Sony Pictures Entertainment has told US cinemas they can cancel plans to show The Interview, hours after hackers invoking the memory of the September 11 2001 terror attacks issued ominous threats against film-goers and patrons of the comedy.

Police have opened an investigation into a woman’s claims that comedian Bill Cosby molested her when she was 15.

Los Angeles

Authorities and celebrities were grappling today with how to respond to a website that posted what appears to be private financial information about top US government figures and stars such as Jay-Z and Mel Gibson.

Sheriff’s deputies who believed they had cornered a fugitive ex-cop in the mountains above Los Angeles did not purposely torch a cabin where a nine-day manhunt ended, but the deputies may have ignited the blaze by firing tear gas, officials said.

A man police believe to be the fugitive ex-Los Angeles officer wanted for three killings was barricaded inside a burning cabin today after a shootout in a California mountain town that left one deputy dead and another wounded.

A fugitive ex-Los Angeles police officer wanted for three killings is barricaded in a cabin in the Southern California mountains, authorities said today.

A $1m (€748,000) reward has been offered by US authorities for information leading to the arrest of the former Los Angeles police officer suspected in three killings currently being sought in Southern California’s snow-covered mountains.

Thousands of police officers throughout Southern California and neighbouring states were last night hunting for a disgruntled former Los Angeles officer, wanted for a deadly shooting rampage that he warned in an online posting would target those on the force who wronged him.

A man suspected of carrying out dozens of New Year arson attacks across America’s second-largest city that destroyed parked cars and scorched buildings was in custody today.

The skeletons of two human foetuses have been found wrapped in 1930s newspaper in a trunk in the basement of a Los Angeles building.

A STRING of murders of young black women had south Los Angeles on edge in the mid-1980s, then the killings suddenly stopped, only to resume again 14 years later.

The Jackson family were understood to have requested a second independent post-mortem examination on Michael Jackson’s body, a coroner's officer said tonight.

Further tests will be needed to determine whether prescription drugs played any role in Michael Jackson’s death, coroner’s officials said today.

The parents of a woman murdered 23 years ago demanded today as to why it took so long for Los Angeles police to focus on one of their top detectives as a suspect.

POLICE believe a 72-year-old insurance claims adjuster arrested last month is the most prolific serial killer in the city’s history, having raped and strangled as many as 30 older women over two decades.

A pregnant woman who had just returned from her grandfather's funeral was killed when another woman deliberately rammed her car into a crowd during a street brawl, US authorities said.

A four-year-old boy died from burns in Los Angeles after his father allegedly doused his mother in a flammable liquid and set her on fire.