Brett Forman

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has opened a wide lead over his rivals in the South Carolina primary election race, trouncing Newt Gingrich and gaining momentum in his march toward the party's nomination, a Reuters/Ipsos poll shows.

Myanmar's government said on Saturday 302 of the 651 detainees it freed this week were political prisoners whose release had been sought by the National League for Democracy (NLD) party of Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Tunisians Saturday marked the first anniversary of the revolution that started the Arab Spring with celebrations that were true to the spirit of the revolt: raucous, unscripted and driven by the energy of ordinary people.

A whopping 44 percent of all mutual-fund shareholders are baby boomers, according to an Investment Company Institute report. As they take withdrawals from their retirement kitties over the next couple of decades, you're looking at a major, potentially market-altering event.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul has pulled in a big chunk of the votes in both states where Republicans have voted on potential nominees.

United States Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, wounded in a deadly mass shooting on Jan. 8 last year, visited a Tucson area park on Saturday as survivors and residents prepared for the somber anniversary on Sunday.

President Barack Obama, striking a hopeful note in a year-end weekly address, hailed foreign policy milestones while keeping pressure on Congress to further extend payroll tax cuts through the end of 2012.

Ask any behaviorist: Resolutions rarely work. They are too big and sweeping. The minute you fall off the bandwagon, you abandon attempts to climb back on, mostly because you're too busy hating yourself.

Republican White House hopefuls scoured Iowa for undecided voters on Saturday and front-runner Mitt Romney argued that he is the best to take on President Barack Obama as time ran short before the first votes of the 2012 election season.

Iranian state television on Sunday aired what it described as the confession of an Iranian man detained for spying for the CIA.

The fate of an expiring tax break for 160 million American workers was in doubt on Sunday after the top Republican lawmaker declared his opposition to a two-month extension passed overwhelmingly by the Senate.

Vaclav Havel, a dissident playwright jailed by Communists who became Czech president and a worldwide symbol of peace and freedom after leading the bloodless Velvet Revolution, died at 75 on Sunday.

Military police battled demonstrators in Cairo's Tahrir Square early Sunday, the third day of clashes that have killed 10 people and injured hundreds, only days after the first free election most Egyptians can remember.

Hundreds of anti-Wall Street protesters took to New York City's streets on Saturday in an attempt to establish a new encampment, with scores arrested as they tried to move onto church-owned land.

A boat carrying illegal immigrants heading for Australia sank off the coast of East Java in Indonesia and over 300 people were missing with many feared dead, a senior emergency official said.

President Dmitry Medvedev ordered an investigation on Sunday into allegations of fraud in Russia's parliamentary election, one day after tens of thousands of protesters demanded it be annulled and re-run.

Surging front-runner Newt Gingrich fought off heavy attacks in a presidential debate in Iowa on Saturday from Republican rivals who portrayed him as a Washington insider and questioned his judgment.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell predicted on Sunday that Congress will renew a popular payroll tax cut, but it remained unclear how lawmakers will resolve deep differences before the Dec. 31 deadline.

Surging front-runner Newt Gingrich came under heavy fire in a presidential debate in Iowa on Saturday from Republican rivals who portrayed him as a Washington insider who profited from his contacts at taxpayer expense.

A powerful magnitude-6.7 earthquake shook Mexico on Saturday, knocking out lights in parts of the capital and sending people rushing into the streets.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich thrust himself into controversy on Friday by declaring that the Palestinians are an invented people who want to destroy Israel.

A referendum issue that Ohio Democrats hope could help President Barack Obama's chances of winning the battleground state will appear on the November 2012 ballot.

President Barack Obama blasted his Republican foes and Wall Street on Tuesday as he portrayed himself as a champion of the middle class and laid out in the starkest terms yet the populist themes of his 2012 re-election bid.

The recent rise of Gingrich in the polls for the former speaker of the House of Representatives is drawing increased attention to the fact that his own views -- on issues including healthcare, the environment and medical marijuana -- haven't always been in line with those of most conservative Republicans. The inconsistencies have raised questions about Gingrich's true beliefs, as well as his staying power as the conservative of the moment in the Republican campaign. They also have given h...

Iranian media reported on Sunday that their country's military had shot down a U.S. reconnaissance drone in eastern Iran, but a U.S. official said there was no indication the aircraft had been shot down.

Vladimir Putin's ruling party suffered a serious blow in a parliamentary election on Sunday, exit polls showed, as voters signalled growing unease with his domination of Russian politics before a planned return to the presidency next year.

The Republican brand, built on a rock-solid no new tax pledge to voters, is showing a few cracks as internal party divisions erupt in the face of rapidly escalating U.S. government debt.

Iran's military has downed an intruding RQ-170 American drone in eastern Iran, Iran's Arabic-language Al Alam state television network quoted an unnamed source as saying.

Gingrich, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, has support from 25 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers, up from just 7 percent in late October, the poll conducted for The Des Moines Register newspaper found.