New Jersey (AP):

A private security guard at Newark airport in New Jersey has been arrested on charges of threatening President Barack Obama. Obama was scheduled to land at Newark Liberty International Airport around 4:30 (2030 GMT) last evening. He is campaigning for Govenor Jon Corzine. Port Authority spokesman John Kelly says 55-year-old John Breck allowed police to search his Linden home. He says officers found 43 firearms. An official with knowledge of the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity says someone reported overhearing Breck making threatening comments at an airport coffee cart yesterday morning.

Drug kingpin gets 45-year sentence

MIAMI (AP):

A top Colombian kingpin who shipped billions of dollars worth of cocaine to the United States and ran a private army was sentenced yesterday to 45 years in prison.

Diego Montoya Sanchez, aka 'Don Diego', was once on the FBI's 10 most-wanted list alongside Osama bin Laden. He had a $5-million bounty on his head, but eluded capture for years by paying off military and police leaders. Colombian officials say Montoya is responsible for at least 1,500 killings over a two-decade career.

Terror plot against politicians uncovered

BOSTON (AP):

A pharmacy college graduate conspired with two other men on a terror plot to kill two prominent United States (US) politicians and carry out a holy war by attacking shoppers in US malls and American troops in Iraq, prosecutors disclose yesterday. Tarek Mehanna worked with the men from 2001 to May 2008 on the conspiracy to "kill, kidnap, maim or injure" soldiers and two politicians who were members of the executive branch but are no longer in office, authorities said, refusing to identify the politicians.

Cargo-plane crash

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (AP):

A Sudanese cargo plane crashed shortly after take-off yesterday afternoon from Sharjah airport near Dubai, killing at least six crew members. The Boeing 707 operated by Sudan Airways went down in unpopulated desert about two miles (three kilometres) north of the airport, said Sheik Khalid al-Qassimi, director of the Sharjah Department of Civil Aviation. He said there were no survivors among the six crew members aboard.

Nuclear deal looks promising

VIENNA (AP):

Iranian negotiators yesterday expressed support for a deal that, if accepted by their leaders, would delay Tehran's ability to make nuclear weapons by sending most of its existing enriched uranium to Russia for processing, diplomats said. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohammed ElBaradei said that representatives of Iran and its three interlocutors, the United States, Russia and France, had accepted the draft for forwarding to their capitals. El Baradei said he hoped for approval from all four countries by Friday.

Woman confesses, racist abuse was a lie

WEST VERGINIA (AP):

A black woman whose racially charged allegations of horrific abuse helped put several people in prison now says she lied when she alleged she was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and tortured in a ramshackle West Virginia trailer. West Virginia authorities said in 2007 that Megan Williams, now of Columbus, Ohio, had been stabbed, beaten with sticks, sexually assaulted, doused with hot water, forced to eat animal faeces and taunted with racial slurs by seven white men and women. She later said that hot wax was poured on her and that two of her captors had forced her to drink their urine.