BARACK OBAMA

The Treasury Department is considering giving banks and investors billions of dollars in fresh incentives to modify troubled mortgages and save homeowners from foreclosure, sources familiar with official deliberations said.

President Barack Obama nudged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday to accept the goal of a Palestinian state, as he pressed Israel and the Palestinians to step back from the abyss.

The Treasury Department is considering giving banks and investors billions of dollars in fresh incentives to modify troubled mortgages and save homeowners from foreclosure, sources familiar with official deliberations said.

President Barack Obama left the door open on Tuesday to prosecuting some U.S. officials who laid the legal groundwork for harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects during the Bush administration.

A teenager Somali pirate arrived to face court hearing Tuesday in New York what are believed to be the first piracy charges in the United States in more than a century.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged Israel and the Palestinians to step back from the abyss, saying he expected good faith gestures from both sides in coming months as part of a bid to revive stalled peace efforts.

France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner criticized the United States Tuesday for boycotting a United Nations conference where Iran's president launched a verbal attack on Israel.

President Barack Obama will participate in a meeting on Thursday with executives of U.S. credit card companies, the White House said.

What's in a handshake? The clasping of hands by President Barack Obama and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has set off a debate over what kind of signal Obama was sending.

President Barack Obama on Monday proposed a $100 billion U.S. loan to the International Monetary Fund to boost the IMF's resources and urged a bigger stake in the IMF for emerging powers.

The New York Times dominated the Pulitzer Prizes announced on Monday, winning five of the coveted awards for investigative, breaking news and international reporting, feature photography and criticism.

President Barack Obama in a meeting with his cabinet on Monday asked his government to cut the US federal budget by $100 million dollars.

U.S. President Barak Obama, speaking at the close of the Summit of the Americas on Sunday said the relations between U.S. and Cuba need to be backed up by action not simply words.

Russia responded cautiously on Monday to U.S. President Barack Obama's plans for a nuclear-free world, saying a number of conditions would need to be met for the vision to become reality.

President Obama convenes his first formal Cabinet meeting Monday and asked department and agency chiefs to find way to cut $100 million out of the federal budget over the next 90 days, a senior administration official said.

President Barack Obama will challenge government agencies to cut $100 million in spending when he holds his first Cabinet meeting on Monday, an administration official said.

The chairmen of two Senate committees drafting legislation to overhaul healthcare told President Barack Obama on Monday they were working together to have bills ready by early June.

A speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling Israel a racist state was vile and fed racial hatred but did not preclude U.S.-Iranian diplomatic contacts, the United States said on Monday.

Oil slid more than 8 percent to around $46 a barrel on Monday, depressed by a rising U.S. dollar and growing caution about the pace of any economic recovery and its impact on oil demand.

If President Barack Obama needed a reminder that times have changed in the Americas, his fellow presidents gave him one when Air Force One touched down in Trinidad and Tobago for a regional summit.

The head of Iran's judiciary ordered a careful, quick and fair consideration of an appeal against the eight-year jail sentence imposed on an Iranian-American journalist, the judiciary said on Monday.