Two men have been charged with murder after a road-rage crash that killed a five-year-old boy and critically injured his mother and infant sister, authorities said.

Extreme weather made life miserable from one end of the United States to the other, with people forced out of their homes by wildfires and major flooding.

A gunman with an assault rifle got out of a vehicle and shot dead a young child, a teenager and a man in Los Angeles before the car sped away.

The United States does not plan to raise the security threat level because of a new tape of Osama bin Laden on which he says al Qaida is planning attacks.

THE airliner circled Southern California for hours, crippled by a faulty landing gear, while, inside its cabin, 140 horrified passengers watched their own life-and-death drama unfolding on live television.