Reuters: Severe flooding soaks American Miswest 20 March

The wet weather is also taking its toll further South. Local news stations report emergency crews are still searching for a 14-year old boy swept down a creek in Mesquite, Texas as the storm hit yesterday. Katharine Jackson reports.

President George W. Bush declared 70 Missouri counties as disaster areas, and the National Guard was deployed in hard-hit areas of the state after deadly storms that dumped up to a foot (30.5 cm) of rain sent rivers out of their banks.

The Missouri Department of Transportation showed dozens of roads closed by floods across the southern one-third of the state. Parts of the state received upwards of 25 cm of rain this week.

The explosion went off near a cinema in a mostly Tamil residential area of the capital Colombo. The attack comes on the day residents in the east of Sri Lanka voted for the first time in more than a decade. The poll saw the participation of a breakaway faction of the Tamil Tiger rebel movement, the TMVP who are seen as the likely election winners.

At least 10 people were killed in Naivasha, a town some 60 kms (37 miles) south of Nakuru, capital of the Rift Valley. The continuing unrest overshadowed a meeting between former U.N. chief Kofi Annan and opposition leader Raila Odinga to try to resolve the month-long crisis that was triggered by the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki. Hundreds have died in the turmoil and quarter of a million more have been forced from their homes. The unrest has shattered the east African nation's image of stability and damaged one of the continent's most promising economies

A Police spokesman said there were two pilots and three passengers who were still unaccounted for. He said there were no reports of any fatalities on the ground, just some minor injuries. Two buildings on the quiet housing estate where the plane crash landed were badly damaged.

There are no sacred symbols and the faithful who gather at the monumental Art Nouveau edifice off Central Park believe deeply that there is not necessarily a god. They're members of the Society for Ethical Culture, a humanist group with some 3,000 followers in New York. An AFPTV report.

Lake Lanier is an Army Corps reservoir in Georgia that supplies water to some 3 million people in and around Atlanta. The lake, now about 10 feet below normal levels.. has about a billion gallons of water drained away each day to support endangered species downstream in Florida and Alabama.

They suffered minor burns and smoke inhalation related stress. Two of them had to be taken to hospital for treatment. The fires broke out as Adelaide endured a record-breaking heatwave.