President Barack Obama dumps proposals to tighten rules on air pollution, a move that outrages environmentalists but is cheered by Republicans.

US authorities take legal action against 17 banks for losses on mortgage-backed investments that cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

Three Canadians are taken to hospital after eating unwittingly eating chocolate brownies which had been laced with cannabis.

Thirty-six suspects have been arrested in two operations against drug-trafficking in Colombia, President Juan Manuel Santos says.

A Malaysian journalist is killed and another wounded after a convoy of aid workers they were travelling with was attacked in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, security officials say.

A man in the Californian city of Sacramento is accused of biting a pet python twice, police say.

A Chilean air force plane carrying 21 people including a famous TV presenter disappears over the Pacific on its way to a remote archipelago.

Chilean police chief Gen Eduardo Gordon resigns following allegations that he had interfered in a police investigation involving his son.