America

    A special zoo response team shot and killed a 17-year-old gorilla Saturday that grabbed and dragged a 4-year-old boy who fell into the gorilla exhibit moat, the Cincinnati Zoo's director said. Authorities said the boy, who fell 10 to 12 feet, is expected to recover after being picked up out of the moat and dragged by the gorilla for about 10 minutes. He was taken to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Zoo officials said he was alert when he was transported there. Director Thane Maynard said the zoo's dangerous animal response team that practices for such incidents decided the boy was in "a life-threatening situation" and that they needed to put down the 400-pound-plus male gorilla named Harambe. "They made a tough choice and they made the right choice because th...

    Former London McDonald's worker 'planned suicide bomb attack at Heathrow Airport after being trained by Al Qaeda leader' Former McDonald's worker Ming Quang Pham, from South London, plotted to set off a suicide bomb packed with metal bolts in the airport's arrivals hall. A UK citizen who 'planned to blow up Heathrow airport' has been jailed for 40 years in the US for supporting Al-Qaeda. Ming Quang Pham, aka Amin, had pleaded guilty to three counts of terrorist related activity. Born in Vietnam, he used to live in New Cross and worked in a London branch of McDonald's - but intended to commit a massacre in his home city. He is believed to have been personally trained by an Al Qaeda leader to carry out a devastating suicide attack and bomb Heathrow Airport , US court papers ...

    The Secret Service has shot an armed man outside the White House, according to US officials. Police told ABC News that a man brandished a weapon at a security checkpoint near the building and was shot in stomach. The White House was briefly placed on lockdown after the shooting on Friday. President Barack Obama was golfing in Maryland at the time. The man was transported to hospital with critical injuries, officials said. Vice-President Joe Biden was in the White House at the time. He was taken to a "secure area" during the incident, White House officials said. The White House has seen a number of security incidents in recent years, prompting changes at the executive complex. In April, Secret Service caught an intruder climbing over the White House fence. In 2014, Iraq War...

    Donald Trump has warned that he may not have a "very good relationship" with David Cameron after the Prime Minister branded his proposal to ban Muslims from the US as "stupid". The presidential hopeful also sniped at new London Mayor Sadiq Khan, calling him "ignorant" for comments he made after being elected and warning him: "I will remember those statements." The presumptive Republican nominee, who is likely to go against Democrat Hillary Clinton in a bid for the White House in November, was speaking to ITV's Good Morning Britain. Mr Trump said: "He doesn't know me, hasn't met me, doesn't know what I'm all about. I think they were very rude statements and frankly tell him I will remember those statements. They are very nasty statements." He added: "When he won I wished h...

    Colombian Police have seized eight tons of cocaine from one of the country's top criminal organisations, the Usuga Clan. The find - the force's largest ever domestic seizure of illegal drugs - was discovered hidden on a banana plantation in Turbo, near the border with Panama. Three suspects were arrested and the same number escaped, police said in a statement. Though the crackdown has been hailed as the biggest drug bust in the country's history, there likely have been slightly larger cocaine seizures at sea. Colombia is the leading producer of coca, the raw material from which cocaine is processed.

    Britain would not be "at the back of the queue" for a new trade deal with America if Britons vote to leave the European Union at the referendum, Donald Trump has said. The Republican candidate for November's US Presidential elections directly contradicted Democratic US President Barack Obama who gave the warning after talks with UK Prime Minister David Cameron. Mr Trump, in an interview with ITV, said: "I don’t want to say front or anything else – I would treat everybody fairly but it would not make any difference to me whether they were in the EU or not. "You would certainly not be at the back of the queue, that I can tell you." Mr Trump confirmed that he would back a Brexit if he had a vote in the referendum on June 23. He said: "I have no preference I have big investmen...

    Donald Trump may find it tough to get Republican leaders behind his campaign, but he's got some faraway fans trying to get the gods on his side. Around a dozen members of a right-wing Indian Hindu group lit a ritual fire and chanted mantras Wednesday asking the Hindu gods to help Trump win the US presidential election. While Trump has dominated the Republican primary race to decide the party's candidate for the November election, his calls for temporarily banning Muslims from America and cracking down on extremist groups abroad have earned him some fans in India. "The whole world is screaming against Islamic terrorism, and even India is not safe from it," said Vishnu Gupta, founder of the Hindu Sena nationalist group. "Only Donald Trump can save humanity." Members of the g...

    The world's oldest living person, 116-year-old Susannah Mushatt Jones, died last night in New York City, a research group said. Jones' death makes Emma Morano-Martinuzzi, a 116-year-old woman in Italy, the oldest living person, according to the Gerontology Research Group. Jones, who was born in the southern US state of Alabama in 1899, was the daughter of sharecroppers and granddaughter of slaves. After graduating from high school she moved north in 1922 to New Jersey and then New York, where she worked as a housekeeper and childcare provider, according to Guinness World Records and the Vandalia Senior Center in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, where she lived. Jones, who retired in 1965, had said that lots of sleep is the secret to her longevity and that she had nev...

    The two are effectively tied in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to a poll conducted by Quinnipiac University, in figures that will provide a boost to Mr Trump’s maverick campaign. Previous nationwide polls have shown him trailing Mrs Clinton, often by significant margins. "Six months from election day, the presidential races between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the three most crucial states, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, are too close to call," said Peter A. Brown, the Quinnipiac Poll's assistant director. "At this juncture, Trump is doing better in Pennsylvania than the GOP nominees in 2008 and 2012. And the two candidates are about where their party predecessors were at this point in Ohio and Florida." The most encouraging sign for the presumptive Repu...

    Presidential hopeful Donald Trump has said the newly elected mayor of London would be an "exception" to his proposed ban on Muslims travelling to the US. Because of his faith, Sadiq Khan had expressed concern that he would not be able to visit the US if Mr Trump were elected. Mr Trump proposed a ban on Muslims entering the US after attacks in Paris killed 130 people last year. "There will always be exceptions," the Republican businessman said. The temporary ban has been widely criticised in the US and abroad but Mr Trump has stood by the proposal, saying it is needed to ensure US security. Mr Trump said he was "happy" that Mr Khan would be leading London. "If he does a good job and frankly if he does a great job, that would be a terrific thing," he added. Mr Khan - the son...