More than 100 Gardaí are carrying out a "major search and arrest operation" in Dublin's north inner city.

The US Senate has overwhelmingly confirmed James Comey as FBI director, elevating the one-time Justice Department official who defied efforts by George Bush’s White House to renew a warrantless eavesdropping programme.

CHRISTIAN Brothers College found the formula for victory in the second half of this hotly disputed Avonmore Munster Schools Junior Cup tie at Clanwilliam yesterday.

The FBI is investigating more than 500 cases of corporate fraud amid the financial meltdown, it revealed today.

President Barack Obama will begin overhauling US national security policy today with orders to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, review military trials of terror suspects and end harsh interrogations.

THE first black man elected US president is poised to name Washington lawyer Eric Holder as the nation’s first black attorney general — a historic appointment, but one with some potential political problems over a 2001 pardon.

Veteran US Senator Patrick Leahy will be honoured with an award from Irish academics today for his contribution to politics.

Some 20,000 Irish school leavers will able to live and work in the US for a year under a new visa deal expected to be signed today.

The US is changing its policy on cluster bombs and plans to reduce the danger of unexploded munitions in the deadly explosives.

Survivors of cluster bombs will speak out today on whether an international conference to outlaw the weapons will make a difference to affected communities on the ground.

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

Hillary Clinton, who has feasted on adversity in the Democratic presidential primaries, is rejecting calls from some key Barack Obama supporters to drop out of the race for the good of the party.

Hillary Clinton said today she will not end her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination until the last primary votes are counted.

Senior gardaí are travelling to boost morale among colleagues serving in an EU police force in Bosnia-Herzegovina this week, it was revealed today.

Americans in the south and west will get their first chance to have a say on who will be their next President today as the race to the White House is as wide open as ever.

DEMOCRATS criticised the Bush administration yesterday for giving immunity to Blackwater USA bodyguards, calling the move a failure to hold the security contractors responsible for the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians.

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

US President George Bush today invoked executive privilege to deny requests by Congress for testimony from two former aides about the firings of US prosecutors.

A United States Senate panel, following the House of Representatives' lead, has authorised subpoenas for White House political adviser Karl Rove and other top aides involved in the sacking of federal prosecutors.

HALLIBURTON’S decision to move its base from Texas to Dubai has sparked a political firestorm as Senator Hillary Clinton and other top Democrats expressed outrage at the oil services giant.

The FBI improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about people in the United States, a Justice Department audit concluded today.

The Pentagon’s completion of a hefty manual outlining procedures for terror trials has revived debate in Congress on the treatment of military detainees.

FBI agents have documented more than two dozen incidents of possible mistreatment at the Guantanamo Bay military base, including a detainee whose head was wrapped in duct tape for chanting verses from the Koran.

Congress approved a one-month extension of the USA Patriot Act and sent it to President George Bush in a pre-Christmas scramble to prevent many of its anti-terrorism provisions from expiring on December 31.

THE American Senate yesterday rejected attempts to re-authorise several provisions of the USA Patriot Act as infringing too much on Americans’ privacy and liberty, dealing a huge defeat to the Bush administration.

Negotiators from the two chambers of the US Congress reached an agreement today to extend the Patriot Act, the government’s premier anti-terrorism law, before its major provisions expire at the end of the month.

TARA WHELAN should have been going back to her part-time job today.

President George Bush’s administration has misused a federal law to detain at least 70 terrorism suspects since the September 11 attacks, two advocacy groups contend.

A United Nations-appointed team led by Deputy Garda Commissioner Peter Fitzgerald will arrive in Beirut in the next two days to investigate the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern met the Bush administration for talks which included the effect of the Northern Bank robbery on the North's peace process.

The FBI is on the verge of scrapping a €128.4m computer overhaul considered critical to Washington’s war against terrorism, it was revealed today.

Abrakebabra has signed a master franchise agreement with UK-based AKA Group Ltd, that will see up to 200 Abrakebabra outlets open in the UK in the next five years.

Preliminary tests of a white powder discovered in a US Senate office building in Washington were positive for the potentially deadly poison ricin, police said.

Postal workers have begun moving back into Washington’s main mail centre, more than two years after anthrax-laced letters killed two workers.

AMERICA yesterday warned Saddam Hussein it would retaliate with a nuclear attack if Iraq uses weapons of mass destruction.

US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill is furious about corporate "crooks" and expressed doubt that a Senate proposal gave regulators enough power adequately to punish violators.

The investigation by the US Congress into why the FBI did not anticipate the September 11 attacks is entering a new public phase, with Director Robert Mueller facing tough questioning from senators.

Tens of thousands of letters mailed around the US could have picked up trace amounts of anthrax while passing through a contaminated postal centre, the nation’s top anthrax investigator has said.

Anthrax has been posted to a second US senator the FBI have confirmed.