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.

FBI agents zeroed in on how the Boston Marathon bombing was carried out – with kitchen pressure cookers packed with explosives, nails and other lethal shrapnel - but said they still did not know who did it and why.

US authorities are to maintain “enhanced security” at transport hubs as the nation struggles to make sense of the bomb attack on the Boston Marathon.

Police are reported to be searching a flat in a Boston suburb as part of the investigation into the explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

Barack Obama warned that looming automatic spending cuts were already affecting America’s economy and the nation’s homeland security chief said borders would be less secure if billions of dollars were yanked from the budget on Friday.

The New York City Marathon was last night cancelled by Mayor Michael Bloomberg after mounting criticism that this was not the time for a race while the region is still recovering from Superstorm Sandy.

Several groups of American Secret Service employees visited clubs, bars and brothels in Colombia and engaged in "morally repugnant" behaviour before a visit by President Barack Obama, a US senator has alleged.

Millions of dollars in White House money has helped pay for New York Police Department programmes that put entire American Muslim neighbourhoods under surveillance.

Illegal immigration has been incessantly discussed during the US Republican race. However, hardly any of the discourse has focused on the fact that it’s not that big a problem, writes Edward Alden

IRENE charged into New England yesterday as it weakened to a tropical storm after racing across New York city leaving the East Coast stunned, with at least 16 dead, widespread flooding and power outages for four million homes and businesses.

Officials in the US say 72 people from 14 countries have been apprehended for their involvement in a child pornography network.

Insurgents killed two members of Nato’s mission to Afghanistan in the south of the country today, the multinational force said.

PRESIDENT Barack Obama led a national outpouring of grief, while calling for unity at an emotional memorial after a shooting that unleashed fierce debate about inflammatory political rhetoric.

Transport Minister Noel Dempsey has welcomed new "pre-clearance" facilities for passengers travelling to the US from Dublin Airport.

The use of full-body scanners and invasive pat-downs at airports around the US will not change for the "foreseeable future," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in an interview broadcast today.

Saudi intelligence services have warned of a new al-Qaida terror threat against Europe, particularly in France, the French government said.

BP engineers finally succeeded in keeping some of the oil gushing from a blown well out of the Gulf of Mexico, hooking up a mile-long tube to funnel it into a tanker after more than three weeks of failures.

BP said it was confident its latest experiment using a mile-long pipe would capture much of the oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, even as the company admitted yet another setback in the environmental disaster.

The US government has ordered airlines to check updated no-fly lists within two hours of being notified of changes in the wake of the failed Times Square bomb attack.

The no-fly list failed to keep the Times Square suspect off the plane, it has emerged.

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.

Investigators have spoken to the registered owner of a vehicle used as a homemade car bomb in a failed attack in New York, US police officials said today.

Barack Obama warned of a “massive and potentially unprecedented environmental disaster” as a wrecked BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico spewed a widening and deadly slick towards delicate wetlands and wildlife.

POLICE found an “amateurish” but potentially powerful bomb that apparently began to detonate but did not explode in a smoking sport utility vehicle in Times Square, authorities said yesterday.

BP’s chairman defended his company’s safety record today, and said “a failed piece of equipment” was to blame for a massive oil spill along the Gulf Coast of America.

The US homeland security chief has said there was no evidence that a car bomb planted in the middle of Times Square was more than a one-off event.

A MASSIVE oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that has become far worse than initially thought crept toward the coast yesterday as US government officials offered help from the military to prevent a disaster that could destroy fragile marshlands along the shore.

US homeland security secretary Janet Napolitano won the backing of the world’s airlines for the Obama administration’s goal of tougher security to keep terrorists off planes.

UN-led teams in Haiti yesterday switched their focus away from searching for people trapped in collapsed buildings to providing aid to hundreds of thousands of increasingly desperate survivors.

JUSTICE MINISTER Dermot Ahern said he was in favour of introducing body scanners at Irish airports in the wake of the attempted bombing of a US-bound aircraft on Christmas Day.

America's intelligence chief made a blunder of his own after he admitted top-level errors over the handling of the Christmas Day plane bomb attempt.

US intelligence agencies did not miss a “smoking gun” that could have prevented an alleged attempt to blow up a US airliner on Christmas Day, President Barack Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser said today.

THE Nigerian man accused of trying to bring down a US airliner cut off contact with his relatives and vanished from their lives until they awoke to news of the attempted Christmas Day attack, his family said yesterday.

US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano conceded today that the aviation security system failed when a man on a watchlist with a powerful explosive hidden on his body was allowed to board a fight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

Blocked toilets, crying babies and airless cabins make air travellers furious – and the US government says they don’t have to take it any more.

Families carrying photos of lost loved ones streamed into a plaza near “ground zero” in New York today to observe the eighth anniversary of the World Trade Centre attack, wiping tears and raindrops from their faces under dreary skies.

A Belfast man who escaped from the top-security Maze Prison in the North 26 years ago is expected to be deported from the US to the Republic later this week.

A deal has been agreed to allow air passengers travelling from Shannon to the US to pass through all the necessary security inspections in this country.

President Barack Obama ordered a review of how the US keeps and classifies its secrets and told his administration chiefs to lean towards disclosure whenever possible.

World health officials today raced to extinguish a new flu strain that has already spread to five countries and is jumping borders.

US President Barack Obama responded to the first domestic emergency of his presidency by reassuring Americans it was “not a cause for alarm,” even as his government began urgent steps to respond to the small-but-rising number of cases.