US President Barack Obama says the Boy Scouts of America should open its membership to gays and lesbians when its national executive board discusses the issue this week.

A judge overseeing a lawsuit by the family of a California boy molested by his troop leader has ordered the Boy Scouts of America to hand over confidential files containing accusations of sexual abuse by its leaders throughout the country.

The country’s leading technology trade association, which represents major multinationals including IBM, Boeing and Microsoft, has written a brief in support of the Boy Scouts of America in a lawsuit that seeks to make public the organisation’s so-called “perversion files”.

A jury ordered the Boy Scouts of America to pay $18.5m to a man who was sexually abused by a former assistant Scoutmaster in what is believed to be the largest such award against the national organisation.

THE US Boy Scouts organisation has been ordered to pay $1.4 million (€1m) to a man who claimed he was sexually abused by a leader as a child.

The US Boy Scouts organisation has been ordered to pay $1.4m (€1m) to a man who claimed he was sexually abused by a leader as a child.

THE lawyer for a US man who filed a $29 million (€21m) sex abuse lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America told a jury the Scouts knew they had a serious problem but failed to act.

The lawyer for a US man who filed a $29m (€21.6m) sex abuse lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America told a jury the Scouts knew they had a serious problem but failed to act.

The Boy Scouts of America showed reckless indifference to protecting young Scouts when it kept confidential two decades worth of files on suspected molesters among its troop leaders, a psychologist testified as part of a $14m lawsuit against the organisation.

BEFORE Joe Kennedy went to Hollywood for his short-lived affair with the movies in 1926, he was well off.

Four American Boy Scout leaders were killed in an electrical accident early today, during the opening day of their organisation’s 2005 jamboree.

THE Boy Scouts of America have been slapped with two lawsuits demanding the organisation cover the $14 million (€11.25m) it cost to fight a June 2002 blaze it claims scouts started in Wyoming.

THE federal government and the state of Utah sued the Boy Scouts of America for nearly £8 million to recover the costs of a 2002 fire at a Scout camp.

Two gay Boy Scout leaders in the US today lost their bid to return to the organisation when an appeal court overturned an order that they be reinstated as troop leaders.

A US Boy Scout has been given a week to find God or face expulsion from the organisation.

Gay scoutmasters are being allowed in a US state under a new "don't ask - don't tell" policy despite the national scout association's ban on homosexuals.