Talks aimed at avoiding a shutdown of the US government have broken up with no deal, leaving negotiators just hours to agree a budget compromise.  

A strong aftershock ripped through northeastern Japan, killing two, injuring dozens and piling misery on a region still buried under the rubble of last month's devastating tsunami.

Rebels fighting to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi said five of their fighters were killed when NATO planes mistakenly bombed a rebel tank column near the contested port of Brega in eastern Libya.

Hamas militants fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus on Thursday, critically injuring a teenager, prompting the army to pound the the Gaza Strip, killing four and wounding more than 30.

A 36-year-old woman police commander, Atifete Jahjaga, was on Thursday sworn in as Kosovo's new president, ending weeks of political crisis.

A disturbed Brazilian youth on a suicide mission shot dead 10 young girls and a boy on Thursday at his old elementary school in Rio de Janeiro.

At least 59 bodies have been found on a ranch in Mexico's northern state of Tamaulipas, on the US border, authorities said Wednesday, warning that the grim toll could rise.

Between 130 and 250 people were missing and at least 15 appeared to be dead after a boat carrying refugees from Libya capsized south of Sicily early on Wednesday, coast guard officials and aid workers said.

Japanese police raced on Thursday to find thousands of missing bodies before they decompose along a stretch of tsunami-pummeled coast that has been largely off-limits because of a radiation-leaking nuclear plant.

Libya accused Britain of damaging an oil pipeline in an air strike, hours after rebels said government attacks had halted production of oil they hope to sell to finance their uprising.