A vicious ice storm sweeping through the U.S. Plains left more than 600,000 people without power as frigid temperatures plunged and contributed to at least 14 deaths, authorities said on Monday.

The icy blast downed tree limbs and power lines, leaving more than 500,000 people without power in Oklahoma, where shelters opened throughout the region for those driven from cold and dark homes, and national guardsmen and volunteers were transporting food and water to hard-hit areas.

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Police have been granted a further 36 hours to question "missing" canoeist John Darwin on suspicion of fraud.

The 57-year-old, who reappeared last weekend after he was believed to have drowned at sea in 2002, was taken to Hartlepool magistrates for a hearing.

His wife Anne, 55, is reportedly on her way back to the UK from Panama, where she moved last month.

Cleveland Police want to speak to her "as a matter of urgency", also on suspicion of fraud.

On Wednesday, a photo emerged showing Mr and Mrs Darwin together in Panama in 2006.

Mrs Darwin admitted to newspapers the picture was genuine, but said she acted in good faith when cashing in her husband's life insurance after he was declared dead by a coroner in 2003.

A gunman has opened fire in a shopping centre in the US state of Nebraska, killing eight people before fatally shooting himself, police say.

A further five people were wounded - two critically - in the shooting at the Westroads Mall in Omaha.

Police have identified the gunman as Robert Hawkins, 19, from Bellevue, close to Omaha. They said a suicide note had been recovered.

Hawkins struck as the centre was crowded with Christmas shoppers.

Witnesses spoke of shoppers screaming and scrambling to find safe shelter as the gunman struck.

In a statement, President George W Bush - who visited Omaha earlier in the day for a fundraiser - said he was "deeply saddened" by the shootings.

Westroads Mall says it is the largest shopping centre in Nebraska, with more than 135 shops and restaurants.

A UK teacher has been released and handed over to British officials in Sudan after being jailed for letting her class name a teddy bear Muhammad.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was freed after eight days in custody. She had been given a 15-day jail term.

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir pardoned her after talks with two British Muslim peers.

In a statement, Mrs Gibbons apologised for "any distress". UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was "delighted".

Mother-of-two Mrs Gibbons has been released into the care of the British embassy in Khartoum, but her exact location has not been disclosed.

She was released four days after receiving a 15-day sentence for insulting religion.

The Turkish army says it has inflicted "heavy losses" on rebels from the Kurdish separatist PKK movement across the border in Iraq.

The army said it fired on a group of about 50 rebels, though the statement did not say troops entered Iraq.

In October, Turkey's parliament voted to allow the military to launch operations into Iraq to combat the PKK, which had stepped up attacks in Turkey.

But Iraq and the US have urged Turkey not to carry out its threat.

Slovak and Hungarian police seized a kilo (2.2 lbs) of radioactive material and arrested three people in a joint operation on Wednesday, a spokesman said.

Slovak police spokesman Martin Korch said the material was being examined and did not confirm a report carried by the Slovak news agency SITA that it was enriched uranium.

"This one kilogram should have been sold for one million U.S. dollars," Korch said.

Uranium enrichment can yield fuel for nuclear power stations or be used to make nuclear warheads. Uranium must be highly enriched to be suitable for use in weapons.

General Pervez Musharraf finally quit as army chief on Wednesday, trading the post for a second five-year term as president and fulfilling a promise many Pakistanis doubted he would keep.

He passed the baton of command to his hand-picked successor, General Ashfaq Kayani, at a ceremony at army headquarters in Rawalpindi.

Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup, is to be sworn in as a civilian president on Thursday, having relinquished his position in the one institution that guaranteed his power.

"The system continues, people come and go, everyone has to go, every good thing comes to an end, everything is mortal," a tearful Musharraf told top brass and government leaders at the change-of-command ceremony.

Pakistan has been suspended from the Commonwealth because of its imposition of emergency rule, the organisation has announced after a meeting in Uganda.

Secretary General Don McKinnon said Pakistan was being suspended "pending restoration of democracy and the rule of law".

Pakistan has criticised the decision as "unreasonable and unjustified".

Earlier Pakistan's Supreme Court dismissed a legal challenge to Pervez Musharraf's re-election as president.

The president has said that would allow him to step down as head of the army.

In recent days Gen Musharraf's regime has also released more than 3,400 people who had been detained under the emergency rule which the president imposed earlier this month.

Australia's prime minister has condemned members of his own party for distributing leaflets implying the Labor opposition supports terrorism.

John Howard, who trails Labor's Kevin Rudd in opinion polls ahead of a Saturday's general election, said the Liberal Party had not authorised them.

The flyers purported to be from an Islamic group thanking Labor for its sympathy for the Bali bombers.

Two Liberal activists have been expelled from the party.

The leaflets were distributed in the Sydney constituency of Lyndsay - a marginal seat in what will be a keenly fought election.