Lawyers for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev have asked a judge to make prosecutors turn over family-related evidence as they try to build a case that his older brother was the “main instigator” of the deadly attack.

Barack Obama is going public to try to convince war-weary Americans that limited strikes against Syria are needed for the United States’ long-term safety.

President Barack Obama is defending the FBI’s handling of the Boston Marathon bombing investigation as Republicans prepare for oversight hearings on the attack.

Using futuristic photo-analysis tools, federal agents on the Boston Marathon case last night released images of two potential suspects to enlist the public’s help in hunting down the bombers.

President Barack Obama promised a grieving Boston to hunt down whoever was responsible for the deadly bombing at the marathon, while investigators focused on a man seen dropping off a bag and walking away from the site of the second of Monday’s two explosions.

President Barack Obama declared “there is a piece of Boston in me” as he paid tribute to a city shaken by what he has called an act of terror. He said: “Every one of us stands with you.”

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that the FBI wants to speak to two men seen in at least one video from the Boston Marathon.

The sex scandal that led to the resignation of CIA director David Petraeus has widened, with the top US commander in Afghanistan under investigation for alleged “inappropriate communications” with a woman who is said to have received threatening emails from General Petraeus’ former lover.

The sex scandal involving US Secret Service agents and prostitutes in a hotel in Colombia involved at least 20 foreign women, congressional officials say.

The Pentagon is looking into concerns that the Obama administration may have given a Hollywood filmmaker too many details about the secret mission last May in which Osama bin Laden was killed.

A defiant Rupert Murdoch has said he will challenge the “total lies” issued about his News Corporation media empire in the phone hacking scandal when he appears before MPs next week.

REPUBLICAN congressman Peter King, whose controversial hearings into radical Islam begin today, has said Muslims shouldn’t feel threatened or intimidated by his inquiry.

The US Congress is to subpoena the White House gatecrashers to reveal how they got into a state dinner without an invitation.

The FBI arrested four men in what US authorities called a plot to detonate a bomb outside a Jewish temple and to shoot military planes with guided missiles.

The Bush administration would require commercial airlines and cruise-line operators to collect information such as fingerprints from international travellers and send the information to the US Homeland Security Department soon after the travellers leave the country, according to a proposed rule.

Airline passengers soon will have their names checked against the US “no-fly” list before flights take off for the US, the homeland security chief said.

THERE was a palpable sense of anger in Long Island’s Irish Centre on Saturday night when Kerry woman Mary Brennan took the stage.

Dubai Ports World today finalised its £4bn purchase of P&O while bowing to US political pressure by agreeing to end its quest to take over operations at US ports.

TWO lawsuits have been filed in a bid to stop the $6.8 billion (€5.7bn) takeover of significant operations at six major US ports by an Arab company.

A United Arab Emirates company has volunteered to postpone its takeover of significant operations at six major US seaports.

A United Arab Emirates company offered today to delay part of its £4 billion takeover of six US ports from a British firm to give the Bush administration more time to convince politicians the deal posed no security risks.

MEMBERS of the US Congress and the Bush administration are at odds over whether security is compromised by an Arab company’s takeover of operations at six major American seaports.