Controversial US attorney general Alberto Gonzales has announced he will resign his position as the United States’ top law enforcement official.

A federal judge in Washington DC today refused to dismiss charges against Lewis Libby, the former top White House aide who was indicted on perjury and obstruction charges last year in the CIA leak scandal.

The US Supreme Court upheld Oregon’s one-of-a-kind physician-assisted suicide law today, rejecting a Bush administration attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die.

Private conversations with George W. Bush secretly taped by an old friend before he was elected president show some of his political strategies and appear to reveal that he acknowledged using marijuana, The New York Times reported yesterday.

US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice will be nominated to succeed outgoing secretary of state Colin Powell, it emerged today.

President George Bush today proposed the first ever Hispanic Attorney General, nominating his long-time confidante Alberto Gonzales to replace John Ashcroft.

US President George Bush arrives at work today knowing he needs to find a new Attorney General after John Ashcroft announced his resignation.

Attorney general John Ashcroft and commerce secretary Don Evans resigned today.

A CIA contractor, charged with fatally assaulting an Afghan prisoner, was fired from a police force after an assault 14 years ago and a series of run-ins with wives and neighbours, authorities and acquaintances said yesterday.

President George Bush, struggling to control a growing crisis, apologised for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers and called it “a stain on our country’s honour”.

THE FBI failed miserably over several years to reorganise and respond to a steadily growing threat of terrorism, the commission investigating the September 11 attacks said yesterday.

The FBI failed miserably over several years to reorganise and respond to a steadily growing threat of terrorism, the commission investigating the September 11 attacks said today.

A US appeals court is hearing arguments today on whether the US government should be barred from seeking the death penalty for accused September 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui because it refused a judge’s order to produce al-Qaida defence witnesses.

A US jury recommended yesterday that John Allen Muhammad should be executed for masterminding the deadly sniper attacks that terrorised the Washington area for three weeks last autumn.

Turkish investigators arrested an undisclosed number of suspects in Istanbul today in the deadly suicide bombings on the British consulate and a London-based bank in which 27 people died and more than 450 were injured.

Rescue workers and investigators were today sifting through the wreckage of the British consulate and a London-based bank blasted by suspected al-Qaida suicide bombers who killed at least 27 people in Istanbul.

US ATTORNEY GENERAL John Ashcroft told Congress yesterdaty that a major arrest over the weekend “is a severe blow to al-Qaida that could destabilise their terrorist network worldwide.”

Amy Westfeldt, New York

THE Bush administration yesterday raised the national terror alert from yellow to orange, the second-highest level in the colour-coded system.

The FBI has warned that al-Qaida is likely to attempt a “spectacular” attack intended to inflict large-scale casualties and damage the US economy.

LOOKING unshaven and unkempt, Washington sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad made his first appearance in a Virginia state court yesterday, a state second only to Texas in executions of adults and juveniles.

The FBI arrested six men today on charges they conspired to wage war on the United States and provide support to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network.

THE Briton who set out to kill 197 people

When the FBI came knocking on his door, Malek Zeidan wasn’t worried.

John Walker Lindh, the young convert to Islam who left California to fight alongside the Taliban, has pleaded guilty to two charges in a surprise deal that spares him life in prison and ensures his co-operation with US terrorism investigators.

JOHN WALKER LINDH, the American Taliban captured in Afghanistan, escaped life imprisonment yesterday after his lawyers reached a surprise deal with prosecutors.

The US Attorney General today said the American arrested on suspicion of plotting to detonate a ‘dirty’ radiological bomb in the US was a key al-Qaida operative who has ‘‘very significant information’’ about the terror network.

The FBI has announced its most dramatic overhaul in decades.

Police in the United States have arrested almost 100 workers at airports serving Washington DC as part of a continuing security crackdown started after the September 11 attacks.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, has said the information that terrorists were considering attacks against banks in north eastern United States was the result of information the intelligence community received from interviews with captured al Qaida suspects from Afghanistan.

Four people, including one in custody in Britain, were indicted in the US today on charges they provided material support and resources to the Egyptian-based terrorist organisation known as the Islamic Group.

Four men accused of kidnapping and killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl today challenged the Pakistani’s Government’s decision to try them behind prison walls, saying a closed trial violates Pakistani law.

John Walker Lindh's trial will likely start in late August, raising the odds the former Taliban soldier will be in court on the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

American Taliban suspect John Walker Lindh has been ordered to be held in custody pending trial on charges of conspiring to kill countrymen.

A grand jury in the United States has indicted an American captured in Afghanistan on 10 charges, including conspiring to kill US citizens and conspiring to support terrorism.

Winter olympic bosses were today working on last-minute changes to security after the US attorney general raised concerns about safety.

The young Muslim convert accused of joining al-Qaida soldiers in Afghanistan has returned to the US under FBI custody.

Pressure was today growing on US President George W Bush as he faces his first political scandal following the biggest corporate bankruptcy in history.

British shoe bomb suspect Richard Reid is almost certain to face the death penalty on charges of trying to blow up an airliner.

Zacarias Moussaoui, the first person accused of being an accomplice in the September 11 terrorist attacks, will today plead not guilty to conspiring to kill and maim thousands of victims.

Zacarias Moussaoui, the first person to be indicted on charges directly relating to the September 11 terror attacks in New York and Washington, picked up Islamic extremism in Britain, his brother said.

The American captured with Taliban fighters is being held by Marines in Afghanistan and will be handed over to US civilian authorities as soon as possible, the Pentagon has said.

The US government is detaining 603 people in its terrorism investigation, including some alleged members of Osama bin Laden's network.

The investigation into the mystery death of a 94-year-old American woman from anthrax was being stepped up today.