US former president Gerald Ford dead at 93

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Former president Gerald Ford, who sought to heal the United States after the trauma of the Watergate scandal that forced Richard Nixon from office in 1974, has died at the age of 93.

Flags flew at half mast, and tributes poured in for the unassuming politician who rose to the presidency without winning a national election, and closed the book on Watergate with a controversial pardon of Nixon.