Republican Mitt Romney won Nevada's caucuses today, while John McCain and Mike Huckabee competed in the South Carolina primary, two races likely to reduce the crowded field of US presidential rivals.

Americans in the south and west will get their first chance to have a say on who will be their next President today as the race to the White House is as wide open as ever.

THE pressure’s on for Republicans to show staying power in a presidential primary race where, as Fred Thompson put it yesterday, “everyone gets to be hero of the day”.

IT’S a different winner every day in the Republican presidential race.

NEW HAMPSHIRE was John McCain’s last stand, his best opportunity to revive a presidential campaign that was near death last summer.

Mitt Romney and John McCain sparred in the Republicans’ second debate in New Hampshire, where they are in a close race in the US state’s first-in-the-nation primary election tomorrow.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton clashed today ahead of Tuesday’s critical New Hampshire primary.

The first results in the US presidential elections will be known in the next few hours.

US presidential hopefuls will make their last bid to woo the people of Iowa today before Americans have their first say on who will head to the White House next year.

AGAINST my better judgment, I have started Christmas shopping. Wandering aimlessly around Easons the other day, they seemed to be doing a brisk business in Bush countdown calendars. A variant on the traditional Advent calendar, it enables you to tick off the remaining days until a new US president is elected next November and Dubya leaves the White House in January 2009.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will not run for president in 2008 after determining he could not legally explore a bid and remain as head of his tax-exempt political organisation, a spokesman said today.

US actor Fred Thompson officially entered a wide-open Republican presidential race today, vowing to invigorate a dispirited Republican Party and promising to thwart another Clinton from capturing the presidency.

US PRESIDENT George W Bush is gearing up for a battle to get his conservative nominee into the Supreme Court.