New York police searched trucks, blocked streets and posted machine-gun carrying officers outside financial landmarks a day after the government’s warning that terrorists might target the buildings with bombs.

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.

Two women carrying a toy gun which was part of a Halloween costume sparked a major alert on Washington’s Capitol Hill tonight.

The heads of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have agreed to scale back their annual meeting in Washington because of fears over anti-capitalist protests.

Washington police have decided that Congressman Gary Condit ‘‘is not the central figure’’ in the investigation of intern Chandra Levy’s disappearance.

Washington police have begun a search of a US Congressman's apartment for clues in the disappearance of missing intern Chandra Levy.