The coffin holding Anna Nicole Smith’s body was today loaded onto a private flight to the Bahamas for her funeral, after weeks of legal wrangling over where the pin-up should be buried.

Anna Nicole Smith’s friends and family awaited the release of her body today, as they planned for starlet’s funeral in the Bahamas after weeks of legal wrangling over her remains.

A jogger in the US was killed by an alligator which ripped her arms off before dragging her body into a canal.

In the Keys island chain, where Wilma’s storm surge caused extensive flooding, plans were announced to welcome tourists beginning today, as power was restored to nearly half the South Florida homes and businesses that lost it during Hurricane Wilma.

Beginning an agonising, all-too-familiar process, Floridians lined up for generators, chain saws and other clean-up supplies only hours after Hurricane Wilma cut a costly, deadly swathe across the peninsula.

Hurricane Wilma crashed ashore early today as a strong Category 3 storm, battering south-west Florida with 125 mph winds and pounding waves as it began a dash across the state.

FIVE people were killed, a family of five was missing at sea and more than a million homes and businesses lost power after Hurricane Katrina crashed ashore in southern Florida early yesterday.

Hurricane Katrina churned through Florida’s densely populated south-eastern coast today with sustained 80mph winds and lashing rain.

BROWARD COUNTY in Southern Florida can’t be explained like any other place in America, even the vast sprawls of suburbia that you get only in America.

NEARLY 1.2 million Floridians were urged to leave their homes yesterday as massive and powerful Hurricane Frances roared toward the crowded south-east US coast.

A review of 10,644 uncounted ballots in Miami-Dade County showed Al Gore would not have gained enough votes to overtake George W Bush in Florida, a newspaper claims.