Donald Trump's national security adviser has insisted the US president's revelations to Russian officials about the terrorist threat from Islamic State were "wholly appropriate" and amounted to a routine sharing of information.

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the White House, the Trump administration is going back and forth over whether its vision for Middle East peace includes a Palestinian state.

Rivals candidates vow to fight on despite Super Tuesday setbacks

The US National Security Agency lost its authority to collect phone records in bulk, with intelligence officials warning it could jeopardise Americans’ safety.

US politicians in both houses of Congress have been trying to agree separate plans to reopen the government and avoid a federal financial default that could tip the global economy back into recession.

US Senate leaders are nearing a deal in talks to reopen the government and prevent a default on debt that could tip the global economy back into recession.

Hopes are growing for a deal to head off a US government default and end a partial government shutdown after encouraging comments from the congressional leaders at the centre of the talks.

US Senate leaders have taken the helm in the search for a deal to end the partial government shutdown and avert a federal default.

The focus of efforts to end the government shutdown and prevent a US default has shifted to the Senate, where leaders were in talks aimed at resolving the twin stalemates.

Republicans are ready to offer the government a temporary debt limit extension, the leader of the US House of Representatives says.

Politicians on both sides of the US congressional stalemate have been summoned for talks with president Barack Obama as the partial government shutdown showed little sign of a breakthrough.

Much of the vast machinery of the US government has ground to a halt as Democrats and Republicans blamed each other for a partial shutdown that closed federal agencies, national parks and research facilities across the nation.

The political stalemate that partially shut down the US government has worsened with Democrats rejecting the latest Republican effort to negotiate over efforts to derail the health care overhaul.

The United States is braced for a partial government shutdown on Tuesday after the White House and congressional Democrats declared they would reject a bill approved by the Republican-led House to delay implementing President Barack Obama’s health care reform.

The US Senate is ready to launch an emotion-charged debate on new gun restrictions, four months after the carnage at a Connecticut elementary school spurred President Barack Obama and Congress to address firearms violence.

The head of Colorado state’s prison system was shot and killed at his home, just hours before the governor signed landmark gun control legislation drafted in response to a series of mass shootings.

A combative US president Barack Obama has blamed Republican lawmakers for failing to stop automatic spending cuts of $85bn (€65bn) that were due to begin kicking in last night, calling the cuts “dumb, arbitrary”.

Strong earnings from technology giants nudged the US stock market to a five-year high today.

US senate leaders sought a last-minute compromise to avoid middle-class tax increases and possibly prevent deep spending cuts at the dawn of the new year as President Barack Obama warned that failure could threaten the nation’s economic recovery.

President Barack Obama has asked congressional leaders to convene today at the White House for last-minute talks on a “fiscal cliff” deal that avoids automatic tax increases and broad spending cuts that threaten the economy’s nascent recovery.

A deal that heads off an unprecedented US financial default and begins the process of curbing the country’s spiralling debt was expected to clear a final legislative hurdle in the Senate today, just hours before the deadline.

Congress and the White House are very close to a deal on raising the limit on US borrowing that would avert an unprecedented default on America’s debt, the top Republican in the Senate said today.

The Republican-controlled House and Democratic-run Senate remained deadlocked today over debt legislation required to avoid a first-ever default on US financial obligations.

REPUBLICANS and Democrats rushed to rework rival deficit reduction plans yesterday, but, with the fate of both proposals heavily in doubt, top lawmakers pursued a behind-the-scenes compromise to avert a crippling US debt default.

In a landmark for gay rights, the US Senate today voted to let gays serve openly in the military.

A major nuclear arms reduction deal between the US and Russia was in danger of collapse today.

EMBOLDENED by a commanding House majority and Senate gains, Republican leaders vowed yesterday to deliver on their “golden opportunity” to roll back the size of government and President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law.

ONCE, California Democrats led the way to a year of the women. Now, nearly two decades later, Republicans hope that it’s their turn.

Sarah Palin urged thousands of conservative tea party activists to kick Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats in Congress out of office in the upcoming national election.

The Democratic-controlled US Congress has approved historic legislation extending healthcare to tens of millions of Americans who lack it and cracking down on insurance company abuses.

WITH tempers flaring, President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans clashed in an extraordinary live-on-TV summit yesterday over the right prescription for the nation’s broken healthcare system, talking of agreement but holding to long-entrenched positions that leave them far apart.

A spokesman for former US presidential nominee and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole said he is recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre after a bout of pneumonia.

REPUBLICANS are rejoicing and Democrats reeling in the wake of Scott Brown’s stunning victory over Martha Coakley in a special Massachusetts Senate election that Brown insists was not simply a referendum on President Barack Obama.

Jubilant US Senate Democrats secured the 60th and decisive vote for historic health care reform legislation, putting President Barack Obama’s top domestic policy issue firmly on a path for Christmas Eve passage.

Sweeping health care legislation cleared its first hurdle in the US Senate on a party-line vote.

PRESIDENT Barack Obama was expected to tell the nation in a prime-time address precisely how he wants to expand healthcare, pitching a fresh argument – but, to liberal disappointment, no demand – for a government-run insurance option.

Raising fresh questions about his appointment to Congress, Senator Roland Burris admitted in a document that former Governor Rod Blagojevich’s brother asked him for campaign fundraising help before the governor named Burris as Illinois’ junior senator.

Barack Obama is laying the groundwork for a giant economic stimulus package of up to $850bn (€590bn) over two years, an adviser to the US President-elect said.

The Bush administration said today it was ready to step in and prevent the US car industry from collapsing after the Senate refused to pass a rescue bill endorsed by President George Bush and congressional Democrats.

US politicians were today rushing to prevent the state governor charged with trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama’s Senate seat in a “political corruption crime spree” appointing someone to the post.