Rescue crews were searching today for two passengers missing after an amphibious sightseeing boat in the Delaware River off Philadelphia was struck by a barge, hurling 37 people overboard.

Rescuers searched by sea and air today for nearly 70 Haitians after an overloaded sailboat ran aground and capsized in reef-studded waters off the Turks and Caicos Islands, killing at least 15 migrants fleeing the poverty of their homeland.

The Australian federal government said today it will clear away hurdles that have stalled a nationwide fire alert telephone system, after thousands of people were caught off-guard by the deadliest wildfires in the country’s history.

A British man today admitted that he had sent email from Thailand seeking £2m (€2.95m) in extortion money from retail giant Tesco by threatening to poison food in its supermarkets.

Police are trying to identify dozens of people captured by security cameras at the Jamaican hotel where World Cup cricket coach Bob Woolmer was murdered.

The chief investigator in the murder of Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer today said the "huge and complex" inquiry needs more time before naming any suspects.

A coroner’s inquest into the killing of Pakistan’s cricket coach will begin in the Jamaican capital on April 23, the lead investigator has revealed.

Pakistan’s cricket team prepared to return home from Jamaica today, a day after submitting DNA samples to police probing the grisly murder of national coach Bob Woolmer.

Police in Jamaica have no suspects in the murder of Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer at the World Cup, the island’s deputy commissioner said today, and the Pakistan cricket team will be allowed to leave the country.

Police are today trying to determine what killed Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer, calling his death “suspicious” after he was found in his hotel room a day after his team was upset by Ireland during the Cricket World Cup.

Police formed a strike force today to track down the instigators of a day and night of racial riots that left more than 30 people injured in a string of Sydney beachside suburbs.

A MOTHER discovered three children dead after a brutal killer beheaded one and partially decapitated two others at an apartment in Baltimore, Maryland.

A mother discovered three children dead after a brutal killer tried to hack off their heads, police in the US said today.

Since the US State Department recently warned Americans about travelling to Zanzibar, the decorative Maasai warrior at the entrance to Bluebay Beach now orders guards to search all vehicles before they enter the resort.

The British High Commission in Kenya has been closed until further notice because of a ”specific” threat, the mission’s spokesman said in Nairobi tonight.

Thousands of Indian army soldiers tried to control Hindu mobs in the western city of Ahamadabad today as the death toll in the country’s worst religious violence in a decade approached 300.

Two Philadelphia policewomen sent an obscenity-riddled anthrax hoax from their patrol car computer to every police car and dispatch centre in the city.

The death toll from the New York jet crash today rose to at least 265 as investigators began studying the wreckage of the plane.