WASHINGTON is bracing itself for an onslaught today as the city’s population begins to swell in anticipation of tomorrow’s inauguration of Barack Obama as America’s first black president.

Shannon Airport has received a major boost today with the news that it will become the first European airport to have pre-clearance for the US.

Some of the two million residents who fled New Orleans and Louisiana to escape Hurricane Gustav were returning to their homes today.

Mayor Ray Nagin gave New Orleans residents the go-ahead to return to the US city today, but with several warnings – many homes were without electricity or working toilets and a dusk-to-dawn curfew is still in effect.

AS Hurricane Gustav threatened the Gulf Coast, US President George W Bush was out to show the nation that his government had learned the haunting lessons of Katrina and was ready to act.

Hurricane Gustav is expected to make landfall on the US Gulf coast today, three years after Katrina devastated New Orleans.

US President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will skip the Republican National Convention because of mounting concerns about Hurricane Gustav, the White House said today.

IRISH people travelling to the US are to face tighter restrictions by having to register their personal details online in advance of their trip.

THERE is a contrast between Europe and America but not a contradiction, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern told the joint houses of Congress yesterday.

The monster storm that has hit California with fierce winds and heavy rain dropped a thick blanket of snow on the Sierra Nevada mountains today and kept thousands of people from their homes in mudslide-prone areas.

Thousands of Americans have barricaded their homes against a powerful storm which has led to flights being ground, road closures and power cuts.

I’VE asked this before and I’ll ask it again: why isn’t New York representative Peter King heading up the office of Homeland Security?

HOT, dry Santa Ana winds have fanned the blazes which have ravaged southern California this week.

Weary Californians were today praying changing weather would bring respite from four days of fires that have spread chaos and destruction.

Celebrities like Mel Gibson, Kelsey Grammer and Victoria Principal have been forced to flee their homes in Southern California driven out by unstoppable brush fires that are devastating the region.

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

Alberto Gonzales, the first Hispanic attorney general in the US, announced his resignation today, driven from office after a wrenching stand-off with congressional critics over his honesty and competence.

THE US government proposed a third version of its airline passenger pre-screening programme yesterday, stripped of controversial data that had aroused privacy concerns and blocked earlier versions.

A flight from Los Angeles to London was diverted to New York today because of what officials said may have been unfounded fears of a security breach.

A secret report by US intelligence experts says al-Qaida has rebuilt its operating capability to a level not seen since just before the September 11 terrorist attacks, it is reported.

US LAW enforcement officials received intelligence reports two weeks ago which warned of a possible terror attack in Glasgow against “airport infrastructure or aircraft”, according to reports.

US airports and public transport systems are tightening security today following the terrorist incidents in Britain.

THE US Government is urging Americans to be vigilant about suspicious activity after British police defused a bomb in London’s West End, but officials said they saw no potential terrorist threat in the United States ahead of next week’s Fourth of July holiday.

US authorities are in “close contact” with their UK counterparts over the car bombs discovered in London, the US Department of Homeland Security said today.

EU and US negotiators struck a deal on sharing information about transatlantic flight passengers.

The Bush administration is nearing a decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba and move terror suspects from there to military prisons on US soil, it emerged last night..

US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he wants to tighten travel rules for Europeans entering the US without visas, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported today.

EVERYBODY travelling to the United States will have to send their details two days in advance for clearance, Michael Chertoff, US Secretary for Homeland Security, told parliamentarians in Brussels.

Black US presidential hopeful Barack Obama has been given Secret Service protection amid fears for his safety, a senior law enforcement source said today.

HOMELAND Security Secretary Michael Chertoff yesterday said the world is facing a critical test as it seeks to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists, and that there will be no way “to put that genie back in the bottle” if it fails.

European Union and US negotiators have reached a deal on the sharing of trans-Atlantic air passenger data used in anti-terror investigations, diplomats said in Luxembourg today.

THE European Union hopes to reach an agreement with the United States next Friday on a new pact on sharing of airline passenger data, the European Commission said yesterday.

The European Union and the US have failed to reach a deal on air passenger data, putting airlines at risk of huge fines or loss of landing rights.

Top European Union officials today said, on the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks, that the 25-nation bloc was more determined than ever to fight terrorism, and that closer co-operation was key to thwarting new attacks.

Michael Brown, who lost his job as director of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) because of Hurricane Katrina, today said his biggest regret a year later was that he was not candid enough about the lack of a coherent federal response plan.

Airline passengers soon will have their names checked against the US “no-fly” list before flights take off for the US, the homeland security chief said.

US government investigators are continuing today to pursue leads related to the alleged foiled plot to blow up flights from Britain.

THE alleged scheme to blow up passenger jets in mid-air was very close to execution and was “in some respects suggestive of an al-Qaida plot”, US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday.

An alleged scheme to blow up transatlantic passenger jets in mid-air using liquid explosives was in the final stages of planning and bore some of the hallmarks of an al-Qaida plot, US officials said today.

Passengers arriving into the United States from the UK will undergo rigorous inspections after security was heightened in response to the alleged plot to blow up transatlantic flights.

A Congressman has hit back at former US disaster agency chief Michael Brown in an astonishing war of words after being described as “that little twerp”.

US President George Bush has hailed the killing of “the most-wanted terrorist in Iraq” but said it would not stop the violence there or bring a speedy withdrawal of US troops.

The US' Homeland Security Department has made the nation only marginally safer than before the 2001 terror attacks that created it, the agency’s former internal watchdog claims in a new book.

HURRICANE Katrina turned the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) into a “symbol of a bumbling bureaucracy” so far beyond repair it should be scrapped, senators said yesterday.