President Bush said Tuesday the United States and Europe must rally to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, calling the threat an incredible danger to world peace.

President Bush, beginning a splashy farewell trip to Europe, expressed both concern and confidence Monday about the U.S. economy, shaken by soaring energy prices, rising unemployment and a severe credit crunch.

Senate Republicans on Friday blocked a global warming bill that would have required major reductions in greenhouse gases, after a bitter debate over its economic costs and whether it would substantially raise gasoline and other energy prices.

Barack Obama met privately with Hillary Rodham Clinton, a likely vice presidential candidate, as the Democratic nominee-in-waiting sought to unite his fractured party against Republican John McCain in November.

In an extraordinary shake-up, the Air Force’s top uniformed and civilian officials are leaving their jobs, U.S. officials said Thursday after an internal report on a mistaken shipment to Taiwan of warhead fuses for nuclear missiles pointed substantial blame at the Air Force.

Barack Obama is fond of using a four-letter word to describe John McCain: Bush.

Hillary Rodham Clinton will end on Saturday her historic bid to become the first woman president but Barack Obama said he won’t be hurried into a decision on whether to make her his running mate.

John McCain challenged Barack Obama to join him in 10 town-hall meetings with voters before the Democratic convention in August.

Barack Obama effectively clinched the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, becoming the first black candidate to lead a major party into a campaign for the White House. Vanquished rival Hillary Rodham Clinton swiftly signaled an interest in joining the ticket as running mate.

Hillary Rodham Clinton told colleagues Tuesday she would be consider joining Barack Obama as his running mate, and advisers said she was withholding a formal departure from the race partly to use her remaining leverage to press for a spot on the ticket.

Hillary Rodham Clinton will concede Tuesday night that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign officials said, effectively ending her bid to be the nation’s first female president.

History within his reach, Barack Obama was primed to claim the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday or soon after as voters in Montana and South Dakota bring his months-long contest with dogged rival Hillary Rodham Clinton to a close. Clinton appeared ready to bow to the inevitable and spare the party an even more protracted fight.

As Barack Obama turns to concentrate on his general election challenge, his rival Hillary Rodham Clinton is mounting a last ditch campaign to stay relevant in what is left of the Democratic presidential contest.

Opposition surfaced Thursday against Gov. David Paterson’s directive to state agencies to recognize gay marriages legally performed in other states and countries.

Gay rights advocates had reason to celebrate on both coasts Thursday, with New York set to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere and California preparing to begin issuing marriage licenses to gay couples on June 17.

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan defended his bombshell book about the Bush administration on Thursday, saying he didn’t object to the selling of the war in Iraq at the time because he, like other Americans, gave the president the benefit of the doubt.

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that President Bush relied on an aggressive “political propaganda campaign” instead of the truth to sell the Iraq war, and that the decision to invade pushed Bush’s presidency “terribly off course.‘

A Democratic Party rules committee has the authority to seat some delegates from Michigan and Florida but not fully restore the two states as Hillary Rodham Clinton wants, according to party lawyers.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said Tuesday that he doesn’t believe Hillary Clinton will take her fight for the Democratic presidential nomination all the way to the party’s national convention in August.

Virginia Sen. John Warner is joining another lawmaker asking the federal government to conserve fuel as gas prices rise.

An internal audit of some $8 billion paid to U.S. and Iraqi contractors found that nearly every transaction failed to comply with federal laws or regulations aimed at preventing fraud, in some cases lacking even basic invoices explaining how the money was spent.

“This is taking care of the people who have taken care of us,“ Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va. said after the Senate passed the bill 75 to 22 in one of its last votes before the Memorial Day break.

Senate Republicans have broken with President Bush to help Democrats add support for veterans and the unemployed to a bill paying for another year of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

A cancerous brain tumor caused the seizure Sen. Edward M. Kennedy suffered over the weekend, doctors said Tuesday in a grim diagnosis for one of American politics’ most enduring figures.

New York Rep. Vito Fossella said Tuesday he will not seek re-election as a result of “personal mistakes,“ a decision that comes after a drunken driving arrest and disclosure that he fathered a child in an extramarital affair.

Voters weighed in Tuesday in primaries in Oregon and Kentucky, as a top Barack Obama adviser urged Democrats to unite behind the Illinois senator for the fall campaign and bring the marathon contest for the presidential nomination to a close.

Even as same-sex couples across California begin making plans to tie the knot, opponents are redoubling their efforts to make sure wedding bells never again ring for gay couples in the nation’s most populous state.

The Saudi-American relationship began in the 1940s with a simple bargain: Saudi Arabia offered oil in return for U.S. protection. The United States became the kingdom’s biggest trading partner and the Saudis became the biggest buyers of U.S. weapons. Many Saudis sent their children to American schools.

Hours after being routed by Hillary Rodham Clinton in West Virginia, Barack Obama picked up two more superdelegates, offering fresh recognition from Democratic leaders of his inevitable nomination.

The movement of Democratic superdelegates to presidential hopeful Barack Obama gained steam Friday with endorsements from a union president and two congressmen, including one who switched his backing from rival Hillary Rodham Clinton.