Bill Cosby has lost an attempt to have sexual assault charges against him thrown out. In a ruling, the judge who refused to dismiss the case earlier this month denied Cosby’s appeal against that decision.

The former district attorney who declined a decade ago to bring sex-crime charges against Bill Cosby has testified that he believes his decision is binding on his successors and forever closes the door on prosecuting the comedian.

Bill Cosby has been charged with felony sexual assault over an incident in 2004 at his Philadelphia-area mansion, a Pennsylvania prosecutor said yesterday, in the first criminal case involving the comedian after years of mounting accusations.

A Philadelphia man killed his wife with a chainsaw and then turned the machine on himself in a grisly murder-suicide, prosecutors said.

Police hunting a man suspected of going to three houses and shooting dead six people, including his ex-wife and her 14-year-old niece, do not know where he is or how he is getting around, a prosecutor says.

American football player Adrian Peterson has been indicted in Texas on a charge of child abuse after using a branch to discipline his son.

A 7-month-old boy was attacked and killed by a dog in Dayton, Ohio, according to police.

Hillary Clinton has a big political decision to make, a choice that pits political allegiances against family loyalty, and Irish-Americans are in the middle of her dilemma, writes Bette Browne

A Maryland woman charged with killing two of her children has told police officers she thought an exorcism was necessary to remove the presence of the devil and evil spirits.

Lawyers for a nurse accused of fatally shooting a new mother and speeding away with the dying woman’s infant son said she was confused and mumbling in court today, and they plan to review her mental state.

An American woman convicted of killing her one-month-old daughter in a microwave has been spared the death penalty and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

POLICE shot a gunman and safely freed the three people he had taken hostage in an hours-long standoff at the Discovery Channel headquarters outside Washington, police said.

Police tonight shot an armed man who took three hostages at the Discovery Channel network’s headquarters. All of hostages escaped safely.

A landlord secretly videoed 34 women tenants for nearly 20 years after hiding cameras in their flats, a court has heard.

A SUBURBAN Philadelphia landlord placed hidden cameras throughout his apartments and secretly videotaped female tenants for up to 20 years.

AN American mother who burned her baby daughter to death in a microwave was sentenced yesterday to life in prison without the chance for parole.

THE mother of a 14-year-old who authorities say had a cache of guns, knives and explosive devices in his bedroom for a possible school attack was charged yesterday with buying her son three weapons.

Bill Cosby has settled a civil lawsuit filed by a woman who said the entertainer drugged and sexually assaulted her at his home outside Philadelphia.

MUCH of the US capital was forced to shut down yesterday after a weekend of heavy rain left washed-out roads and mudslides, blocking key routes in and out of Washington DC and causing widespread damage.

THE SNIPER who terrorised Washington, DC, John Allen Muhammad, was sentenced yesterday to six consecutive life terms in prison with no possibility of parole, a sentence prosecutors consider insurance in case his Virginia death sentence is ever overturned.

Washington sniper John Muhammad will be sentenced in Maryland today, after being convicted of another six killings.

John Allen Muhammad aggressively questioned his former sniper protégé Lee Boyd Malvo today and kept referring to the young man testifying against him as “son”.

Lee Boyd Malvo testified in Rockville, Maryland, today that his former partner and father figure, John Allen Muhammad, told him before the 2002 sniper attacks that panicked the region around America’s capital for weeks, “We’re going to terrorise this nation".

Prosecutors today began building a forensics case against John Allen Muhammad, as the convicted sniper who is serving as his own attorney in his second trial attempted to demonstrate that little evidence linked him directly to the three-week Washington area sniping spree in October 2002.

John Allen Muhammad, due to be tried in May for six sniper killings in Montgomery County, in 2002, is “psychotic, delusional and paranoid,” and is not competent to stand trial or represent himself, according to a motion filed before a US court.

The father of an 8-year-old who accidentally shot a 7-year-old girl at a suburban Washington day care centre was arrested on gun charges, and police said the boy was in custody.

A gun brought to a day care centre by an eight-year-old boy accidentally went off today, wounding a seven-year-old girl in the arm, police in Germantown, Maryland said.

The home of a former slave in the United States who inspired the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin is to be preserved.

Convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad’s hunger strike appears to have ended, his attorney said.

A judge has allowed prison staff to force-feed convicted sniper John Muhammad while he awaits trial in the county for six killings.

COMEDIAN Bill Cosby is at the centre of a sex scandal following allegations that he drugged and sexually molested a woman.

Two bodies, including that of a stepdaughter of late country music superstar Johnny Cash, were found in a bus parked off a highway, authorities in Tennessee said today.

Authorities have linked yet another shooting to the sniper suspects – the wounding of a Maryland store clerk more than two weeks before a string of attacks began terrorising the Washington area.

SNIPER suspect John Allen Muhammad was indicted yesterday on capital murder and five other charges in two shootings in Virginia.

Sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad was indicted today on capital murder and five other charges in two shootings in Virginia.

The 17-year-old suspect in the Washington sniper murders may have fired the shot that killed an FBI analyst, it emerged today, raising the possibility that the death penalty could be brought against both suspects.

THE two men arrested on suspicion of involvement in the 10 Washington-area sniper slayings this month will be charged with murder and face the death penalty for an earlier killing in Alabama, authorities in the southern state said yesterday.

Police hunting the Washington serial sniper have issued an arrest warrant for a man they believe has useful information.

A BUS driver was the Washington sniper’s thirteenth victim, police said last night as anxious parents took their children back to schools after a chilling warning from the gunman that said “your children are not safe.”

RELUCTANCE and difficulties in sharing information among the growing number of agencies investigating the serial sniper case, along with FBI problems handling thousands of phone tips are slowing and hampering the probe, according to law enforcement officials.

THE Washington serial sniper was feared to have struck again yesterday after a bus driver was shot dead with a single bullet.

POLICE chief Charles Moose, the man leading the hunt for the Washington sniper, has become famous for his passionate press briefings and confrontations with reporters.

US detectives investigating the Washington sniper are attending the scene of a shooting at bus stop on a major road in Maryland.