A powerful winter storm roared across America’s upper Midwest with high winds and mounds of snow closing roads in several states and grounding more than 1,400 flights in Chicago.

The mayor of Michael Jackson’s home town, Gary, Indiana, said his cash-strapped city paid $5,000 (€3,498) to fly Michael Jackson’s father and seven other people out from Los Angeles to attend a July memorial for his son.

A United Airlines plane on is way to Chicago from London made an emergency landing in Iceland after smoke was seen coming out of the cockpit, authorities said today.

A deadly winter storm that caked America’s centre with a thick layer of ice claimed at least 17 lives and blacked out more than 600,000 homes and businesses.

A man told a court that he learned about weapons and explosives and prepared for holy war at an al Qaida training camp allegedly attended by terror suspect Jose Padilla.

A member of an unrelated terrorist group testified today he learned about weapons and explosives and prepared for jihad at an al-Qaida training camp which prosecutors say alleged terrorist Jose Padilla also attended.

US prosecutors and lawyers for alleged al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla and two co-defendants were poised to start opening statements today in a trial expected to last well into August.

United States and Argentine authorities were investigating how a stick of dynamite in a college student’s checked luggage ended up on a Houston-bound flight, one of seven security incidents that disrupted US flights in a day.

A section of Chicago’s transit system was shut down after a derailment and fire forced commuters to evacuate a smoke-filled subway line.

Three security workers who allowed a man carrying knives, a stun gun and tear gas through a checkpoint at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago have been sacked, the private company that employed them said.