SHONA Pitman grew up in a rough patch of a $2 trillion dollar island. Reared in Nicholson Park, a neighbourhood in Jersey once so dangerous the school buses took the long way round it, she was acutely aware she did not belong to the island’s elite.

The famous, weather-predicting groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, has found himself on the wrong side of the law.

A man is presumed dead after a sinkhole opened up under his bedroom in the US state of Florida and "swallowed" him.

A school shooting in the US state of Connecticut has ended with the gunman dead and at least one teacher wounded, while frightened students fled outdoors.

Thousands of mourners are expected to gather today to pay their final respects to the six worshippers gunned down by a white supremacist at their Sikh temple over the weekend in the central US state of Wisconsin.

The explanation for a shooting rampage that terrorised a black neighbourhood in the US state of Oklahoma and left three people dead may lie in a killing that took place more than two years ago, it has been revealed.

MEXICAN authorities yesterday began identifying 72 suspected migrants believed murdered for refusing to become hitmen for a drug cartel.

A large cargo-type plane crashed in the US state of Alaska and burst into a deadly fireball that sparked a forest fire at Denali National Park, officials said.

AT LEAST five people died in a power plant explosion in the US state of Connecticut yesterday.

The FTSE 100 Index was in the red today as possible Chinese lending curbs weighed on sentiment ahead of the latest round of US banking results.

FREYA VON MOLTKE, a prominent member of Germany’s anti-Nazi resistance in the Second World War, has died at the age of 98.

Freya von Moltke, a prominent member of the anti-Nazi resistance in the Second World War, has died at the age of 98, her son said.

Mountaineering legend and Mount Everest conqueror Edmund Hillary was discharged from a New Zealand hospital today, nearly a week after he was admitted following a reported fall.

Prime Minister John Howard scored a convincing victory in Australia’s federal election, winning a historic fourth term in a vote that will ensure the country keeps its troops in Iraq for the foreseeable future.

British hostage Kenneth Bigley’s life was tonight in the blood-stained hands of a terrorist who has severed the heads of two other captives.

The wife and brother of an Algerian pilot who was once accused of training some of the September 11, 2001, hijackers launched legal action to sue British police today.

Ireland’s Padraig Harrington is among the field at the Bell South Classic, which tees off in the US state of Georgia later today.

The US state of Oklahoma has executed its first person this year.