Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke has announced that he intends to run for the US senate in Louisiana.

US president Barack Obama clashed angrily with Republican senators at a Washington lunch where they accused him of duplicity, audacity and unbending partisanship.

US President Barack Obama announced today that former Florida senator Bob Graham and former Environmental Protection Agency administrator William K. Reilly will lead a presidential commission investigating the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Republicans tightened their grip on the US Senate today, capturing a string of Democratic seats while extending their decade-long hold on Congress.