The Obama administration is considering ending spying on allied heads of state, as the White House grapples with the fallout from revelations that the US has eavesdropped on German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

SINCE his first day in office, US President Barack Obama’s foreign policy has rested on outreach: Resetting ties with Russia, building a partnership with China, and offering a fresh start with antagonistic leaders from Iran to Venezuela.

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

THE chairwoman of the US Senate Intelligence Committee said yesterday the Bush administration may have broken the law if it ordered the CIA to conceal the existence of a counter-terrorism programme.

The world’s most powerful laser, created to help keep tabs on the US nuclear weapons stockpile while also studying the heavens, was unveiled in California.

Hillary Clinton was set formally to end her historic bid for the White House today and urge her supporters to rally behind rival Barack Obama, a show of support Democrats hope will help heal the party fractured by a bitter battle for the presidential nomination.

THE massacre at Virginia Tech has ignited fresh talk in the new Democratic-led US Congress to tighten gun laws but it is doubtful enough lawmakers will tackle the politically charged issue.

THE US Senate yesterday rejected a California Democrat’s plan to allow the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country to remain, work and eventually become Americans, preserving a fragile bipartisan coalition needed to pass the bill.

The US Senate today narrowly blocked a Republican plan to tap into the nation’s largest untapped reservoir of oil beneath the frozen tundra of an Alaska wildlife refuge.

The disclosure of a top-secret US domestic spying programme has ignited a furious debate about presidential authority, civil liberties and whether President George Bush is acting above the law.

Southern California’s first wildfires of the season burned homes and brushlands and forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes.

What began as yet another political novelty has evolved into a spectacle remarkable even by Californian standards.

A US government probe has been launched into why the FBI and CIA failed to anticipate the September 11 attacks after new details of security lapses emerged today.