BP focused too much on the little details of personal worker safety instead of the big systemic hazards that led to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a US government safety panel has concluded.

The White House has announced a fundamental shift in America’s nuclear strategy, calling the spread of atomic weapons to rogue states or terrorists a worse threat than the nuclear Armageddon feared during the Cold War.

President Barack Obama’s closest economic advisors are signalling that the financial crisis will require more money and more US government intervention to correct.

Hardline Republican opponents of a US motor trade bail-out have branded the industry a “dinosaur” whose “day of reckoning” was near.

The Bush administration is abandoning the centrepiece of its massive €520bn economic rescue plan and exploring new ways to shore up not only banks but credit card, car loan and other huge businesses.

The head of America’s Federal Reserve warned today that the country’s economy would remain shaky for months to come.

The Bush administration insisted Congress must move quickly to approve what one politician called the "mother of all bailouts" - a US$700bn (€483.5bn) proposal to buy a mountain of bad mortgage debt in a bid to free up the nation's credit markets.

Congressional Democrats and President George Bush’s top aides are entering another round of high-stakes negotiations on funding for the Iraq war in what has become an exhaustive test of wills.

US President George Bush and congressional Democrats could face a constitutional showdown over whether top White House aides will testify under oath about the firing of federal prosecutors.

DEMOCRATS challenged Republicans for control of Congress for US President George W Bush’s final two years in office last night in elections shadowed by war in Iraq and scandal at home.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld today rejected calls for the US administration to set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

United Nations Security Council members say concerns remain over whether to threaten Sudan with sanctions, but hope a vote can be held this week.

White House budget director Mitchell Daniels said the dramatic decline in federal government revenues this year was mostly due to the bear market in stocks, while Senate Democrat majority leader Tom Daschle blamed the Bush adminstration's fiscal policy.