The situation at Japan's quake-damaged nuclear plant remains very serious but the crisis will be "effectively overcome", says the head of the UN atomic agency.

Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom and his wife Sandra Torres file for divorce so she can stand for election to succeed him, officials say.

At least 17 people have been injured by a series of Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medics say.

Blues pianist Pinetop Perkins, the oldest musicion ever to win a Grammy award, dies in Austin, Texas, aged 97.

The US has condemned Syria's use of "disproportionate force" to suppress demonstrations calling for greater freedom and an end to corruption.

A 25-year-old man horrifically injured by an accident involving an electric power line has received a full face transplant in the US.

Decades of census data, alongside a mathematical model borrowed from physics, suggest religion is being driven to extinction, researchers say.

Two US tourists die in an accident at Iguazu Falls on the border between Brazil and Argentina, and five other tourists are injured.