Nigeria’s home-grown Boko Haram group, newly weakened by a multinational force that has dislodged it from a score of north-eastern towns, has reportedly pledged formal allegiance to the Islamic State group.

Here are our tips for the best of tonight's telly.

Three suspects were being questioned yesterday about the shootings of two New York City police officers responding to a grocery store robbery.

New York mayor Bill de Blasio said it was “disrespectful” for some city police officers to turn their backs to him during two funerals for dead police officers.

Thousands of New York city police officers again turned their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio as he spoke at the funeral for an officer shot dead with his partner.

As the New York Police Department mourns two of its own, Mayor Bill de Blasio pleaded for a pause in protests amid a widening rift with those in a grieving force who accuse him of creating a climate of mistrust that contributed to the killings of two officers.

Australian media has named the hostage-taker in Sydney as Man Haron Monis.

Five hostages have fled a siege in a Sydney city centre cafe but more are still being held inside by an armed offender.

Thousands of people carrying small amounts of marijuana in New York City may no longer be arrested or face criminal charges, officials have said, marking a significant shift in how the nation’s biggest city approaches policing pot.

Detectives say they have solved the decades-old mystery of “Baby Hope” a little girl whose naked body was discovered inside a picnic cooler beside a Manhattan highway in 1991.

A young woman photojournalist has been gang raped while her male colleague was tied up and beaten in India’s business hub of Mumbai, police said.

Police in the UK are examining new information which alleges that Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed were murdered by a member of the British military.

The deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed are being looked at again by police after they received information.

The 19-year-old college student wanted over the Boston Marathon bombings is seriously ill in hospital and unable to be questioned after a manhunt that left the city virtually paralysed and his older brother and accomplice dead.

The suspect being hunted in the Boston Marathon bombing is in a boat stored in a Watertown neighbourhood, a law enforcement official says.

Coastal residents of New York and New Jersey faced fresh warnings to evacuate their homes today as a new storm took aim, a week after Superstorm Sandy left dozens dead and millions without power.

A Bangladeshi man has appeared in federal court in the US to face charges of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material support to al-Qaida.

South Africa’s police directorate of complaints has opened 34 murder dockets in the police killings of 34 striking mine workers and also is investigating complaints that more than 150 arrested miners have been beaten in police custody, the directorate spokesman said today.

A recently laid-off shop worker has shot dead a former colleague outside New York's iconic Empire State Building before being killed by police.

In the UK, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has said the failure to find Tia Sharp's body more quickly was not down to an individual officer.

US police have begun the intricate process of disarming booby traps in the apartment of the suspect behind the Colorado cinema shootings, hoping to find clues to the motive for the rampage without causing an explosion that could destroy key evidence.

Investigators looking for clues to the motive behind a shooting rampage at a screening of the new Batman movie sought to enter the suspect's elaborately booby-trapped apartment today.

Scores of people are feared drowned after a boat believed to be carrying about 200 asylum seekers capsized south of Indonesia.

An apparent explosion ripped through a building full of small shops in the downtown area of Kenyan capital Nairobi today, wounding an unknown number of people.

A bus driver killed nine people today by driving through the crowded streets of an Indian city for an hour.

NEW York police have arrested a 27-year-old man they called a “lone wolf” militant on charges of plotting to build bombs to kill American soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

A US citizen and al-Qaida sympathiser accused of plotting to bomb police and post offices in New York remained in custody today on terrorism-related charges.

An “al-Qaida sympathiser” accused of plotting to bomb police and post offices in New York City as well as US troops returning home has been arrested on numerous terrorism-related charges.

Christopher Nolan won't give out scripts for the final 'Dark Knight Rises' scenes.

A scandal that threatened to bring down the Australian government eased today when police announced they would not charge a politician accused of misusing an official credit card to pay prostitutes.

An Australian MP has been accused of using an official credit card to pay for prostitutes, sparking a political scandal that could bring down the government.

A man suspected of killing an eight-year-old boy has told investigators that he suffocated him before dismembering his body.

Kenyan Olympic marathon champion Sammy Wanjiru died in a fall from a balcony after a domestic dispute involving his wife and another woman, police said today.

A cyclone struck a glancing blow on Australia’s main northern city today, two weeks after a much stronger storm devastated another part of the weather-weary country.

Parts of Australia’s third-largest city reopened today as deadly floodwaters that had swamped entire neighbourhoods receded, revealing streets and thousands of homes covered in a thick layer of putrid sludge.

THE police chief in Mauritius yesterday revealed they only had “circumstantial evidence” linking three local men with the murder of Michaela Harte.

THE police chief in Mauritius yesterday revealed they only had “circumstantial evidence” linking three local men with the murder of Michaela Harte.

Mauritius Police Commissioner Dhun Rampersad has revealed that the evidence against the three suspect in the Michaela McAreavey murder case is circumstantial.

Rescuers raced today to reach people trapped on roofs after a flash flood hurled a tsunami-like wall of water through Australia’s waterlogged east, tossing cars like toys, killing at least eight people and leaving 72 missing.

A WOMAN drowned after trying to cross a flooded causeway in Australia, becoming the first victim of relentless flooding that one official has described as reaching “biblical proportions,” police said yesterday.

A man who became distraught as he was being briefed on his mother’s condition by a surgeon at Baltimore Hospital pulled a gun and shot and wounded the doctor, then killed his mother and himself in her room.

Jamaica’s top police officer appealed for calm today after an alleged drugs baron was arrested.

A PLAN to build a mosque near the site of New York’s September 11 attacks has won vital backing from the city.

A plan to build a mosque near the site of New York’s 9/11 attacks has won vital backing from the city.