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Two British friends shot dead on a crime-ridden American housing estate were ambushed and murdered, possibly as part of a gang initiation. James Cooper, 25, and James Kouzaris, 24, were in Florida when they were killed at 3am in a gangland area rarely visited by tourists. They apparently accepted a lift from someone they met in a bar, thinking they were being driven home. A 16 year-old, named locally as Shawn Tyson, was charged with their murder. It emerged yesterday that he was freed by a judge last week despite being arrested over an armed robbery. The bodies of Mr...

Police investigating the murder of two British tourists in Florida believe they were ordered at gunpoint into a run-down housing estate where they were robbed before being shot dead. They are working on a theory that James Cooper and James Kouzaris were confronted by the alleged gunman Shawn Tyson as they tried to find an all-night restaurant. The 16 year-old is thought to have frogmarched the pair away from a well lit road and into the series of one way streets that make up the “no go” area of the Courts housing project in the Newtown, north Sarasota. [SNIP] Tyson...

CANCUN, Mexico – A lifeguard in the Mexican resort of Cancun says a tourist has been attacked by a shark after ignoring warnings to stay out of the water. It was the second shark attack in the hotel zone of Cancun in less than two months

MEXICO CITY – Joseph Proctor told his girlfriend he was popping out to the convenience store in the quiet Mexican beach town where the couple had just moved, intending to start a new life. The next morning, the 32-year-old New York native was dead inside his crashed van on a road outside Acapulco. He had multiple bullet wounds. An AR-15 rifle lay in his hands. His distraught girlfriend, Liliana Gil Vargas, was summoned to police headquarters, where she was told Proctor had died in a gunbattle with an army patrol. They claimed Proctor — whose green van had a for-sale...

The Obama administration will issue a warning Saturday to U.S. travelers in Europe to avoid places frequented by Westerners after new intelligence suggested an attack by Al Qaeda could be imminent, a senior U.S. intelligence official told Fox News. The travel warning is expected to be announced at 4 p.m., pending Secretary Hillary Clinton's approval, the official said. The move is expected to have significant implications for European tourism. The travel warning will advise Americans to stay away from European tourist sites, transportation hubs and other facilities because of fresh threat information, U.S. officials said. A European official briefed on...

THE release of a notorious killer who shot dead a German tourist and then savagely attacked his family has been criticised by MSPs as another example of "soft-touch Scotland". James Boyce, 70, is to be freed after serving 17 years for killing Thomas Boedeker, even after being told that he would be locked up for at least 20. The brutal murder and Boyce's savage attack on the victim's family stunned the quiet community of Cairnryan, near Stranraer.

Roughly 60 people, wearing flip-flops and toting water bottles and generating applause from a small group of onlookers, piled out of a coach bus in front of TownePlace Suites in the middle of the afternoon heat Friday. "Thanks for coming and welcome to Arizona," said state Republican Rep. Vic Williams, shaking hands with the Texas tourists who have become the latest symbol in the fight over Arizona's immigration battle. Saying they're countering the Arizona boycott by groups who say the state's controversial new immigration law will lead to racial profiling, the bus riders - plus a reported 60 others in...

Kim Jong-il's Eldest Son Drinks with S.Korean Tourists North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's eldest son Kim Jong-nam, who has reportedly been passed over in the succession, can sometimes be found drinking with South Koreans at a bar in Macau. A government official on Tuesday said, "I've heard that some South Koreans were watching Kim Jong-nam at a bar in Macau recently because he looked familiar, and he suggested they have a drink together. So they drank and had a chat." The official said a visit to China by Kim senior is "a possibility." Regarding Kim Jong-il's health, he said the...

Zimbabwean holidaymaker eaten by shark described by onlookers as 'longer than a minibus' Witnesses today described their horror at seeing a tourist being eaten by a "gigantic" shark in South Africa's most popular holiday destination. Lloyd Skinner was pulled under the surf and dragged out to sea by the shark, believed to be a great white, off Fish Hoek beach in Cape Town. His diving goggles and a dark patch of blood were all that remained in the water. "Holy shit. We just saw a gigantic shark eat what looked like a person in front of our house," witness Gregg...

A U.S. tourist got more then he bargained for when he was attacked by a crocodile while attempting to answer the call of nature in the Mexican resort of Cancun this week. According to Mexican police 20-year-old Andrew Dales, from Dallas in Texas, confessed that he had been on a mission to relieve himself at the edge of the local Nicupté lagoon , in the popular tourist resort of Cancun, when the crocodile suddenly snapped at him. He suffered ‘multiple bite wounds’ to his leg and neck and was also left with a head injury after the reptile knocked him...

Three Americans who were arrested after crossing into Iran have been accused of being spies, according to a local report. Tehran-based television news channel al-Alam quoted an Iraqi police officer as saying the trio were “working with the CIA.” The Swiss Embassy in Tehran was working to learn more about the Americans' fate through its contacts with the Iranian Foreign Ministry, spokeswoman Nadine Olivieri said. Switzerland represents U.S. interests in Iran. Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here It also emerged that an American linguistics student traveling in northern Iraq didn't go on an ill-fated hiking trip because he...

For the second time this year a tourist at Yellowstone National Park has been attacked by a bison. a 55-year-old man from Norco, California, was taking pictures of a bull bison that was wandering in the Bridge Bay Campgrounds. The two were about 10 feet apart when the bison charged. a bull bison can stand six feet tall, weigh up to 2,000 pounds and run up to 30 miles an hour. During the next several weeks they are more dangerous than usual because it's their mating season.

PETA has taken a stand against one of the most popular tourist attractions in Seattle - the fish market at the Pike Place Market that tosses salmon. PETA heard that the American Veterinary Medical Association planned a Pike Place Fish Market demonstration at next month's convention at the convention center.

A teenaged American tourist says he spent two hours clinging to the side of a long-distance train as it sped across the Australian outback in the night. Chad Vance said he had to leap onto The Ghan as it left the station at Port Augusta, South Australia, after he had disembarked during a 40-minute stop. He became cold and tired as the train reached speeds of up to 110km/h (68mph) on the journey to Alice Springs. Engineer Marty Wells finally heard his yells and applied the emergency brake. Mr Vance, quoted in the Herald Sun, said: "I feel very lucky...

President Obama had ears on his mind as he visited one of Egypt’s most famous landmarks this afternoon, the Great Pyramids of Giza. While looking at a hieroglyphic on a tomb, the President remarked that there was a certain resemblance, that he has in the past had a penchant for noticing. “That looks like me!” the President exclaimed when he saw the image of a big-eared man on the tomb, “Look at those ears!” Dragging over his Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Senior Advisors Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod and even personal assistant Reggie Love, the...

Al Qaeda beheads British tourist kidnapped at African music festival A Briton kidnapped in North Africa has been murdered, reportedly by beheading, by Al Qaeda terrorists after demands for the release of fundamentalist cleric Abu Qatada... The 60-year-old Briton is said to have been killed on Sunday...by Al Qaeda ahead of Obama's speech in... Cairo today. Murdered: Edwin Dyer as seen in a video released by his kidnappers in February The statement...said they 'killed Dyer on May 31, finding that Britain...does not... care for its citizens'. It added: 'The British captive was killed so that he, and...the British state, may...

Egyptian police said Sunday evening a bomb detonated outside a historic Cairo mosque in the crowded bazaar area frequented by tourists, wounding at least eight people. Blood stains could be seen in the front courtyard of Hussein mosque, next to the famed Khan el-Khalili bazaar in Islamic Cairo. Riot police had cordoned off the area and sniffer dogs could be seen as worshippers were being evacuated. A security official said police were attempting to defuse a second bomb. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

PASSENGERS complaining about delays should spare a thought for a Japanese tourist who has spent almost three months in the Mexico City airport. Hiroshi Nohara flew into Mexico on September 2 with a tourist visa and a return ticket home, but has never left the airport. For reasons he can't explain, Nohara has been in Terminal 1 of the Benito Juarez International Airport, surviving off donations from fast food restaurants and passengers and sleeping in a chair.

Waiters have allegedly beaten an Australian tourist to death for being "arrogant" while ordering a beer in an Indian restaurant. The Times of India and local reports said Mr Kelly's beating followed an altercation in which he displayed an "arrogant attitude". Some reports said security staff at the bar joined in the bashing.

Four Mexican officers are found guilty in the death of an Oregon tourist near Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The Yoncalla tourist on vacation was beaten in a Mexican jail, after getting arrested for stabbing a man outside his rented condo. A judge decided to convict the four Mexican jail guards of manslaughter. A surveillance video shows the men beating Sam Botner to death in a Cabo San Lucas jail. Botner and his wife were vacationing in Mexico to celebrate his completion of a commercial fishing trip.