Search for family murders suspect

4 May 2011 Last updated at 06:33 GMT Suspect Anxiang Du left a suicide note, Northamptonshire Police said A police search for a man in connection with the murders of a couple and their two daughters is continuing.

Anxiang Du, 52, is being sought in connection with the deaths of Manchester Metropolitan University lecturer Jifeng Ding and his family.

Mr Ding, his wife Helen Chui, and daughters Alice and Xing, were found stabbed in their home in Pioneer Close, Wootton, Northampton, on Sunday night.

Police said Mr Du, from Coventry, had left a suicide note.

Mr Du left a note to his family implying it was time to say goodbye.

He is understood to have been a business associate of Ms Chui dealing in herbal remedies.

Mr Du left his home in Coventry at 1030 BST on Friday to go to work in Birmingham but never returned.

He was last seen on 29 April in Birmingham City Centre, Pallasades Shopping Centre and was wearing a white baseball cap, brown waist-length coat, grey trousers, a blue woollen top and black leather shoes.

He was described by police as being of slim build with a bald patch.

Police said they were still looking for a murder weapon.

Jifeng Ding and Alice Ding died from stab wounds, police have revealed

Officers said the family, who are of Chinese descent, had suffered knife wounds.

Det Supt Glyn Timmins said: "The public should be cautious. The reason being is that, obviously having left a suicide note Mr Du had a particular state of mind.

"What I can say is that he's likely to be frightened, he's likely to be quite desperate and certainly when, and if, he sees this in the media he's certainly going to be very anxious and nervous.

"Therefore I think the prudent thing to do would be to assume that Mr Du should not be approached and that's a job for the police if and when he's sighted."

Police also want to trace a silver five-door Vauxhall Corsa, registration BG60 PMO, that was hired by one of the family members and was last seen on Friday.

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India search for missing 'copter

2 May 2011 Last updated at 05:25 GMT Mr Khandu was travelling with four others A massive search operation for a missing helicopter carrying the chief minister of India's north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh and four others has entered its third day.

The helicopter carrying Dorjee Khandu went missing on Saturday morning, 20 minutes after taking off from Tawang on its way to the state capital, Itanagar.

Bad weather has been hampering the search operation, officials said.

A number of Indian politicians have been killed in helicopter crashes.

In 2009, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh state YS Rajasekhara Reddy was killed along with four others in a helicopter crash in southern India.

And in 1997, junior federal minister NVN Somu and two senior army officers were killed when an air force helicopter they were travelling in crashed in Arunachal Pradesh.

Satellite help

Indian air force fighter jets and helicopters have joined ground troops from India and across the border in neighbouring Bhutan to look for the helicopter carrying Mr Khandu.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has also provided satellite pictures of the route that the helicopter, owned by Pawan Hans company, was scheduled to take on its way to Itanagar.

The other passengers on the helicopter were Mr Khandu's security officer Yeshi Choddak and a relative of a state lawmaker, Yeshi Lamu, and two crew members JS Babbar and KS Malick.

There were some reports on Saturday that the helicopter had landed in Bhutan, which were immediately denied by the authorities in Thimphu.

Last month, 17 people, including two children, were killed in a helicopter crash in Arunachal Pradesh.

And in November, an air force helicopter crashed minutes after take off, killing all the 12 passengers on board.

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Search continues after US storms

18 April 2011 Last updated at 22:17 GMT North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue said she had been brought to tears by the devastation in her state

Search and rescue efforts are continuing in the US state of North Carolina after days of storms and tornadoes killed at least 44 people across half a dozen states.

More than 60 tornadoes ripped through North Carolina, killing 21, the highest toll for any of the states affected.

A White House spokesman said the government stood ready to provide aid.

Governor Beverly Perdue said on the NBC network's Today show that she had never seen anything like the devastation.

She said homes in the state had been handled like paper dolls' houses.

"The good news is that the tornadoes have left and things are brighter today in North Carolina," Ms Perdue said.

At the White House on Monday, spokesman Jay Carney said the Federal Emergency Management Agency was monitoring conditions.

"We have folks on the ground assessing the situation and standing ready to provide assistance as necessary," he said.

The killer storms cut across a vast swath of the American south, sweeping east across Oklahoma and Arkansas on Thursday and Friday then through Mississippi and Alabama and up through Virginia and North Carolina.

The storms, which also caused damage in the states of Texas and Georgia, moved out over the Atlantic on Sunday.

Devastating destruction

More than 240 tornadoes were reported over the three days, including 62 in North Carolina, but the US National Weather Service's final numbers could be lower because some tornadoes may have been reported more than once.

More than 60 tornadoes were reported in North Carolina, where officials confirmed 21 deaths

The North Carolina state emergency management agency said it had reports of 23 deaths from Saturday's storms, but local officials have only confirmed 21.

Authorities in the city of Raleigh early on Monday were blocking access to a mobile home park of roughly 200 homes, where three children had been killed during the storms.

Ms Perdue said she planned to tour hard-hit areas in three counties in the state on Monday.

She added that the devastation she had seen on Sunday had left her in tears.

The governor said she had contacted President Barack Obama, who pledged his support, and that federal emergency workers had already been deployed to the state.

"We have in North Carolina a tremendous relationship with our federal partners, and have been through this so many times," she said.

"That's not a good thing. That's a bad thing," she added.

Ms Perdue said on Sunday the number of tornadoes had been the highest since 1984, when tornadoes killed 42 people.

Hailstones the size of grapefruit were reported as the storms swept through the region, causing flash floods as well as tornadoes.

Trees and downed power lines still covered nearby roads on Monday.

Most of North Carolina's 21 confirmed deaths occurred in two rural counties - 11 in Bertie and four in Bladen, about 70 miles (112 km) south of Raleigh.

In the Bladen County community of Ammon, Audrey McKoy and her husband, Milton, witnessed a tornado lifting pigs and other animals into the sky, as the storm struck their mobile home community.

"It looked just like The Wizard of Oz," Mrs McKoy said.

Mr McKoy found three bodies in their neighbourhood after the storm, which spun their mobile home, had passed.

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