USA: A North Carolina man has pleaded guilty to charges that he brought counterfeit chips to an Atlantic City poker tournament in a scheme discovered after he flushed $2.7m (€2.4m) of the chips down a toilet in his hotel room.

Blizzard conditions dumped more than a foot of snow in parts of the US north east, stranding thousands of airline, bus and rail passengers, with lashing winds and low visibility also buffeting workers returning to their post-Christmas routines.

Police in New Jersey, USA have charged 41 people, including a 14-year-old, with sending sickening child rape photos and videos over the internet.

Levees around the vulnerable city of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, held against the swollen Susquehanna River today, ending an evacuation order for 200,000 people.