Schadenfreude, folks.

The US region hit by a deadly tornado less than two weeks ago is being slammed again. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol says a mother and baby were killed, and emergency officials said reports of injuries were “widespread”.

A speeding sport utility vehicle taken without permission and carrying eight teenagers crashed into a guard-rail, flipping over into a swampy pond, killing five boys and a woman, state police said.

A Florida judge said former teen idol David Cassidy was expected to plead guilty or no contest to a drink-driving charge.

A four-year-old British girl was killed after being run over by a car on a Florida beach, the Highway Patrol said today.

A California Highway Patrol helped stop a runaway Toyota Prius after the car's accelerator became stuck at high speed.

A MISSOURI man and his four sons were charged with the ritualistic sexual abuse of his six grandchildren and police were yesterday searching the family farm for bodies that may be buried there.

A pilot was killed when a small plane crashed on the front lawn of an empty house in rural north-eastern Ohio.

HEAVY RAIN may have been the cause of a car crash that left actor Morgan Freeman hospitalised, according to US reports yesterday.

Heavy rain may have been the cause of a car crash which left actor Morgan Freeman critically ill in hospital, according to US reports today.

Morgan Freeman is in “good spirits” in hospital after breaking his arm and elbow in a car crash, his spokesman said.

Morgan Freeman was critically ill in hospital today after the car he was driving overturned several times, US authorities said.

A deadly storm system rumbled across the southern US over the weekend where tornadoes and severe weather killed at least 20 people in three states.

A series of apparently random shootings along Californian main roads are giving drivers the jitters.

A deadly winter storm that caked America’s centre with a thick layer of ice claimed at least 17 lives and blacked out more than 600,000 homes and businesses.

MONTANA state police have a new weapon against drinking and driving — a big, black DUI wagon.

Chinese police were pleading with the public today for any information about five newborn babies discovered in the back of a stolen car.

Extreme weather made life miserable from one end of the United States to the other, with people forced out of their homes by wildfires and major flooding.

THUNDERSTORMS packing tornadoes and hail as big as grapefruits ripped through eight mid-western states, killing at least 27 people, injuring scores and destroying hundreds of homes.

A six-year-old girl playing with her father’s gun accidentally shot and killed her two-year-old brother at their home, authorities said.

Areas of the Sierra Nevada have been hit with the heaviest snowfall in almost 90 years, with steep drifts stranding a passenger train, knocking out the Reno airport and shutting down major highways across the mountains.

A powerful storm has pounded California for a second day, flooding freeways and desert roads, tossing boats ashore and triggering a rockslide that blocked the central coast highway.

A bus carrying US Navy personnel to a wreath-laying ceremony lost control on a two-lane highway and crashed head-on into a tractor-trailer, killing three sailors and injuring dozens.

Six people were killed and 31 injured when a van carrying illegal immigrants smashed head-on into two other vehicles as it went the wrong way on an US interstate with its headlights off.

Two of reggae great Bob Marley’s sons have been arrested in Florida after officers found marijuana in their car.

A man tried to overpower a Greyhound bus driver in Utah late last night, but gave up the supposed hijacking attempt and fled in a different vehicle, the state Highway Patrol said.

Cincinnati’s mayor has declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew amid the worst outbreak of racial violence in the Ohio city since the aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr in 1968.