wash away the cave, prompting some of them to come to the surface.

The remaining group are continuing to refuse assistance and intended to stay in their hideaway until the end of May.

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The leader of a Russian doomsday cult tried to kill himself after most of his followers abandoned a bunker where they had been awaiting the end of the world for five months, an official said on Friday.

An ambulance rushed Pyotr Kuznetsov to hospital on Wednesday with serious head wounds but there was no immediate explanation for his injuries.

"The main theory being studied by investigators is an attempted suicide," a spokeswoman for the regional governor said.

Over the past six days, 24 members of the cult who had hidden in the bunker in the rural region of Penza since October abandoned their hide-out because melting snow and rain had weakened the mud structure, causing walls to collapse.

The 11 cult members still in the bunker are refusing to talk to officials trying to coax them out, the spokeswoman said.

"They have taken a vow of silence," she said. "They are all adults and have been warned about the threat to their lives from the collapsing walls."

Kuznetsov had declined to join his followers inside the bunker, stating that God had other work for him to do. He had been undergoing court-ordered psychiatric treatment.