Conservative senators from both political parties are backing wider background checks for gun buyers, but it remains unclear if President Barack Obama can push significant weapon controls through the US Congress.

A gun control package has cleared Colorado’s state senate as its backers described it as a needed response to the state’s blood-soaked history of mass shootings.

House of Representatives Republican leaders have offered President Barack Obama a three-month reprieve to a looming, market-rattling debt crisis.

Prominent gun rights advocates in the US government are now calling for a national discussion about curbing gun violence - signalling that the Connecticut primary school massacre could be a tipping point in a debate dormant for years.

President Barack Obama’s re-election, coupled with Republicans’ continued hold on the House, gives both parties a chance to rethink, and perhaps undo, the bitter partisanship that has gripped Washington for four years and frustrated Americans who see big problems going unsolved.

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama warned yesterday that polarised lawmakers were “almost out of time” to forge a deal averting a disastrous debt default that could send shockwaves though the world economy.

US president Barack Obama has said he remains confident that a government shutdown can be avoided this weekend if negotiators can build on constructive talks over a public spending impasse.

US President Barack Obama’s Democrats are braced for an elections rout today, as a wave of 11th-hour polls showed Republicans on course for big gains in Congress amid deep voter anger at the sour economy.

DISENCHANTED voters in both parties turned against the establishment, choosing a conservative “Tea Party” newcomer over a handpicked Republican favourite and dumping veteran Democratic Senator Arlen Specter ahead of November’s midterm elections.

US President Barack Obama will unveil a $3.8 trillion (€2.7 trillion) budget today that will increase spending in the fight against unemployment, boost taxes on the wealthy and freeze spending for government programmes.

Democrats confidently predicted today that President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul would clear the US Senate after it passed the second of three critical procedural votes.

US political leaders were today making a final push for an agreement on a $700bn bailout for the nation’s troubled financial 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 today expressed frustration with the US congressional debate on Iraq war spending and accused majority-party Democrats of being “more interested in fighting political battles in Washington than providing our troops what they need.”

US president George Bush has been voted both “the good guy of 2006” and “the bad guy of 2006”.

Robert Gates, picked by President George Bush to take over from US secretary of state Donald Rumsfeld, received initial endorsements from Republican and Democratic Senate leaders after a meeting on Capitol Hill.

Actor Michael J Fox laughed off criticism of his appearance in recent political ads in support of embryonic stem cell research, but said his mother was not as amused.

In a response to charges by conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, actor Michael J Fox defended his appearance in recent political campaign ads, saying he was neither acting nor off his medication for Parkinson’s disease.

DEMOCRATIC Senator John Kerry conceded defeat in a hard-fought US presidential election yesterday saying he had offered President George Bush congratulations on his victory but that the nation needed healing.

US President George Bush today won a second term in office from a divided and anxious nation, his promise of steady, strong wartime leadership trumping John Kerry’s fresh-start approach to Iraq and joblessness.

Americans are expecting more shocking photographs and searing public debate as the Bush administration works to calm the storm over US soldiers’ abuse of Iraqi prisoners.