Exhorting world leaders to push past years of cynicism and pessimism, President Barack Obama challenged the countries of the United Nations on Thursday to unite around peace efforts that he said could achieve agreement within a year to create an independent Palestine and a secure Israel.

OBAMA PROPOSES TAX BREAKS FOR BUSINESS. $200B through 2011...read more

The Muslim woman sentenced to death for adultery was also lashed 99 times in public for a picture that ran in a London newspaper of her without a veil. But...here's the thing, the picture wasn't her.

General Petraeus said the Gainsville, Florida church with the scheduled "Quran burning", is putting our troops in danger...

President Obama knows just what the doctor ordered when it comes to kick-starting the economy ---- another stimulus. He proposed another $50B to spur infrastructure jobs...

Al Gore became the first VP to ever have an LA school named after him...but there's a catch. The campus is built on contaminated land. Sorry Al...

Obama wants some respect from the GOP and feels like Boehner treats him 'like a dog'...

The Dems have a new plan to keep the house in November ---- run away from Obama and all his policies. You wonder if Obama will still invite Pelosi over for tea after she spends the next two months badmouthing him...

There are labor strikes going on in London and Paris to protest the raising of the retirement age...trains, planes, busses, schools, post offices and subways are all shut down...

A suicide bomber and gunmen wearing military uniforms attacked a hotel near Somalia's presidential palace Monday, sparking a running gun battle with security forces. At least 32 people were killed, including six Somali parliamentarians. A parliamentarian who was at the Muna Hotel said there were "dead bodies all over" and he labeled the scene a massacre.

Israel has "eight days" to launch a military strike against Iran's Bushehr nuclear facility and stop Tehran from acquiring a functioning atomic plant, a former US envoy to the UN has said. Iran is to bring online its first nuclear power reactor, built with Russia's help, on August 21, when a shipment of nuclear fuel will be loaded into the plant's core.

Japan lost its place as the world's No. 2 economy to China in the second quarter as receding global growth sapped momentum and stunted a shaky recovery. Gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of just 0.4 percent, the government said Monday, far below the annualized 4.4 percent expansion in the first quarter and adding to evidence the global recovery is facing strong headwinds.

One passenger was killed when an airplane crashed in bad weather and broke apart when attempting to land early Monday on the island of San Andres, Colombia, officials said. National police said 124 people were injured, many of them scattered on the darkened runway when emergency personnel arrived in the predawn hours. Six people, including an 18-month-old boy, were not injured, the national police said.

North Korea's military threatened Sunday to launch the "severest punishment" against South Korea for staging massive joint war games with the United States this week. The North's army and people will "deal a merciless counterblow" to the allies "as it had already resolved and declared at home and abroad", a spokesman for the country's army General Staff said in a statement published by state media.

Russia's nuclear agency said Friday that it will load fuel into Iran's first nuclear power plant next week, defying U.S. calls to hold off. Rosatom spokesman Sergei Novikov said Friday that uranium fuel shipped by Russia will be loaded into the Bushehr reactor on Aug. 21, beginning the startup process. "From that moment the Bushehr plant will be officially considered a nuclear-energy installation," he told The AP. Read more...