News: North and South America

Plans to build an Islamic centre near Ground Zero in New York have triggered a debate across the US about the limits of religious tolerance.

A cargo aircraft belonging to the US courier UPS crashes on a major highway in Dubai, setting some cars on fire.

A weakened hurricane Earl skirts past North Carolina's Outer Banks and continues up the US east coast as a "category one" storm.

The US economy shed another 54,000 jobs in August, the third month in a row that jobs have been lost, official figures show.

A passenger was detained and four of Miami International Airport's six concourses were evacuated on Thursday after a suspicious item was spotted in a checked bag

Crocodile Dundee star Paul Hogan reaches an agreement with tax authorities in Australia allowing him to return to his home in the US.

BP says the cost of its Gulf of Mexico oil spill has risen to $8bn - a rise of more than $2bn in the last month alone.

Rival Canadian gold mining companies, Goldcorp and El Dorado, lock horns in a $3bn fight to buy up Andean Resources.

Chinese investors approach Canadian pension fund over a possible rival bid for the fertiliser giant Potash Corporation.

Why aren't black American children taught to swim?

Five police officers were killed and four wounded by a roadside bomb while on patrol Wednesday evening in the southern town of Doncello, where leftist rebels are active.

Mexico’s military says 25 suspects have been shot dead by soldiers in a gunbattle near the U.S. border.

Hurricane Earl is downgraded to a category two storm as it nears the US East Coast.

Israeli and Palestinian leaders meet in Washington for the first direct peace talks in nearly two years and agree a framework for negotiations.

The Canadian Space Agency announces astronaut Chris Hadfield will become the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station in 2013.

A tanker carrying 9m litres of diesel fuel runs aground in the Northwest Passage, off the coast of northern Canada.

A growing number of New York sky-scrapers switch off their lights at night to help reduce the number of migratory birds hitting the buildings.

An explosion rips through an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, west of the site of the blast in April that caused a huge oil spill.

US authorities indict 11 German and Chinese executives for conspiring to illegally import $40m worth of honey from China.

Susan Powell takes a look at the track of the current Atlantic storms