What became of the Soviet Union's "copy" of the US space shuttle?

As US Democratic candidate Barack Obama spends millions on a primetime TV ad in the hope of swaying undecided voters, Kim Ghattas asks whether it was overkill.

Reclusive Czech author Milan Kundera breaks a 25-year media silence to deny accusations he informed on a Western agent in 1950.

Critics deliver their verdicts on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which has opened in the US.

Singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles talks about her barbed pop songs, and her struggle to get them made.

Two men have been found guilty of conning sports fans into paying for faked autographs. But how can you tell if a signature is genuine or not?

Scientists use X-rays to find a host of animals trapped in 100-million-year-old opaque amber.

The Arianespace rocket company has grand plans to expand its operations at the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.

It's aimed at five-year-olds so just why will adults be reading Janet and John this Christmas?

Some 700 years after being disbanded, the Knights Templar are back in the news with the Vatican releasing details of their heresy trials.

A celebration takes place to commemorate the lives of three Arctic adventurers from south west Scotland.

BBC's Umaru Fofana in Freetown profiles Sierra Leone's main opposition presidential hopeful, the APC's Ernest Bai Koroma.

A south Devon town prints its own money in an experiment to test the effect on local businesses.

The Manx Museum receives a Liverpool Scottish Roll of Honour for the servicemen who fell in World War I.

After 35 years, Tutankhamun is returning to London. Yet the influence of the original 1972 exhibition has never gone away - it was the first blockbuster exhibition, spawning queues around the block and tea-towel memorabilia.

When Julia Roberts flashed under-arm hair at a film premiere there was uproar. But one woman, at least, wants to overturn prejudices and has taken a New Year's resolution not to shave.

The Archbishop of Warsaw's resignation embarrasses Poland's Catholic Church, but it still enjoys immense influence, Jan Repa reports.

Campaigners warn one of Scotland's most iconic lighthouses is in danger of crumbling.

DC Thomson is at the centre of a row after a complaint that it reprinted an annual containing racist material.