Mr Samaras, founder of the tornado research company, Twistex, was the star of the Discovery Channel documentary Storm Chasers

Tornadoes have killed twelve people in central Oklahoma, including a mother and her baby, and menaced Oklahoma City where 11 days ago a twister ranked as EF5, the highest level, tore through the suburb of Moore, killing 24.

Out of America: The destructive power of tornadoes will be as nothing once the Great Plains' vast underground water reserve dries up

Glenn Lewis wants safe rooms provided in every new-built home

At least 24 people, including nine children, killed by massive EF5 tornado

The death toll may rise above 24 as some bodies may have been taken directly to funeral homes

Tornadoes ravaged portions of Oklahoma on Sunday, reducing portions of a mobile home park to rubble and killing a 79-year-old man whose body was found out in the open.  

Two people were killed when a private jet crashed on a residential area in northern Indiana, the US Federal Aviation Administration said today.

Dale Robertson, who has died the age of 89, was a star of television and film Westerns during the genre's heyday. With his quietly spoken, modest persona, he had bit parts in films such as The Boy with the Green Hair and the Joan Crawford vehicle Flamingo Road before landing more high-profile roles such as Jesse James in Fighting Man of the Plains.

Average global surface temperature in 2012 was 0.56C warmer than the average for the period 1951 to 1980

In 1997 Patti Page was given an industry award for selling 100 million records and yet she rarely had critical success. Her detractors thought her records bland and banal and too often associated with novelty, notably "(How Much Is) That Doggie In The Window". Nevertheless, the record-buying public of the early 1950s loved her work and "Tennessee Waltz" sold 10 million copies, at that time becoming the second biggest selling single and only losing out to Bing Crosby's "White Christmas". Patti Page's impact in the UK was reduced because of local artists covering her hits.

A group of senior retired generals and admirals are calling for Congress to amend a recent law that they say "dangerously interferes" with the ability of commanders to battle the epidemic of suicides among members of the military.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Anthony Shadid, foreign correspondent for the New York Times, died in February this year. Just 43, he suffered a fatal asthma attack while trying to leave Syria on horseback.

The number of people living with diabetes is soaring in the United States, as 18 states had at least a doubling in those with the illness since 1995, a government survey found.