A massive winter storm, dubbed a bomb cyclone, swept from the US East Coast on Thursday, dumping snow along the coast and bringing strong winds that will usher in possibly record-breaking cold.

A painter said to have carried out the North Carolina nursing home shootings may have been after his recently-estranged wife during the rampage that killed seven residents and a nurse.

A lone gunman burst into a US nursing home and started “shooting everything,” barging into the rooms of terrified patients, sparing some from his rampage without explanation while killing seven residents and a nurse caring for them.