Heavy rain and 185 mph winds lashed the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico's north-east coast on Wednesday as Hurricane Irma roared through Caribbean islands on its way to a possible hit on South Florida.

A deadly snowfall that crippled a US state is finally expected to stop – but people now face the threat of massive flooding as temperatures rise through the weekend.

Rescue crews dug through piles of splintered houses and crushed cars in a search for victims of a half-mile-wide tornado that killed at least 116 people as it blasted a Missouri town off the map and tore through its hospital.

Howard Johnson was quickly on the phone to Paul Carberry when his stable jockey Denis O'Regan broke a collarbone at Leopardstown on Sunday and having persuaded the Irish ace to come to Newcastle today, he provided him with a treble.

Multi-instrumentalist rocker Jack White wants to form 20 more bands.