WHITE HOUSE

President Barack Obama and presumptive GOP candidate Mitt Romney shifted their election campaigns to some heavily contested states this week, where polls show Democrats have a narrow lead.

Catholic Church officials, Republicans and other conservatives have blasted the inclusion of artificial birth control, which is against church doctrine, in the list of services that must be covered at no cost to the insured under President Obama's health care overhaul.

Rafalca, the 15-year-old Dutch warmblood mare co-owned by Anne Romney, U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney's wife, competed Thursday in the Individual Dressage at the 2012 London Olympics.

President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for the Syrian rebels, U.S. sources familiar with the matter tell Reuters.

Unconventional times require unconventional measures, and with the U.S. economy growing at a truly tepid rate, perhaps it's time to try an innovative fiscal stimulus proposal recommended by an economist about three years ago.

Ted Cruz's victory, a significant win for the Tea Party, shows the group is gaining momentum. What thta means is that even a President Romney shouldn't expect "get along" votes from the Republican right wing

The numbers released by the White House Friday on a Friday report of the future direction of the U.S. economy look optimistic when compared to economist predictions also included in the report.

Democrats and Republicans in Congress reached a deal on Tuesday to fund federal government activities through next March and eliminate any threat of agency shutdowns that could upset voters ahead of the November 6 presidential and congressional elections.

Cocaine use is down in the United States and production is down in Colombia, but is America really winning the war on drugs?

On the heels of a gruesome theater shooting in Colorado and with estimates that 48,000 Americans could be killed by guns in the next four years, two Democratic lawmakers have proposed a legislation to ban the online sales of ammunition in order to prevent potential mass murderers from stocking up.

"This is not only damaging us but the whole [Russian] judicial system. It's a disgrace," one of Pussy Riot's lawyers, Nikolai Polozov, commented at the start of the trial on Monday.

Romney and Obama essentially have identical stances on Iran, but the Republican candidate has tried to appear more hawkish when it comes to defending Israel.

Romney praised Israel's "economic vitality" by comparing it to the Palestinian Authority, a comment that quickly elicited criticism for comparing a powerful Middle Eastern state to a population that has been living for years under a blockade.

Although most fans will probably focus on how Olympians perform during the events, many of the athletes themselves look forward to the Olympic Games as much for the "social" activities as for the competition.

The Salt Lake City Police Department was flooded from phone calls from reporters on Friday after the Drudge Report linked a story about how a man stopped another man's stabbing rampage in a Salt Lake City. Though the linked article from the Drudge Report front page was clearly published on April 26, many reporters did not take notice and published the news as if it had occurred the night before.

Romney's blunders at the 2012 London Olympics threaten to jeopardize one of his campaign's biggest arguments -- his successful leadership of the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics in Utah.

Columns of tanks, helicopter gunships and fixed-wing fighter jets have been witnesses in or near Aleppo, raising concerns that escalating skirmishes between loyalists and rebels was about to get much worse for the city's 2.1 million residents.

Does the British hierarchy think Romney will be "their man" in Washington this time next year? Is Whitehall hoping to make good the "special relationship" that has become a little tired under Obama?

If "How I Met Your Mother" decides to end the series with their upcoming eighth season then viewers are going to need to turn to another series for laughs. Luckily "HIMYM" producer Rob Greenberg has just the right comedy solution for fans - his new series "Ex-Men."

Any hope that Mitt Romney's trip abroad would provide a respite from the candidate's chronic foot-in-mouth disease dissipated almost instantaneously, with the campaign once again in damage-control mode.

Amid reports that Islamic fundamentalists are trying to hijack the Syrian revolution, which have raised concerns among U.S. intelligence and Iraqi officials, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov slammed Washington's position over the Damascus bombing that killed several top Syrian officials, as "a direct whitewashing of terrorism."