Many countries in the region - most recently Mexico - have decriminalized small amounts of drugs for personal use. The moves have followed decisions by left-leaning governments to limit cooperation with the US in recent years.
Outside the UN, thousands of Iranians from across the US - and beyond - protested Iran's elections and the continued detention of opposition supporters.
President Obama and the leaders of Britain and France accused Iran of building a secret underground plant to manufacture nuclear fuel. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday dismissed the accusation that the plant was kept hidden.
AP - President Barack Obama declared Friday that Iran is on a path to confrontation with world powers unless it agrees to "come clean" and disclose all its nuclear activities. He said he would not rule out military action.
AP - President Barack Obama asserted on Friday that he and other leaders of the world's 20 largest economies took actions that "brought the global economy back from the brink" and saved or created millions of jobs.
AP - Former Democratic Party chairman Paul G. Kirk Jr. stepped in Friday as the temporary replacement in the Senate for his longtime friend, the late Edward Kennedy.
Lisa Gibson -- who lost her brother in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing -- sat down with the man many blame for the attack and "welcomed him to America," she told CNN. The Colorado lawyer said she and another relative of a Lockerbie victim met Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in New York the same day he delivered a rambling speech to the U.N. General Assembly.
A stranger crept into Jennifer Schuett's bedroom when she was 8, raped her in a field by her elementary school, slashed her throat and left her for dead. Doctors said they doubted she'd ever speak again. Nearly 20 years later, Schuett has regained her voice and is using it to help authorities catch her assailant. Advances in DNA testing could bring him to justice. "It's not about me anymore," she explained. "It's about all the little girls that go to sleep at night."