Passengers on the American Airlines plane that overshot the runway in Jamaica and stopped just seconds away from the sea told of their terrifying ordeal today.

A blizzard-like storm has rocked the Mid-Atlantic and North-eastern US states, crippling travel across the region and causing hundreds of thousands of power cuts.

A college student told US authorities he placed box cutters and other banned items aboard two Southwest Airlines planes nearly five weeks before they were found, according to an FBI affidavit.

The US is sending thousands of blankets and other relief supplies to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.

More than 2,000 postal workers were tonight awaiting the results of anthrax tests after a colleague in Washington DC was diagnosed with the most serious form of the infection.