The US shuttle Discovery blasts off from the Kennedy Space Center on a historic final mission before retirement.

An inquiry is promised after Canadian officials acknowledge the country used the herbicide Agent Orange to clear roadside brush as late as the 1980s.

A US woman who raised child-kidnap victim Carlina White pleads not guilty to a charge of kidnapping Ms White when she was an infant.

US carmaker General Motors posts profits of $4.7bn for 2010 as it continues its comeback after bankruptcy protection.

Aircraft manufacturer Boeing wins a lucrative $35bn (£21.6bn) contract to provide the US with 179 aerial refuelling tankers.

The Russian judge who extended the jail term of dissident tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky again denies he came under official pressure.

More than three million voters in the Republic of Ireland are set to vote in the country's first election since it was bailed out by the EU and the IMF.

One of the alleged leaders of Mexico's Juarez drug cartel, Luis Humberto Peralta Hernandez, is killed in a shoot-out with police, officials say.