A Harvard-educated biologist who went on a shooting rampage during at an Alabama university, killing three colleagues and wounding three others, was jailed for life without parole.

A Texas man convicted of killing a police informant has been executed after the US Supreme Court rejected arguments that he was too mentally impaired to qualify for the death penalty.

Powerful storms stretching from the US Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes in the north wrecked two small towns and killed at least 28 people as the system tore roofs off schools and homes and damaged a maximum-security prison. It was the second deadly tornado outbreak this week.

Violent weather including possible tornadoes roared across the US state of Alabama today, injuring dozens of people and killing at least two.

At least 85 people have died as storms devastated parts of the southern US.

US President Barack Obama declared an emergency today after a wave of tornado-spawning storms tore through the South, splintering buildings and killing more than 70 people in four states.

THE United States was yesterday to push Europe to focus on encouraging economic growth rather than slashing budgets as world leaders gathered for G8 and G20 summit talks.

MORE than 23 years before a college professor was accused of shooting six of her colleagues, her teenage brother died from the blast of a shotgun she held in the kitchen of her family’s home in Massachusetts.

A biology professor at a southern US university has been charged with murder over the shooting deaths of three fellow biology professors at the campus.

Fergal Rafferty helped his Sam Houston State University team to a second victory of the season as he secured an 11th-placed finish at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock First Tee Collegiate tournament.

From the ground the Wesley Acres Methodist retirement home in Alabama looks like any other building. But from the air the outline is unmistakable: It is one big swastika.

A prisoner in Texas committed suicide this morning in his death-row cell, less than 18 hours before he was scheduled to be executed, a prison official said.

The scheduled execution of a two-time killer has been put on hold while an appeals court considers his petition that death by injection is unconstitutionally cruel.

Hurricane Rita strengthened to a dangerous Category 3 storm early today, sparing the Florida Keys but prompting mandatory orders to once again evacuate New Orleans as well as the Texas city of Galveston.

An apologetic James Allridge, whose case attracted the attention of celebrity capital punishment opponents, has been executed for killing a Fort Worth, Texas, convenience store clerk 19 years ago.

A mentally ill killer was executed in Texas after the state governor Rick Perry rejected a parole board’s highly unusual recommendation to commute his death sentence or delay the execution.

A “very unstable” man opened fire today during an argument at an Alabama employment agency, killing four people and wounding a fifth.

A British man who had spent 16 years on death row has been executed after the US Supreme Court rejected a last-minute appeal to spare his life.