Showbiz friends and fans of singer Kirsty MacColl will perform tonight to mark the 10th anniversary of her death in a freak speedboat accident and raise money for one of her favourite causes.

The Mexican government promised justice for British pop singer Kirsty MacColl today the night after U2 dedicated a song to her in a concert in the Mexican city of Monterrey.

HOPES for an Irish teenager who fell overboard a luxury cruise liner in the Caribbean are fading as an ongoing rescue operation yesterday failed to discover any trace of the missing student.

THE younger sister of missing Dublin schoolgirl, Lynsey O’Brien, witnessed her falling overboard from a cruise liner off the Mexican coast in the early hours of Thursday morning.

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.

Hurricane Wilma charged toward south-west Florida early today as a Category 3 storm, packing wind gusts of 120 mph, spawning tornadoes and churning up walls of seawater that could make thousands of residents regret they defied evacuation orders.

Rain pounded Key West early today as Hurricane Wilma accelerated towards storm-weary Florida, threatening residents with 115mph winds, tornadoes and a surge of seawater that could flood the Keys and the state’s south-west coast.

Hurricane Wilma inched toward Florida today as winds and rain continued to whip Mexico's devastated Caribbean coast.

Mexico’s popular Cancun resort area has taken a battering from Hurricane Wilma as tourists huddled in hotels and shelters amid howling winds and shattering glass.

HURRICANE Wilma tore into the heart of Mexico’s Caribbean resort strip last night, trapping thousands of frightened tourists in darkened shelters pounded by torrential rains and shrieking winds.

Punishing winds and rain pummelled the Mexican island of Cozumel early today and Cancun braced for the brunt of Wilma’s wrath as the massive hurricane inched toward Mexico’s resort-studded coastline, where thousands of stranded tourists took refuge in shelters and hotel ballrooms.

Desperate tourists, trapped after Mexico’s Cancun airport closed, shuttled from luxury hotels to emergency shelters ahead of Hurricane Wilma, which forecasters say is growing stronger.

Hurricane Wilma weakened slightly as it roared toward Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula and southern Florida today, leaving at least 12 people dead in its wake and forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands in coastal areas from Honduras to the Florida Keys.

Hurricane Wilma, the most intense storm to form in the Americas, lashed the coasts of Central America and Caribbean islands today as it lumbered toward Mexico’s Cancun resort and Florida.

Hurricane Emily stranded thousands of tourists along Mexico’s luxurious Mayan Riviera and left hundreds of local residents homeless yesterday, forcing many to remain in crowded, leaky shelters.

Howling wind and rain from Hurricane Emily lashed beaches in the Mexican resort of Cancun today, after thousands of tourists, many of them Britons, were evacuated from their hotels to improvised shelters at schools and gymnasiums.

A massive evacuation of tourists in one of the world’s biggest resorts was set to begin today, as hundreds of buses were dispatched to move tens of thousands out of the path of Hurricane Emily.

Hurricane Emily regained dangerous Category 4 strength today, frightening storm-weary islanders in Jamaica and Cayman Islands after ravaging Grenada.

A strengthened Hurricane Ivan headed towards Cuba’s tobacco growing north west corner, with winds reaching 195 mph tonight, after ravaging the Cayman Islands.

A plane carrying 16 US tourists and three crew members on a visit to Mayan ruins crashed in the state of Yucatan yesterday. All aboard died.

Friends and fans of singer songwriter Kirsty MacColl are celebrating the star's life at a memorial service in central London.

A public memorial service will take place for the late singer-songwriter Kirsty MacColl later this month.