Barack Obama's newly-minted vice presidential candidate turned his campaign debut into a scathing attack on Republicans seeking four more years in the White House.

Attention, America: Paris has spoken. Paris Hilton, the blonde, doe-eyed celebrity thrust into the presidential campaign in an ad by Republican candidate John McCain, has issued a tart rebuttal, albeit in a scantily clad, tongue-in-cheek kind of way.

ALTHOUGH media coverage of Barack Obama’s recent trips abroad was mostly positive, the sense that he was acting as president-elect grated with some journalists, particularly when they were not granted any access to him during the visits to Afghanistan and Iraq.

The flood-ravaged communities of the Midwest became a new battleground in the US presidential election as Democrat Barack Obama criticised Republican John McCain for opposing federal spending on flood prevention programmes, attacks Mr McCain’s campaign called typical partisan politics.

Barack Obama is bad for business, his Republican rival John McCain said today.

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and Republican candidate John McCain were “reading from the same political playbook” and their proposed summer fuel tax holiday was simply “pandering to voters”, Barack Obama said today.

Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton turned up the rhetoric in their increasingly heated presidential primary battle.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid has called US president George Bush “dangerously incompetent” and says the administration should be doing more to prevent increasing sectarian violence in Iraq.