The neck-and-neck battle to be British prime minister turned increasingly nasty as both main party leaders seized on slip-ups by the other.

Jon Stewart, who turned his biting and free-wheeling humour into an unlikely source of news and analysis to host The Daily Show, will leave this year.

China: Two giant pandas born in the US have arrived safely at their new home in China.

David Axelrod, the mastermind behind Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 US presidential election victories, is to advise Britain’s Labour party in the run-up to the next general election.

For New Jersey governor Chris Christie, the road to the White House in 2016 has suddenly become a little bumpy — but it’s not closed.

Mitt Romney won the Republican presidential nomination as a “turnaround man,” whose capacity to reinvent companies, and the 2002 Olympics, could be transferred to the nation and its troubled economy.

US president Barack Obama joined one of his top Republican critics to visit victims of superstorm Sandy today.

President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney were tied at 47% support each among likely voters ahead of their final live presidential debate in the early hours of this morning.

Ahead of their last debate, Republican contender Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama are cramming foreign policy and taking a rare break from swing-state campaigning.

A strong US jobs report gave President Barack Obama an upbeat end to a startling week for both presidential campaigns, while Republican challenger Mitt Romney finally addressed his disparaging remarks about the 47% of Americans who do not pay federal income taxes, calling his words “just completely wrong”.

Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney has finally addressed his secretly taped disparaging remarks about the 47% of Americans who do not pay federal income taxes, calling his words “just completely wrong”.

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.

The Greek columns may be banished and the “hope” and “change” signs gone, but US president Barack Obama’s pitch to voters at the Democratic National Convention this week echoes his 2008 speech, when he cast himself as a visionary leader in touch with the nation’s priorities.

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.

The Obama administration last night signalled it is willing to compromise over birth control measures following a furious reaction from Catholic leaders that could damage BarackObama’s re-election bid.

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.

President Barack Obama launched his re-election campaign today in an email to 13 million supporters.

THE leader of a tiny US church said yesterday he was determined to burn copies of the Koran on September 11, despite pleas from the White House, the military, the Vatican and Angelina Jolie.

The leader of a tiny US church said today he was determined to burn copies of the Koran on September 11, despite pleas from the White House, the military, the Vatican and Angelina Jolie.

BP froze activity on two key projects yesterday which were meant to choke off the flow of oil billowing from its broken well in the Gulf of Mexico, after days of moving confidently toward controlling the crisis.

BP said today it was making progress on what could prove its most effective effort yet to contain the Gulf of Mexico oil leak, but warned that the verdict could be several days away.

Oil was spewing freely into the Gulf of Mexico as BP crews claimed progress yesterday in the first stages of replacing a leaky cap with a new containment system they hope will finally catch all the crude from the busted well.

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.

BP mounted a more aggressive response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as it deployed undersea sensors to better measure the ferocious flow of crude while drawing up new plans to meet a US government demand that it speed up the containment effort.

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.

IT WAS almost like one of those moments in a buddy-cop movie when the two partners who dislike each other at the beginning finally bond while taking on the bad guys.

US President Barack Obama today directed that no new offshore oil drilling leases can be issued unless rigs have new safeguards to prevent a repeat of the explosion that unleashed the massive spill threatening the Gulf Coast with major environmental damage.

ISRAEL’S leader tried to play down tensions with the US yesterday after a rocky meeting at the White House last week, saying that relations with Washington remain solid.

RELATIONS between Israel and the United States have hit a 35-year low, Israel’s ambassador in Washington said, amid simmering tensions between the two allies.

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.

US President Barack Obama is using political tactics and rhetorical devices honed in his White House campaign to regain the advantage in the health care debate over increasingly vocal and organised critics.

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.

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has urged Arab and world leaders to do more to end the “unacceptable” violence in Gaza as Israel bombed the region for the third day.

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.

President-elect Barack Obama spoke to the world from his home city of Chicago as he became the first black president of the United States.

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.

“HERE I am, signed, sealed, delivered.” That’s what the giddy crowds at Barack Obama’s campaign rallies hear when he walks off the stage — the booming sound of Stevie Wonder singing about the promise of a sure thing.

THE camps of Barack Obama and John McCain sparred yesterday over the Democrats’ choice of a longtime Washington insider as his running mate.

US presidential hopeful Barack Obama returned to the campaign trail today after a brief break to switch his focus to the expected presidential contest against Republican John McCain.