Former Voice contestant Christina Grimmie shot dead in Orlando

Singer Christina Grimmie, who had competed on the US TV programme The Voice, has died of her wounds after being shot in Florida, police say.

They say a man opened fire on her when she was signing autographs after a concert in Orlando.

The assailant - who was tackled by Ms Grimmie's brother - then shot and killed himself. The 22-year-old singer died in a local hospital.

In 2014, Ms Grimmie finished third during season six of The Voice.

In a tweet, Orlando's police wrote: "With deep regret, we have confirmed Christina Grimmie, @TheRealGrimmie has died from her injuries."

Meanwhile, Ms Grimmie's publicist said: "It is with a heavy heart that we can confirm that Christina has passed and went home to be with the Lord."

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Police say Ms Grimmie was shot about 22:45 local time on Friday (02:45 GMT Saturday) at The Plaza Live in Orlando.

The gunman opened fire as she was signing autographs for fans with Before You Exit band.

The attacker, whose name has not been released, had two guns.

Orlando Police Department spokeswoman Wanda Miglio said Grimmie's brother "immediately tackled the suspect".

"During the struggle, the suspect shot himself. The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene," the spokeswoman said.

She described Ms Grimmie's brother as a "hero" for stopping the attacker "from not hurting anyone else".

A police investigation is now under way into how the suspect had managed to enter the venue with the firearms.

News of the attack spread quickly on social media, with many fans voicing their shock and anger.

Ms Grimmie first came to prominence as a teenager for her renditions of hit songs, amassing a huge following on YouTube.

In 2011, she released her debut musical recording Find Me. Her second EP - Side A - followed in February 2016.

In her last tweet on Friday, she wrote:

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Muhammad Ali funeral: Thousands line route for farewell

Thousands are attending a farewell procession for boxing legend Muhammad Ali in his home city of Louisville, in the US state of Kentucky.

Onlookers lining the roadside waved, took photos and chanted "Ali, Ali" as a cortege led by the hearse carrying his coffin drove through the downtown area.

The heavyweight champion and rights activist died last Friday aged 74.

The cortege is taking Ali's body past key sites in his life, ahead of an interfaith memorial service.

Actor Will Smith and ex-boxer Lennox Lewis will be among the pallbearers, while former President Bill Clinton will deliver one of the eulogies.

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Thousands of free tickets for the memorial service, taking place at a major sports centre, were snapped up within half an hour.

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Image captionThe pallbearers, including Mike Tyson and Will Smith, loaded the coffin into the hearse for the procession

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Image captionPeople chanted Ali's name as the cortege left the funeral home

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Image captionA Louisville city bus displays the words "Ali the Greatest"

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Image captionA Muhammad Ali action figure sits on the seat of a bicycle as fans await the funeral procession

The motorcade procession began at about 10:35 local time (14:35 GMT), more than an hour behind schedule, and took the coffin past his childhood home, the Ali Center, the Center for African American Heritage and then down Muhammad Ali Boulevard.

Fans threw flowers at the hearse and rose petals were scattered along the route.

In one neighbourhood, several young men ran alongside the vehicle carrying a placard which read: "Ali is the greatest, thanks 4 all the memories."

The procession will end at the Cave Hill Cemetery where Ali will be laid to rest in a private ceremony.

The funeral service at the KFC Yum! Centre is due to begin at 14:00 local time.

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Comedian Billy Crystal will also deliver a eulogy, while sports journalist Bryant Gumbel, the daughter of civil rights activist Malcolm X, Attallah Shabazz, and Ali's wife, Lonnie, and daughters, Maryum and Rasheda, are also expected to speak.

Among those expected to attend the service is King Abdullah of Jordan.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended Thursday's prayer ceremony and had been due at the service, but reports say he has cut short his visit to the US.

The reasons for his departure are not clear, though there are reports of differences with the funeral's organisers.

President Barack Obama will not be there, as he is to attend his eldest daughter Malia's graduation.

But in a video message, he said: "This week we lost an icon. A person who for African Americans, I think, liberated their minds in recognising that they could be proud of who they were."

Muhammad Ali

Born Cassius Marcellus Clay, 17 January 1942

61 fights

over a professional career lasting 21 years

56 wins

including 37 knockouts

• 3 times crowned World Heavyweight Champion
• 1 Light-heavyweight Olympic gold medal
• 31 straight wins before being beaten by Joe Frazier

Getty

White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett - who knew Ali - will represent the president.

Lennox Lewis, a former world heavyweight boxing champion himself, said it was an honour to be a pallbearer and that Ali's memory would never fade.

"The term 'float like a butterfly, sting like a bee' will always be remembered. He is an icon and a legend of boxing," he said.

The other pallbearers are family and friends, along with Will Smith, who portrayed Ali in the 2001 film about the boxer's life.

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US election 2016: Clinton hails 'milestone for women'

Hillary Clinton has thanked her supporters for helping her reach a historic moment for women - the US Democratic nomination for president.

"Thanks to you, we've reached a milestone," she told cheering crowds at a rally in New York.

Mrs Clinton hailed "the first time in our nation's history that a woman will be a major party's nominee".

Hours later, she won the California Democratic primary, further cementing her hold on the nomination.

In all, she won four of the six states voting in primaries on Tuesday, also taking New Jersey, South Dakota and New Mexico.

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Her rival Bernie Sanders found victory in the Montana and North Dakota caucuses and has refused to quit the race.

Polls had suggested the contest in California would be tight, but Mrs Clinton won by a margin of around 13%.

The Associated Press announced the result with more than 91% of the vote in.

Mr Sanders had been hoping for a win in that state, the country's most populous, to boost his campaign and bolster his claim to be a more viable presidential contender than Hillary Clinton.

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Muhammad Ali: How even the greatest worshipped 'The Greatest'

Cricket has in recent years lost some wonderful commentators: Tony Greig, Richie Benaud and Tony Cozier have all passed on taking with them their huge mass of knowledge, ebullience and incisiveness. You miss these people because they weren’t just voices calling a sport, they were facets of the sport itself, indivisible parts of your experience growing up watching cricket.

It is the same regardless of the game, and for millions of people BBC’s David Coleman - also sadly no longer with us - was another such commentator on football and athletics, whose tones were integral to fans’ enjoyment. Like the best in cricket, Coleman knew when to speak and when not to, when to drizzle the action with insight or enhance it with his boyish exuberance.

At the time of the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, Muhammad Ali was already suffering from the onset of Parkinson’s disease, the illness which, along with related complications, has seen the planet on Saturday lose one of its most beautiful humanitarians and most exceptional of men. It wasn’t known that he would light the flame at those games and, indeed, with his condition diagnosed many years ago, he may have seemed an unlikely candidate to do so.

So when he emerged onto the stage, his body shaking wildly as he held the torch aloft, Coleman’s voice tremored with delight and surprise: “And look! It’s Muhammad Ali!”, he exclaimed, a justified reverence in those five words laden with emotion. Here was a veteran commentator who had worked on numerous football World Cups, Olympics and had been behind the mic for countless records on the athletics track, still clearly moved by Ali’s magnificence and sheer presence.

It was a terribly poignant moment for anyone watching boxing’s lethal butterfly struggling a little as he brought the torch down to light the flame, seeing this man who was the epitome of physical perfection being pummelled by the lottery of health. His features still shot charisma out of every pore, but it was a moment of mortality for everyone, splendidly captured by the frugality of Coleman’s words.

Around the same time, my grandmother had moved into an old people’s home. She too was suffering from Parkinson's, coupled with mental complications arising from both age and the medication she was administered. On the drive to see her, my father would chat with me, but on the way back there was little scope for conversation. My dad was too busy trying not to cry after another visit which confirmed his mum was sliding inexorably into the cruelly separate world of dementia.

On one such occasion she told me to be quiet because she was talking to Michael Atherton. The then England captain was there with us in the room, but only because he was batting on the television in the corner. It was odd and sobering to see two such huge presences in your existence, your grandma and Ali, transformed to such a degree by illness. The world can at least be thankful that for many years Ali's didn't rob him of his acute, cerebral sharpness and wit.

There will be some majestic tributes to Ali in the next few days, as writers attempt to match the greatness of their subject’s own acidic, joyous poetry in his honour. We will all watch his fights on YouTube and look at the endless galleries of photos of a man for whom the camera seemed to have been waiting since its invention.

There is one particularly lovely picture of him visiting the dressing rooms at Lord’s in June 1966 as England took on the West Indies in the Second Test. Ali sits there in apparent conversation with someone out of shot, his eyes zinging stardust and impishness. Next to him sits Garry Sobers, giving the world heavyweight champion a look which conveys a fantastically warm adulation, a genuine sense of knowing he was in the presence of someone who transcended sport, life and society. That photo with Sobers actually really rather tells you everything you could ever want to know about Muhammad Ali: Even the greatest was in awe of The Greatest.

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