Canada

The Environmental Protection Agency said Monday that it has submitted a proposal to the International Maritime Organization that would create tougher emission standards for foreign vessels in the coastal waters and ports of the United States and Canada. The proposal would create a 230-mile Emissions Control Area along the nations' coastlines as a "step to protect the air and water along our shores, and the health of the people in our coastal communities," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said at a news conference in New Jersey.

Suncor Energy Inc. plans to acquire Petro-Canada for $15.5 billion, uniting two of Canada's biggest oil companies as the nation's energy industry retrenches.

Canada's annual seal hunt started Monday, under pressure from a possible European Union ban on imported seal products. The world's largest marine mammal hunt was called "inherently inhumane" this month by a European Parliament committee that endorsed the bill to ban the import of seal products to the 27-member union.

Campaigning in rust-belt Ohio during last year's Democratic primaries, Barack Obama promised to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, despised by organized labor.

If you're traveling outside the U.S. this year, here are two pieces of advice: Get or renew your passport now, and think twice before planning a car trip to Mexico or Canada in June.

President Obama went all over the Mideast and Europe last summer and spoke with 200,000 close friends in Berlin but had no time to visit the Americas.

Sleep hasn't come easy to freelance music agent Joseph Egan since that Halloween bus ride on the lonely rural highways of western Canada. Three months after a sleeping passenger had been beheaded by his seatmate on the same prairies west of Winnipeg, Egan was confronted by a drunken woman behind him.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Thursday secured permission for a rare suspension of Parliament, a move that allows him to avoid an imminent vote that would have toppled his Conservative government, elected just two months ago.