It surely has been an eventful year with popular uprisings, dictators being deposed or slain, royal marriages, celebrity divorces, and thrilling sports achievements, so here's a look at some of the top moments of 2011 as compiled by the IBTimes.
Republican candidate Michele Bachmann's Iowa campaign chairman resigned Wednesday and endorsed rival Ron Paul, six days before Iowa voters begin the nomination process to select the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.
A majority of voters still support the controversial Canada-to-Texas oil sands pipeline as the Obama administration again weighs whether to approve or scrap the project, according to a poll released on Wednesday.
In a year filled with partisan strife, economic calamities and foreign policy conundrums, picking President Barack Obama's biggest achievements feels darned near impossible. But whittle away lowlights and a rather substantive list remains.
The United States warned the Iranian government that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz will not be tolerated after Iran threatened to do so if sanctions were put in place.
They can make in a month what the average worker earns in a lifetime. Many go about in private jets, employ multiple secretaries and glad-hand dignitaries and world leaders. Perched at the top of major corporations around the world, the chief executive officer blazes trails, inspires awe and commands attention. But under such immense scrutiny, when the CEO slips, the rest of the world takes notice.
Rick Perry, who said last month that he supported abortion in cases of rape or incest, told an Iowa pastor on Tuesday that he had undergone a transformation and now opposed abortion without exceptions.
Who will be the five people to shape 2012? It could be anyone on list, or it could be none of them. Such is the state of geopolitics at this important moment in history.
President Barack Obama will nominate Harvard economist Jeremy Stein and Jerome Powell, an investment banker and former Treasury official, to the two empty seats on the Federal Reserve's policy-setting board of governors.
President Barack Obama will nominate Harvard economist Jeremy Stein and Jerome Powell, an investment banker and former Treasury official, to the two empty seats on the Federal Reserve's policy-setting board of governors.
In the latest survey, 47 percent of America approve how Obama is doing his job. The results are the highest for Obama, the Democratic president seeking a second term, since July of this year. Also, it's a five percent improvement since the last Gallup survey, taken Dec. 16-18.
The Obama administration plans to seek an increase in the nation's borrowing power, less than half a year after a debt ceiling debate cost the U.S. its stellar credit rating and brought government to a dead halt.
The Obama administration is debating allowing Yemen's outgoing president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to travel to the U.S. for medical treatment, a senior administration official said Monday.
In a 2006 newsletter from his former consulting company, the Center for Health Transformation, Newt Gingrich praised Mitt Romney's Massachusetts health care plan, and specifically the individual mandate.
Both Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich have been ousted from the primary after failing to collect enough valid signatures to run, and while Perry's campaign has been over for months, the loss of Super Tuesday state Virginia for Gingrich is a devastating blow. Months after he was declared dead-on-arrival, is Gingrich's comeback already over?
U.S. President Barack Obama's campaign set a goal of raising $60 million in the fourth quarter of the year to benefit the Democratic incumbent's re-election and the Democratic National Committee, a campaign official said on Saturday.
After 44 presidents and well over two centuries, Americans have spent a great deal of time ranking their current and former leaders. Names like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln naturally rise to the top after benefiting from the kindness of history and a sense of mammoth achievement. But what of the last eight decades or so?
Huge U.S. corporations are forming lobbying groups to try to influence what could become the hottest congressional debate over comprehensive tax reform in a generation.
President Barack Obama has options to kill or delay the Canada-to-Texas oil sands pipeline despite language in the payroll tax bill that forces him to make a decision on a permit by late February.
Nearly all 2012 Republican candidates - Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and others - claim they are fiscal conservatives. That is, they promise to cut the U.S. national debt through reduced government spending.
The year began with a shooting in Tucson, Ariz., that left six people dead and 14, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, injured, and it ended with the last troops coming home from Iraq. It began with Congress deadlocked over spending and taxes and ended with Congress, well, deadlocked over spending and taxes.
Congress approved a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, after a prolonged partisan battle on Capitol Hill. The stop-gap measure buys Congress and the White House more time to negotiate a longer-term extension.
