Republican Mitt Romney has emerged as the winner of the first US presidential election debate with Barack Obama, according to commentators and social media reaction.

Already down in the opinion polls, Barack Obama is also losing badly to Republican rival Mitt Romney in the fundraising stakes. Daniel Klaidman explores the US president’s cash crunch

President Barack Obama’s re-election team plans to spend $25m (€19.15m) on advertising this month, a dramatic escalation of its media presence in a handful of states that could determine the outcome on Nov 6.

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama faces a long re-election campaign, having all but given up on the economy rebounding in any meaningful way before November 2012.

BP has agreed to finance a $20bn (€16bn) fund to pay the claims of people whose jobs and way of life have been damaged by the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, senior US officials said today.

THE White House and at least two Gulf states have demanded that BP create special accounts that would set aside billions of dollars to pay for the mounting claims related to the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

A politically-shaken White House promised a sharper focus on jobs and the economy, but was less sure-footed on health care reform.

Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai was effectively handed a second five-year term when his only challenger dropped out of the race and the US said it was prepared to work with the man it had previously criticised to combat corruption and confront the Taliban.

Iranian authorities have detained several local employees of the British Embassy in Tehran, a move that UK foreign secretary David Miliband today called “harassment and intimidation” and reflected a hardening of the regime’s stance toward the West.

Barack Obama wrapped up his first foreign trip as US president with a request of the world: Look past his nation’s stereotypes and flaws.

Barack Obama “will move as quickly as he can” to set up the team who will help him rule America as its first black president, his chief strategist said today.

BARACK OBAMA’S Ohio campaign manager has neither shaved his face in a month nor has he shown up to the office without his Columbus Clippers baseball hat.

BARACK OBAMA and John McCain were locked in a last-ditch fight for the key industrial states of Ohio and Pennsylvania yesterday as the race to the White House race appeared to be tilting to the Democratic candidate.