Barack Obama has assured Russian president Dimitry Medvedev that a US Senate vote on the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) should happen this week.

The White House has announced a fundamental shift in America’s nuclear strategy, calling the spread of atomic weapons to rogue states or terrorists a worse threat than the nuclear Armageddon feared during the Cold War.

TWO US senators have urged authorities to pursue criminal charges against the Virginia couple who crashed a White House state dinner.

Hardline Republican opponents of a US motor trade bail-out have branded the industry a “dinosaur” whose “day of reckoning” was near.

What they said: