Los Angeles  - A woman who tried to assassinate police officers thirty years ago and hid for 24 years mostly as a suburban housewife was released from jail Tuesday after serving almost eight years of a 14-year sentence.

Sara Jane Olson, 62, was a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, an urban guerrilla group in the US which is most notorious for the 1974 kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst.

Washington - European Union officials said Tuesday there had been a noticeable shift in climate policy since President Barack Obama took office, but said they expected much more drastic action before the United States can regain its international credibility.

After meeting US climate envoy Todd Stern in Washington this week, the EU's key environment ministers said it would be up to US legislators to improve the country's bargaining position by the time the world's climate officials meet to discuss a new global deal in Copenhagen in December.

Washington - The auto industry and US government are working to avoid bankruptcy for General Motors (GM) and keep the US auto industry afloat, officials said Tuesday.

Steven Rattner, chief adviser to the Department of the Treasury's auto industry task force, said the Obama administration was "open minded" about giving more aid to GM and Chrysler, and planned to use "all the resources" of the US government to avoid bankruptcy.

Washington  - The space shuttle Discovery was nearing the International Space Station for a planned docking later Tuesday.

The Discovery is to deliver the fourth and final solar panel to the International Space Station on a construction mission that will enable it to double the size of its crew to six astronauts. Three spacewalks are planned to install the solar panels and conduct other construction projects.

The mission will also deliver Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who is slated to join the permanent crew on the orbiting space station.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama nominated Daniel Rooney, the owner of American football champion Pittsburgh Steelers, as the next ambassador to Ireland on Tuesday, Saint Patrick's Day.

Rooney, 76, has played an important role in the Irish-American community.

Rooney, through charitable groups, supported the Irish peace process and co-founded the American Ireland Fund in 1976, which has raised more than 300 million dollars for peace and education programmes in Ireland.

Baghdad  - The Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki Tuesday repeated its call for the execution of three officials from the former regime of Saddam Hussein for genocide, as a dispute over sentencing continued.

Former ministers Ali Hassan al-Majid and Sultan Hashem and Hussein Rashid Mohammed, a former army chief, were sentenced to death in 2007 for their part in the so-called Anfal campaign against Kurdish civilians and militia in 1988.