The US government has announced a 1.2 billion US dollar settlement with Toyota and filed a criminal charge alleging the company defrauded consumers by issuing misleading statements about safety issues.

In one of the largest healthcare fraud settlements in US history, Johnson & Johnson will pay $2.2 billion (€1.6bn) to end civil and criminal investigations into kickbacks to pharmacists and the marketing of pharmaceuticals for off-label uses, US attorney general Eric Holder has said.

JP Morgan Chase & Co has reached a $13bn (€9.5bn) deal with the US Justice Department and other government agencies to settle investigations into bad mortgage loans the bank sold to investors before the financial crisis.

Few things would be as surprising as the sight of JPMorgan (JPM) Chase & Co pleading guilty in a criminal case. Yet this could be a real possibility, if we are to believe recent news reports about the bank’s settlement negotiations with the Justice Department.

The US Justice Department is to sue the state of North Carolina for alleged racial discrimination over tough new voting rules.

The United States has made a formal promise to Russia not to torture or execute Edward Snowden if he is sent home to face charges of illegally disclosing government secrets, and the Kremlin said Russian and US security agencies are in talks over his fate.

European leaders have told the US government that the rights of EU citizens subjected to surveillance were “not negotiable”.

The Attorney general of the United States has warned the whistleblower who leaked details on the country’s internet spying tactics that he will be caught.

The former CIA employee who leaked top-secret information about US surveillance programmes said in an interview in Hong Kong he is not attempting to hide from justice but hopes to use the city as a base to reveal wrongdoing.

The Guardian newspaper in London says a 29-year-old American who works as a contractor at the National Security Agency (NSA) is its source of leaks about the US government’s surveillance programmes.

A Guantanamo Bay detainee said he feels abandoned by President Barack Obama and the world after more than 10 years at the US prison.

Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law has pleaded not guilty to plotting against Americans in his role as al Qaida’s leading spokesman as a landmark case trying a terror suspect on US soil moves forward.

Noddy Holder is happy 'Merry Xmas Everybody' is "part of the culture" of Britain.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney issued a sweeping indictment yesterday of President Barack Obama’s conduct of foreign policy, including a charge that the White House sought political gain by leaking classified details of the military raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

THE FBI last night released surveillance tapes, photos and hundreds of pages of documents that shed new light on operation Ghost Stories, the bureau’s investigation of a ring of Russian sleeper agents that ended after more than a decade in the biggest spy swap since the Cold War.

The US has accused Iranian government agents of plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, immediately using the thwarted plot to step up sanctions and recruit international allies in a bid to further isolate Tehran.

AGENTS of the Iranian government were last night accused of being involved in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States, with help from a purported member of a Mexican drug cartel.

US authorities have launched a probe into possible phone hacking of September 11, 2001 victims by News Corp journalists, victims’ relatives have been told, according to a Justice Department official.

The FBI has begun a preliminary inquiry based on concerns in the US Congress over a report that media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp sought to hack into the phones of September 11, 2001 victims, a law enforcement official said.

WATERBOARDING and other harsh interrogation techniques were not a factor in tracking down Osama bin Laden, leading Republican Senator John McCain insisted last night.

PRESIDENT Barack Obama said yesterday he’s decided not to release death photos of terrorist Osama bin Laden because their graphic nature could incite violence and create national security risks for the United States.

THE FBI launched its biggest crackdown ever on the New York area’s infamous La Cosa Nostra organised crime network, in a massive roundup before daybreak yesterday of 127 alleged mafia members and associates.

US authorities charged 14 people, most of them Americans, as participants in “a deadly pipeline” that routed money and fighters from the United States to the militant group al-Shabab in Somalia.

WIKILEAKS’ editor-in-chief claims his organisation doesn’t know who sent it some 91,000 secret US military documents, telling journalists that the website was set up to hide the source of its data from those who receive it.

ALL the children of the 10 Russian spies freed in a dramatic swap with Moscow have been sent to Russia to rejoin their parents, US attorney general Eric Holder said yesterday.

Robot submarines made another risky attempt to control the underwater Gulf oil leak today as the the surface pollution spread, closing in on Florida.

BP was fighting to secure its future today as the US government launched a criminal and civil investigation into the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

US FEDERAL authorities have opened criminal and civil investigations into the BP oil spill disaster.

The Times Square bomb suspect was due to appear in court today as a massive investigation continued across the US.

A suspect has today been taken into custody in connection with the recent failed Times Square car bomb attack.

INVESTIGATORS spoke to the registered owner of an SUV used as a homemade car bomb in a failed terror attack in the heart of Times Square, police officials said, but would not say what they learned.

OSAMA bin Laden threatened in a new message released yesterday to kill any Americans al-Qaida captures if the US executes the self-professed mastermind of the September 11 attacks or other al-Qaida suspects.

Osama bin Laden will never face trial in the United States because he will not be captured alive, the US attorney general told Congress today.

US attorney general Eric Holder is leaving open the possibility of trying professed September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed before a military commission instead of the civilian trial originally planned for New York City.

ATTORNEY General Eric Holder says self-proclaimed September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York for trial in a civilian federal court and he expects to seek the death penalty.

Self-proclaimed September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York for trial in a civilian US court and prosecutors expect to seek the death penalty, Attorney General Eric Holder said today.

Self-proclaimed September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York to face trial in a civilian federal court, an Obama administration official said today.

The US Justice Department has invoked the state secrets privilege in a bid to stop legal action over Bush-era wiretapping.

Seven former CIA directors have asked President Barack Obama to quash a criminal probe of harsh interrogations of terror suspects during the Bush administration.

THE US government has launched a criminal investigation into CIA interrogations as a declassified report revealed threats to kill a suspect’s children and the use of an electric drill to scare another detainee.

The US government has launched a criminal investigation into CIA interrogations as a declassified report revealed threats to kill a suspect’s children and the use of an electric drill to scare another detainee.

President Barack Obama led the US in voicing condemnation over the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi.

US attorney general Eric Holder is considering whether to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's interrogation practices.

US Attorney General Eric Holder said today there may be 50 or more trials of Guantanamo Bay detainees as the Obama administration works to shut the US detention centre by early next year.