Missing Yacht: Life Raft Discovered Unused

The life raft on the missing yacht Cheeki Rafiki has been found unused in its storage space, the US Coast Guard has said.

The search for the missing British sailors ended at 3am UK time after a search of the capsized boat found the only realistic means of survival had not been deployed.

An RAF Hercules plane has also stopped searching after the discovery, the Foreign Office said.

From left: Andrew Bridge, Steve Warren, James Male and Paul Goslin

US Navy divers found a completely flooded cabin with shattered windows, said the Coast Guard.

"A US Navy warship smallboat crew and surface swimmer captured underwater imagery clearly identifying the raft in its storage space [behind the wheel]. The image was shared with and acknowledged by the families," said a statement.

The raft was found stored in the aft of the boat Pic: US Coast Guard

"The crew and swimmer deployed to investigate the overturned boat after a helicopter crew located it 1,000 miles offshore Massachusetts and within the US Coast Guard's search area.

"The Navy surface swimmer determined the boat's cabin was flooded and windows were shattered, contributing to the complete flooding inside."

It had already been announced that the search would be called off in the early hours of Saturday if no signs of possible survival were discovered.

"None of the current developments" indicate the crew are still alive, said the US Coast Guard.

The search effort involved military aircraft and ships

A statement on behalf of Steve Warren's family said it was an "incredibly difficult" time and that the search effort had been "exceptional".

The upturned 40ft yacht had been found on Friday, with divers first knocking on the hull to check for signs of life.

The families had said they were still hopeful their loved ones would be found despite the search being only hours from ending.

The men's familes had campaigned for the search to go on

Relatives of Steve Warren, 52, Andrew Bridge, 22, James Male, 23, and Paul Goslin, 56, said they had been told "endless stories" of people surviving for months at sea.

The vessel ran into difficulties on May 15 and began taking on water while returning to the UK from a regatta in Antigua.

Yacht training and charter company Stormforce Coaching said it had been in contact with the skipper at the time, and that the crew were keeping the situation stable.

The Cheeki Rafiki had been at a regatta in Antigua

The original search was halted after 53 hours amid bad weather but resumed on Tuesday after a request from the UK government and a online petition which collected more than 200,000 names.

The hunt included commercial vessels as well as aircraft from the US Coast Guard, US Navy, US Air Force, the Canadian military and the RAF.

Rescuers scoured more than 21,000 square miles of ocean during their second search for the boat.

Experts had agreed it would be impossible for the crew to survive outside of the life raft in cold, rough seas.

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Labour Badly Bruised By UKIP In Stronghold

Why The Only Way For Essex Is UKIP

Updated: 8:12pm UK, Friday 23 May 2014

By Jason Farrell, Political Correspondent

Standing by the roadside in their purple rosettes are two retired Essex men, Malcolm Elliott and Dave Morrish. They are brothers-in-law, both living in Thurrock.

One is a right-wing Thatcherite - the other a former left-wing activist who emigrated when Margaret Thatcher was in power.

They have never agreed on politics until now. Now they are waiting for their hero of the hour to arrive, Nigel Farage.

As the anticipation builds, Malcolm tells me: "I've been a socialist all my life but not anymore because nobody's listening."

"What do you think of Ed Miliband?" I ask.

"I don't frankly. I don't believe in any of them anymore."

His brother-in-law Dave agrees. "I voted Tory for 47 years. But I feel it doesn't matter if you vote Tory, Labour or the Lib Dems, what you're going to get is the EU and that's what I don't want. Renegotiation is a nonsense. Every European treaty states that it's not negotiable."

In the local elections UKIP has increased its number of seats in Thurrock from one to six, meaning the council is no longer controlled by Labour. Thanks to UKIP the Conservatives also lost control of Basildon, Brentwood, Castle Point and Southend: Essex man is becoming UKIP man.

As Mr Farage arrives the activists can hardly reach him for the cameras. The UKIP leader tells reporters his success in Essex does not mean he will stand for a seat here.

He also fields a number of questions about why his party failed to make the same impact down the road in London, where they only got 7% of the vote.

"We have a weak voluntary structure in London," he says. "We haven't built it. We haven't developed it. We haven't had the right local leaders. Once we get the right local Leaders we will start having results like this in London."

In previous elections this seat has seesawed from red to blue. The nearby parade of shops tells its own story of a community in decline. A pound shop, a Boots, a butcher's and a Greggs are among a row of otherwise boarded and shuttered facades. The butcher tells me that in the last five years for every shop that has closed, nothing has replaced them.

In Thurrock more than one in five children live in poverty. There has been a 200% increase in the use of food banks in recent months. If Ed Miliband's message about the "cost of living crisis" were to resonate anywhere, you would think it would be here. But instead they are more interested in what Mr Farage has to say about the EU and immigration.

In the local coffee shop I ask a group of pensioners why that is. "In this area we've swung between Labour and the Conservatives," says one man. "And what have either of them done for us? They've put their pay up 11% while our pensions have gone up 1%." There are six of them round the table and they all support UKIP.

The current MP is conservative Jackie Doyle-Price. With a shock of bleach-blonde hair and an upbringing on a Sheffield estate, she is far from fitting the Tories characterisation of Etonian established elite, and she is not someone to trot out the agreed party message.   

"There's been a definite mood on the doorstep of people saying the political classes don't speak to us anymore and if you look at the Westminster debate it's become very managerial, very bland, and along come UKIP with some populist messages and people say to themselves, let's give the main political parties a good kicking, and they have."

The overall mood is that Thurrock feels neglected and ignored by Westminster and therefore easily swept along by a new political wind. It seems, for many in Essex, the only way is UKIP.

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Thai Police Face Down Anti-Coup Protesters

Police and armed soldiers are involved in a tense stand-off with protesters marching against the military coup in Thailand.

More follows...

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UKIP Hoovers Up Protest Vote In Local Elections

By Michael Thrasher, Sky's Election Analyst

Once again Sunderland demonstrated the speed of its vote counting machine by declaring the first ward results. Although Labour's council majority remains formidable the devil lay in the detail.

Close analysis demonstrated UKIP was not only hoovering up the protest vote that once upon a time went to the Liberal Democrats but it was also halting Labour's progress.

Just a few ward results foretold the flavour of the overnight counting in 66 local authorities.

Slowly, UKIP began to translate voter support into seat gains. 

Nigel Farage's party enjoyed a breakthrough night in the polls

At first these were typically victories from the Conservatives, repeating a pattern at last year's county council elections, particularly in southern and eastern England.

Then, after five recounts in Hartlepool, UKIP finally got the headline it needed - a gain from Labour.

Just two votes separated victor and vanquished, but that did not stop the newly elected UKIP councillor from basking in his triumph.

More spectacular still was the outcome in Rotherham. 

At the parliamentary by-election, prompted by the imprisonment of Denis McShane for expenses fraud, UKIP had come a creditable second. 

Now, it had its breakthrough, making ten gains, the majority from Labour.

The balance of gains and losses then took on an unfamiliar theme. 

Instead of showing Conservative/Liberal Democrat losses and Labour gains, at one point it showed all three of the established parties as net losers.

Labour struggled to find the correct line to take. 

It queried predictions that it should be making net gains of about 500 seats, preferring instead its own modest claim that 160 gains would be good news.

That level would certainly not be the launch pad that Ed Miliband needs to take him into Downing Street.

Certainly, Labour's progress was being compromised by UKIP's unexpected bounty of local votes. 

Results from London could provide a better story for Ed Miliband and Labour

Councils such as Tamworth that are critical barometers of the likely outcome of next year's general election provided evidence that Labour's plan A needed revising. 

The Conservatives held on to power there and also in Swindon, the scene of the Labour leader's campaign gaffe.

After 47 of the overnight 66 councils had declared, the table of gains and losses had an unfamiliar look. 

Under normal circumstances the party of opposition would be leading the way in gains but UKIP eclipsed the Labour tally by a sizeable fraction.

The results from London, where a large fraction of the 4,200 seats at stake are located should provide a better story for Labour when they declare their results throughout Friday. 

But even here there could be a surprise or two in store for all of the main parties. 

Most of these wards elect three councillors but UKIP has chosen to field a single candidate in many of them. 

This might have led some voters to remain mostly loyal to their usual party but donate their third local vote to UKIP, thereby boosting an already good night for the party.

For the latest results from around the country as they come in follow Sky's live election blog.

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Symbolic Failure Spells Gloom For Ed Miliband

Early Local Election Results Show UKIP Gains

Updated: 9:49am UK, Friday 23 May 2014

Nigel Farage has claimed his party will win double the number of seats predicted as UKIP makes significant gains across the country.

Early on Friday morning UKIP had already surpassed the 80 seats it had been expected to take, dealing a significant blow to the main parties and leading to claims the country was now in an era of four-party politics.

UKIP took seats off both Labour and the Conservatives in their heartlands, which was particularly damaging to Ed Miliband, who has been accused by his own party of running a "unforgivably unprofessional" campaign.

Labour lost its grip in the north and, in a serious blow, the party lost control of Thurrock, a key marginal for the General Election in 2015, to no overall control, losing two seats to UKIP.

Mr Farage said UKIP would now be "serious players" in the General Election and said the party was expecting to win double the 80 seats that had been predicted.

He said: "The UKIP fox is in the Westminster henhouse" and added: "The idea the UKIP vote just hurts the Tories is going to be blown away by this election." 

However, Mr Farage, who has consistently warned the local and European elections would deliver a UKIP "earthquake", admitted that the party was unlikely to be successful in London.

Douglas Alexander, Labour's election coordinator, was forced to deny fighting a "lacklustre" campaign.

He told Sky News the only way to tackle the march of UKIP was by deploying an "army of activists" on the doorsteps and said that Labour had knocked on seven million doors.

Mr Alexander said there was a "deep antipathy to how politics has been done" and UKIP had scooped up that vote but that "strengthening and growing the ground operation" was the only strategy for 2015.

UKIP made its greatest gains in Essex, where Margaret Thatcher once identified the "Essex Man", a man who moved out of London, once voted Labour but switched to the Tories.

UKIP took seats from Labour in Hartlepool, won 10 seats in Rotherham and polled more than a third of the vote in wards in big cities, such as Sunderland, Birmingham and Hull, where it previously had little or no presence.

According to the latest Sky News projection, the results so far would give a hung parliament at the 2015 General Election.

Sky's election analyst Professor Michael Thrasher said UKIP's success suggested the party would claim at least one seat in the House of Commons next year

Conservative Education Secretary Michael Gove said the results had not been as bad as expected. He categorically ruled out any chance of a pact with UKIP.

Most councils will not declare their results until later on Friday.

As predicted, the Liberal Democrats suffered significant losses, particularly in Portsmouth where it lost control with UKIP gaining six seats.

However, it managed to hold on in Eastleigh, where UKIP had been expected to make gains, which was a significant victory for the party.

Business Secretary Vince Cable admitted it would be a bad night, adding: "We take a kicking for the things that government does that are unpopular."

:: Follow all the results as they come in on Twitter with @skyelections.

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Local Elections: UKIP Makes Significant Gains

Nigel Farage has claimed his party will win double the number of seats predicted as UKIP makes significant gains across the country.

Early on Friday morning UKIP had already surpassed the 80 seats it had been expected to take, dealing a significant blow to the main parties and leading to claims the country was now in an era of four-party politics.

UKIP took seats off both Labour and the Conservatives in their heartlands, which was particularly damaging to Ed Miliband, who has been accused by his own party of running a "unforgivably unprofessional" campaign.

A ballot box is emptied at Trinity School in Croydon

Labour lost its grip in the north and, in a serious blow, the party lost control of Thurrock, a key marginal for the General Election in 2015, to no overall control, losing two seats to UKIP.

Mr Farage said UKIP would now be "serious players" in the General Election and said the party was expecting to win double the 80 seats that had been predicted.

He said: "The UKIP fox is in the Westminster henhouse" and added: "The idea the UKIP vote just hurts the Tories is going to be blown away by this election." 

However, Mr Farage, who has consistently warned the local and European elections would deliver a UKIP "earthquake", admitted that the party was unlikely to be successful in London.

Douglas Alexander, Labour's election coordinator, was forced to deny fighting a "lacklustre" campaign.

He told Sky News the only way to tackle the march of UKIP was by deploying an "army of activists" on the doorsteps and said that Labour had knocked on seven million doors.

Joey Essex may have supported Ed Miliband but Essex man voted UKIP

Mr Alexander said there was a "deep antipathy to how politics has been done" and UKIP had scooped up that vote but that "strengthening and growing the ground operation" was the only strategy for 2015.

UKIP made its greatest gains in Essex, where Margaret Thatcher once identified the "Essex Man", a man who moved out of London, once voted Labour but switched to the Tories.

UKIP took seats from Labour in Hartlepool, won 10 seats in Rotherham and polled more than a third of the vote in wards in big cities, such as Sunderland, Birmingham and Hull, where it previously had little or no presence.

According to the latest Sky News projection, the results so far would give a hung parliament at the 2015 General Election.

Mr Farage casts his vote in Cudham, Kent

Sky's election analyst Professor Michael Thrasher said UKIP's success suggested the party would claim at least one seat in the House of Commons next year

Conservative Education Secretary Michael Gove said the results had not been as bad as expected. He categorically ruled out any chance of a pact with UKIP.

Most councils will not declare their results until later on Friday.

The Camerons and the Milibands cast their votes

As predicted, the Liberal Democrats suffered significant losses, particularly in Portsmouth where it lost control with UKIP gaining six seats.

However, it managed to hold on in Eastleigh, where UKIP had been expected to make gains, which was a significant victory for the party.

Business Secretary Vince Cable admitted it would be a bad night, adding: "We take a kicking for the things that government does that are unpopular."

:: Follow all the results as they come in on Twitter with @skyelections.

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'Abducted' Girl Is Found After 10 Years

A woman from California who disappeared as a teenager 10 years ago has contacted police saying she was held captive by her mother's boyfriend.

The victim says she was kidnapped in 2004 at the age of 15 by Isidro Garcia, according to Santa Ana police.

Garcia, 41, has been arrested on suspicion of abduction, rape, lewd acts with a minor and false imprisonment.

Investigators say Garcia moved home several times to avoid detection, gave the girl multiple fake identities and obtained night-shift cleaning jobs for himself and the victim so he could keep watch over her.

The victim, who has not been identified, lived with Garcia under what investigators described as "sustained physical and mental abuse".

She is believed to have been sexually abused and bore a child to her captor in 2012, five years after she was forced to marry him.

Police say Garcia lived with the girl's mother in this apartment

Investigators say Garcia had been in a relationship with the girl's mother, who suspected he was sexually abusing her daughter. 

In June 2004, he allegedly attacked the mother before drugging the girl and driving her to a house in Compton where he locked her in a garage.

According to police, the accused imprisoned her in a garage and told her that her family had stopped looking for her and they would be deported if she went to police.

Garcia with his victim

"You're talking about a 15-year-old girl that's in a new country," police Corporal Anthony Bertagna said of the victim, who had entered the US illegally from Mexico and spoke no English.

"She's got nowhere to go."

But after being locked up at first, she eventually began to lead what appeared from the outside to be a normal life.

"Even with the opportunity to escape, after years of physical and mental abuse, the victim saw no way out of her situation," police said in a statement.

Neighbours said they were stunned at the news and described the two as a normal couple who went to church, hosted parties for their friends and appeared to love their child. 

"He treats her like a queen, he does his best to do whatever she wants," neighbour Maria Sanchez said.

Reports suggested the woman may not have tried to escape earlier due to a case of Stockholm syndrome, in which victims of kidnappings sympathise with their abductors.

After years of physical and emotional abuse, the victim, now 25, approached police after finding her sister on Facebook, say investigators.

She initially reported a case of domestic violence, but then the full story started to emerge.

The case has similarities to the Cleveland kidnapping where three women were subjected to rape and beatings by their abductor Ariel Castro during about a decade in captivity.

Castro committed suicide in prison last summer.

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Hundreds Discharged From Hospitals Every Night

By Thomas Moore, Health Correspondent

Thousands of NHS patients are being discharged from hospitals every year in the middle of the night despite bosses ordering a crackdown on the practice, a Sky News investigation has found.

The number of patients leaving hospital in England between 11pm and 6am has actually risen in the last two years, new figures show.

In almost half of cases, the proportion of patients discharged overnight has increased.

In April 2012 NHS England medical director Professor Sir Bruce Keogh called on hospitals to cut down on overnight discharges following a series of cases where vulnerable patients had been left to make their own way home.

Dr Mike Smith has said the practice is driven by the need for beds

The NHS was accused of discharging patients overnight to try to free up beds.

However, figures obtained by Sky News following Freedom of Information (FOI) requests show that since Sir Bruce's intervention the practice is still widespread and in many cases rising.

According to the figures more than 300,000 patients have been discharged late at night since 2012 - an average of around 400 a night. Tens of thousands of those patients were over 75.

As only 72 of England's 160 NHS trusts were able to provide full figures for the last three years, the true number is certain to be far higher.

Dr Mike Smith, chair of the Patients Association, said: "They have got people in A&E chomping at the bit, lying in corridors, they have got to be admitted and they have no beds.

The number of patients discharged overnight increased at 41 hospital trusts

"It's for the convenience of staff and the person they are admitting but at the gross detriment to the person they are chucking out."

Experts say that patients often end up in care homes in the middle of the night.

Nadra Ahmed, chair of the National Care Association, said: "They are going back without any relevant information about how their care might have changed, what the diagnosis might have been, their paperwork is not following because people are off duty and often without the relevant medication they need for the following day or even through the night."

Patient Michael Atkinson told Sky News that in March 2013 he was discharged from the Royal Bolton Hospital A&E at 3am, despite being in a confused state.

He was found by police an hour later wandering on a cricket pitch almost a mile away.

He said: "I did not know who I was, where I was. I did not know where I was going. I was just wandering basically. I was in pain."

Michael Atkinson was found wandering after he was discharged overnight

His wife Helen said: "He could have died. He was blue with cold. Something must be done to stop this happening. You are in hospital for a reason - to be looked after."

The hospital said that Mr Atkinson had left before transport could be arranged for him but said that staff had tried to learn lessons from the incident.

Sky News asked 160 NHS trusts in England how many patients had been discharged between 11pm and 6am in the past three years.

Of those, 72 trusts provided figures for all three years. In 41 cases, the number of patients discharged overnight increased.

In 31 cases the proportion of patients discharged between 11pm and 6am increased. In three trusts it remained the same.

Of the 72 trusts that replied, 152,472 patients were discharged between 11pm and 6am in 2011/12, rising to 152,479 in 2013/14.

The figures also reveal that 20,152 were aged over 75 in 2011/12; 19,728 in 2012/13 and 18,548 in 2013/14.

The proportion of patients discharged overnight remained the same at 2.41%.

Some 25 trusts said they did not collect the data or that it would take too much time to find it and the remaining hospitals did not reply to the FOI request.

A spokesperson for NHS England said: "Discharging patients at night without appropriate support is unacceptable, particularly if a patient is vulnerable.

"Where a patient wishes to leave late at night or early in the morning, it should be accommodated only where it is safe and clinically appropriate and with the support of family, friends or carers.

"The decision to do this should always be based on what is best for the patient."

:: Have your say on Facebook or share your experiences on Twitter using the hashtag #nhsovernight

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Missing Yachtsmen Search: Floating Debris Found

Debris has been found by a vessel searching for the missing yacht that is thought to have capsized with four Britons on board.

The US Coast Guard told Sky News a catamaran, Malisi, had discovered random floating objects within the search area - but could not confirm it was from the missing Cheeki Rafiki.

Steve Warren, 52, Andrew Bridge, 22, James Male, 23, and Paul Goslin, 56, were on board the 40ft yacht when it ran into difficulties a week ago while returning to the UK from a regatta in Antigua.

A spokeswoman for the US Coast Guard said: "I can confirm that we have received reports (of debris) from the sailing vessel Malisi. They have found some debris in the search area. We can't tell at this time if they are from the Cheeki Rafiki as there were no identifying marks on them.

"The debris was a plank of wood and a small piece of floating foam, but there was nothing identifying the Cheeki Rafiki.

"Obviously it is a possibility, and we are definitely treating it very seriously and incorporating that into our search, but I can't say for certain that it was from the Cheeki Rafiki."

She said the report would be used in planning the search effort, but could not say whether vessels or aircraft would be diverted to the area.

The spokeswoman could not say if the debris was in an area already searched.

"A lot of these areas overlap and are searched several times, and it is possible that other vessels had been in the area," she said.

An initial search for the stricken vessel was called off on Sunday amid bad weather in the Atlantic Ocean, but began again on Tuesday after pressure from the men's families.

More than 200,000 people also signed a petition demanding the operation be resumed.

The search, around 1,000 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, now involves six ships and four planes - including an RAF Hercules.

Relatives of the sailors are due to meet Foreign Office officials in London.

More follows...

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Police To Patrol More Than 100 Polling Stations

By Jason Farrell, Senior Political Correspondent

Police will be stationed at more than 100 polling stations to combat voter intimidation and fraud at the local and European elections on Thursday, Sky News has learned.

The Electoral Commission has identified 16 areas as being at "high risk" for vote-rigging and bullying. 

This includes Tower Hamlets, which in response has introduced what the council described as "the strongest measures to prevent fraud of any authority in London - and one of the most robust in the country".

'High risk' areas are concentrated around Lancashire and in The Midlands

The council said: "On polling day, police officers will be stationed at all 125 polling stations in the borough for the whole 15 hours of the poll (from 7am to 10pm) to deal with any alleged malpractice or public order issues."

Returning Officer John Williams said they were responding to allegations of intimidation during previous elections.

He said: "In general it has been enthusiastic campaigners gathering outside polling stations and trying to convince electors as they are coming in to vote who they should be voting for and sometimes that can be intimidating for people."

Councils are also investigating irregularities on nomination, voter registration and postal vote forms.

In Tower Hamlets they are not just screening signatures and birth dates on postal votes, but also visiting houses with high numbers of registered voters.

More than 5,000 names have been removed from the electoral register since February.

Pendle, in Lancashire, is another area identified.

Police will be at all 125 polling stations in Tower Hamlets

Conservative council candidate Abdullah Zaid said activists have in the past coerced vulnerable voters on the doorstep.

He said: "They say, 'how do we know you're voting for us? To assure us you need to do the postal vote applications (now).'

"Then they do the applications themselves and get their signatures and send off the postal votes."

Lib Dem Councillor Tony Greaves, who has campaigned on the issue and sits in the House of Lords, said: "Fiddling postal votes has happened at every local election in Pendle since 2002 and it has taken this long for people and the police to sit up and take notice.

Pendle is one of 16 areas identified by the Electoral Commission

"It is a disgrace to British democracy and I will not stop saying so, both in Pendle and in the House of Lords, until it is stamped out."

Labour Leader Mohammad Iqbal said it can be as bad at polling stations.

"One of the reasons that people chose postal voting in Pendle is because they were fed up of certain political activists - and this is across all parties both Labour, Liberal Democrats and Conservatives," he said.

"The activists used to stand outside polling stations and harass people and that was one of the reasons why people took up postal voting."

Most councils said they would respond as situations arose

The at-risk areas are mostly Asian communities.

The others are: Hyndburn, Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley and Oldham, Kirklees, Bradford, Calderdale, Derby, Walsall, Birmingham, Coventry, Peterborough, Slough, and Woking.

Apart from Tower Hamlets, no other council is planning to police every polling station, although Walsall will have officers at four out of 139 polling stations.

Most said they would respond to situations as they arose.

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Families Hope As Sailor Search Stepped Up

The sister of one of the four sailors missing after their yacht capsized in the Atlantic Ocean believes there is every chance he will be found alive.

Kay Coombes, the sister of Steve Warren, also spoke of her relief the search for the crew of the Cheeki Rafiki, which was returning to the UK from a regatta in Antigua, had been resumed after a public campaign.

The US Coast Guard in Boston is coordinating the hunt. Pic: US Coast Guard

She was speaking as the US Coast Guard stepped up the hunt which now involves four ships and three planes.

A further three vessels and an aircraft are en route to the search area, about 1,000 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

An RAF Hercules is also on its way to join the hunt.

Air crews on the scene have scoured a total of 2,878 square miles since the search resumed.

The overturned hull of a yacht spotted by a cargo ship

Speaking from Somerset, Ms Coombes told Sky News: "We are all sticking together at this point. We are amazed by the public support we have had.

"We are very thankful to the US Coast Guard that have started searching again.

"We are being realistic about what's happening but we are still hopeful at this point.

"Knowing my brother like I do - he's very very strong, physically strong, mentally strong - there's every chance he's still alive.

"We also are realistic. All we can do is hope and pray, and keep everything crossed that we can that we have a positive outcome.

Rear Admiral Dan Abel discusses the search operation. Pic: US Coast Guard

"People are out there now looking for them, so if they are out there there's a good chance they are going to be found now."

Mr Warren's daughter Laura Carpenter said: "Obviously we are so pleased the search is back on again now."

The RAF Hercules plane will begin combing the ocean on Thursday and will be able to search for up to four hours at a time.

Mr Warren, 52, Andrew Bridge, 22, James Male, 23, and Paul Goslin, 56, were on board the 40ft yacht when it ran into difficulties.

The US Coast Guard called off the search for them last weekend after two days but the decision was reversed after more than 150,000 people signed an online petition.

A sailor who survived for five days after being shipwrecked in the mid-Atlantic told Sky News he believes the crew are still alive.

Rory Nugent told US Correspondent Amanda Walker: "I was declared dead twice by the US Coast Guard and the US Navy and eventually got apology letters from both.

"So I'm not sure I'm going to take their statement of fact as the truth.

"I think human nature and these guys' desire to live will keep them alive and keep them going."

The Cheeki Rafiki's crew had sent out locator beacons 1,000 miles east of Massachusetts and the Coast Guard estimated the survival time for the Britons was 20 hours after "the time of distress".

Rory Nugent was declared dead twice

The capsized hull of a yacht was spotted by the crew of the cargo ship Maersk Kure, which was assisting in the search.

But they did not attempt to climb down to the stricken vessel and insisted there were no signs of life on board and no life raft.

The families of the men insist they would have had time to escape onto a life raft.

Speaking to Sky News after the US Coast Guard decided to search again, Mr Warren's sister Kay Coombes said: "People-power has been amazing. We've moved a mountain today."

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Prince Charles 'Compares Putin To Hitler'

Prince Charles has reportedly compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler over his actions in Ukraine.

The Prince of Wales' alleged remark about Mr Putin came during a four-day tour of Canada when he spoke to a woman who fled the Nazis and lost family members in the Holocaust.

A spokesman for Clarence House said: "We do not comment on private conversations.

"But we would like to stress that the Prince of Wales would not seek to make a public political statement during a private conversation."

Charles was being shown around the Museum of Immigration in Halifax, Nova Scotia, along with Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall.

The royal couple paid tribute to World War Two veterans and their families, and during the course of the visit they spoke to museum volunteer Marianne Ferguson.

Ms Ferguson told the Prince she fled to Canada with her family in 1939, not long before Hitler annexed the Baltic coastal Free City of Gdansk.

Prince Charles and Camilla in Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island

After meeting Charles, the 78-year-old told the Daily Mail: "The Prince said 'And now Putin is doing just about the same as Hitler'.

"I must say that I agree with him and am sure a lot of people do.

"But I was very surprised that he made the comment as I know they [members of the Royal Family] aren't meant to say these things.

"I told the Prince that while my family and I were lucky to get a permit to travel, many members of my relatives had permits but were unable to get out before the war broke out on September 1.

"They were sent to the concentration camps and died."

The Mail reported that the Prince made his comments while surrounded by media and they were heard by several witnesses.

Mr Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov told Sky News: "I don't know anything about it. I can't really trust the Daily Mail as a source."

Protesters in Kiev have also compared Putin to Hitler

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg backed Prince Charles on his LBC Radio phone-in, saying: "Prince Charles should be perfectly entitled to express views in the confidence that he's expressing them privately."

But Labour (Co-op) MP Mike Gapes, who represents Ilford South, said the Prince "should abdicate" if he wants to make controversial statements.

He said on Twitter: "If Prince Charles wants to make controversial statements on national or international issues he should abdicate and stand for election.

"In constitutional monarchy, policy and diplomacy should be conducted by parliament and government. Monarchy should be seen and not heard."

UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who has backed Mr Putin's anti-EU stance in the past, said: "Prince Charles has made those comments - I know some people feel that way about Putin.

"I think there's a difference. The difference is right from the very start Hitler was expansionist, and we haven't see very much evidence of that until now from Putin and arguably, what's happened in the Ukraine is because he's been poked with a stick by the rest of the world."

Mr Putin is in Shanghai meeting with Xi Jinping and other world leaders

Charles and the Russian leader are due to meet next month when they attend the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy on June 6.

Mr Putin has faced international anger over Russia's actions in neighbouring Ukraine, including the controversial annexation of Crimea.

In March, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reportedly said Mr Putin's claim to be be defending ethnic Russians in Crimea was "what Hitler did back in the '30s".

She later backtracked, claiming she was not making a direct comparison but that Russia's behaviour was "reminiscent" of Germany in the build-up to the Second World War.

Prince Charles has been known for speaking his mind on issues such as architecture and the environment, but he rarely makes his feelings known on diplomatic matters.

There is an ongoing legal battle over the publication of letters he has sent to politicians, with the attorney general concerned their release could compromise the Prince's neutrality and create constitutional problems.

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Pistorius Ordered To Go To Psychiatric Hospital

Oscar Pistorius has been ordered to attend a hospital for up to 30 days of psychiatric evaluation.

Judge Thokozile Masipa said the athlete must attend Pretoria's Weskoppies hospital, one of South Africa's top psychiatric institutions, as an outpatient for up to 30 days from May 26.  

The trial has been adjourned until June 30 while the tests are carried out.

The athlete must stay at the clinic every weekday until 4pm starting next Monday.

Last week, the judge ruled that Pistorius' state of mind when he shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp should be assessed after a psychiatrist giving evidence in the athlete's defence told the court he generalised anxiety disorder that this may have influenced his judgement.

The tests were requested by the chief prosecutor and opposed by Pistorius' lawyer.

Pistorius shot Ms Steenkamp through a toilet door at his home on February 14 last year and insists he thought she was an intruder.

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Joss Stone Murder Plot Pair Have Sentences Cut

Two men who were convicted of plotting to rob and kill the singer Joss Stone have won appeals against the length of their prison sentences.

Junior Bradshaw, 33, had his 18-year sentence cut to 10 years by three Court of Appeal judges in London.

Kevin Liverpool, 36, who was originally given a life sentence with a minimum term of 10 years and eight months, had his minimum reduced to six-and-a-half years.

The pair, of St Stephen's Close, Longsight, Manchester, were found guilty of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to rob following a trial at Exeter Crown Court last year.

They drove from Manchester to Miss Stone's home in mid-Devon with an arsenal of weapons, including a samurai sword, to rob and kill her.

When the pair were sentenced, Judge Francis Gilbert, the Recorder of Exeter, branded Liverpool a danger to the public and said he targeted Miss Stone to get more than £1m from her.

He told him: "You intended to rob her and kill her and dump her body in the river, according to your words, and then leave the country with your accomplice, Junior Bradshaw. You had no reason to target her except that she was a wealthy young woman as she was a successful singer."

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House Prices Up As PM Signals On Help To Buy

House prices rose in the year to March by 8% official figures show, as David Cameron said he will "consider" changes to the Help To Buy scheme if advised to do so by the Bank of England.

While the increase is down on the 9.2% rise in February, according to the Office for National Statistics, the continued strong price growth, particularly in London and the South East, is set to fuel criticism of the Government scheme underwriting home loans for people without large deposits.

It comes after the Bank of England governor Mark Carney told Sky News the housing market had "deep, deep" problems

In an interview with Sky's Murnaghan show on Sunday, Mr Carney warned rising house prices represented the biggest current risk to the economy.

In response, the Prime Minister has indicated he is open to rethinking Help To Buy.

Asked if he would look at reducing the programme's £600,000 threshold, Mr Cameron said: "Of course, we will consider any changes that are proposed by Mark Carney.

"But, as he said, this is a well-targeted scheme and it's helped tens of thousands of people get on the housing ladder and to have mortgages."

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Missing Yachtsmen: 'Give Sailors Another Chance'

The father of one of four yachtsmen missing in the Atlantic Ocean has pleaded for the search for them to be resumed saying the sailors needed to be "given a chance".

David Bridge told Sky News he was "devastated" to hear the US Coastguard had called off the rescue mission on Sunday due to treacherous weather conditions.

He said the group had set off a personal locator beacon suggesting the group were in a life raft.

Contact with Andrew Bridge, 21, James Male, 23, Steve Warren, 52, and Paul Goslin, 56, was lost in the early hours of Friday while they were diverting to the Azores.

The overturned hull of a yacht matching the description of the Cheeki Rafiki was spotted and photographed by a cargo vessel assisting the search.

It reported no there were no signs of life on board and no life raft, however no one from the Greek-registered 1,000ft container ship Maersk Kure tried to climb down to the yacht to check if anyone was trapped alive inside.

The yacht reportedly capsized on the way back from the Caribbean

The crew was returning from Antigua Sailing Week in the 40ft yacht when it ran into difficulties 620 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on Thursday.

Mr Bridge said he last heard from Andrew, 21, as they prepared to leave Antigua.

Speaking from Farnham he told Sky News: "They were just happy to be on their way.

"He's very experienced, he's done a lot of offshore racing.

"I think he's equipped as anybody would be."

He had been told in conference calls with the American authorities that they felt "they have done enough".

L-R: Andrew Bridge, Steve Warren, James Male, Paul Goslin

Urging the the hunt to be resumed, he said: "They need to restart the search. All the while there's a chance then they need to take it.

"They need to go out there and carry on searching.They should give them another chance."

And Mr Bridge's aunt, Georgie Bridge, told Sky News the sailor's family remains hopeful that the crew will be found alive.

"Obviously the family are really concerned that the search has been suspended and we are really hoping that it will be resumed," she said.

"We are holding out great hope that Andrew and the guys on board Cheeki Rafiki will be found.

"We are hopeful that they were able to launch a life raft and that they are still on board that, so we would just really like the search to be resumed."

US and Canadian aircraft searched for the missing crew on Friday and Saturday, with help from three merchant vessels.

A US Coastguard spokesman said the crews searched more than 4,000 square miles of the ocean for pings from the vessel's personal locator beacons.

"After receiving no more transmissions we believe that we would have found them by now if we were going to find them.

"These beacons are small devices and the ones being used have a very short battery life."

The Coastguard defended the actions of the crew of the cargo vessel which spotted what was thought to be the yacht, saying it did not the capabilities to search or pick up the Cheeki Rafiki.

"Aircraft take four or five hours to get there and vessels can take over a week. This particular ship just happened to be in the area, they were not tasked specifically for this," he said.

Mr Bridge, from Farnham in Surrey, was being paid by the Southampton-based yacht training and charter company Stormforce Coaching for his role as captain, a spokeswoman for the firm said.

Stormforce director Doug Innes said that the yacht had first started taking on water on Thursday, but the skipper was in contact and the crew were keeping the situation stable.

"Although the search efforts co-ordinated by Boston were exceptional we are devastated that the search has now been called off so soon," Mr Innes said.

"Our thoughts are with the four yachtsmen and their families and we hope and pray for them all."

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Huddersfield Stabbing: Probe As Woman Killed

Police have launched a murder probe after a woman was killed and four children injured in a stabbing attack.

Officers called to a domestic incident in Huddersfield found a 37-year-old woman with a "serious stab injury" and a nine-year-old boy outside the property with an injury to his arm.

The woman was taken to hospital after the attack on Sunday evening, but she later died.

The boy was also taken to hospital for treatment to his injury.

Another nine-year-old boy, a boy of 11 and a six-month-old baby girl, who were also at the address in Reinwood Road, were treated for minor injuries.

Det Chief Insp Ady Taylor said: "A 39-year-old man was detained at the scene and is being treated in hospital for serious injuries.

"We are not looking for anyone else in connection with this incident.

"Enquiries are ongoing to establish the full circumstances surrounding the incident and Neighbourhood Policing Team officers are patrolling the area, offering support and reassurance to local residents."

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Putin 'Moves Forces On Ukraine Border To Base'

Vladimir Putin has ordered Russian forces operating along the border with Ukraine to return to their bases, according to the Kremlin.

It is the second time Mr Putin has said Russian forces are being pulled back, with the Russian President announcing on May 7 that they had been "withdrawn".

Interfax quoted a Kremlin press spokesman as saying on Monday: "Due to the end of the planned spring training of troops that included their movement to Rostov, Belgorod, and Bryansk regions, the Russian president ordered... troops participating in the drills to return to their permanent bases."

Russia has about 40,000 troops near the border with Ukraine, where Ukraine's security forces and separatists have been engaged in low-level conflict.

On May 7, Mr Putin said: "We're always being told that our forces on the Ukrainian border are a concern. We have withdrawn them."

It prompted the US and Nato to say they could find no evidence that Russia had moved its forces back.

Nato again stated it could see no sign of Russian troops being moved back.

A senior Nato military officer told Reuters: "We haven't seen any movement to validate (the report)."

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Carney: 'House Prices Biggest Risk To Economy'

By Ed Conway, Economics Editor

The British housing market has "deep, deep" problems, according to the Governor of the Bank of England.

In an interview with Sky's Murnaghan show to be broadcast in full later this morning, Mark Carney warns that rising house prices represents the biggest current risk to the economy.

And the number of large mortgages being approved to house buyers is on the rise, he adds.

Mr Carney says that the UK is in need of new house building.

He says that compared to his home country of Canada, for example, the UK built half the number of new homes every year despite having twice the population. 

Canada builds around 200,000 new homes a year compared to just 133,000 similar properties that were built in the UK last year.

Mr Carney said: "The issue around the housing market in the UK … is there are not sufficient (numbers of) houses (being) built."

Mark Carney has issued a warning over the UK housing market

Asked if more houses need to be built, Mr Carney replied: "That would help us out.

"We're not going to build a single house at the Bank of England. We can't influence that.

"What we can influence … is whether the banks are strong enough. Do they have enough capital against risk in the housing market?"

Mr Carney said they could also check lending procedures "so people can get mortgages if they can afford them but they won't if they can't".

"By reinforcing both of those we can reduce the risk that comes from a housing market that has deep, deep structural problems," he added.

Mr Carney said there was evidence that large mortgages, where lenders approve loans of more than four times people's salaries, are on the rise again.

"We don't want to build up another big debt overhang that is going to hurt individuals and is very much going to slow the economy in the medium term," he said.

"We'd be concerned if there was a rapid increase in high loan-to-value mortgages across the banks. We've seen that creeping up and it's something we're watching closely."

In an separate interview for Murnaghan David Cameron admitted the Government needed to build more houses and said Mr Carney was "absolutely right".

However, he added: "The building of houses is going up. If you talk to any housing developer at the moment or builder they will tell you that the help to buy scheme the Government has put in place has been hugely helpful in bringing forward more development or house building.

"We are training apprentices in the building trade to make sure that we can deliver on these houses but we do need more, yes."

Last week, Mr Carney surprised many by playing down the chances of an imminent rise in interest rates despite fears of a growing house price bubble.

But he admitted the issue was the biggest current threat to the economy.

"The biggest risk to financial stability, and therefore to the durability of the expansion, centres on the housing market and that's why we're focused on that," he said.

Prices are currently rising at more than 10% a year across the country.

Analysis by Sky News has shown the number of £1m properties has doubled since 2008.

Earlier this month, the OECD think tank called on the Bank of England to impose measures to help quell rising house prices.

Both the coalition and Labour are committed to building hundreds of thousands of new homes.

However, construction still lags behind Government targets.

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'Migrants Must Learn English', Asian Minister

Immigrants must learn to speak English and respect Britain's laws and culture, the new Culture Secretary, Sajid Javid, has said.

Mr Javid, the son of Pakistani immigrants and the first Asian Secretary of State, said that people were entitled to expect that immigrants made a contribution to society.

"People want Britain to have more control over its borders, and I think they are right," he told The Sunday Telegraph.

"People also say, when immigrants do come to Britain, that they should come to work, and make a contribution and that they should also respect our way of life, and I agree with all of that. It means things like trying to learn English."

His comments come at a time when the Tories are under pressure from UKIP over the issue of immigration ahead of Thursday's European elections.

Mr Javid suggested that immigrants already well-established in the UK also needed to take greater responsibility for integrating with the rest of society.

"I know people myself, I have met people who have been in Britain for over 50 years and they still can't speak English," he said.

"I think it's perfectly reasonable for British people to say, look, if you're going to settle in Britain and make it your home, you should learn the language of the country and you should respect its laws and its culture."

A self-confessed Thatcherite, Mr Javid, MP for Bromsgrove, was appointed Culture minister during a reshuffle by David Cameron in April.

The son of a bus driver, who left Pakistan for Rochdale, had been a senior managing director at Deutsche Bank in charge of trading operations in Asia until 2009, where he had been earning an estimated £3m a year.

Mr Javid is tipped as a Tory leader of the future and has said he sees his Muslim faith as no barrier to one day taking the top slot.

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The Murnaghan Programme: Live Blog

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Watch live and follow our commentators as Dermot Murnaghan talks to Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, the PM and Ed Miliband.

9:56am UK, Sunday 18 May 2014

Live Stream: Murnaghan: Carney, PM, Miliband

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• Video Stream: Murnaghan: Carney, PM, Miliband

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