WHITE HOUSE

Moammar Gaddafi has sent U.S. President Barack Obama a three-page letter in which he asked the western coalition to stop bombing Libya.

Us Weekly is reporting that Bristol Palin made $262,000 as an abstinence ambassador. Palin made the money as the Candie's Foundation's spokeswoman.

'Nonstop' negotiations on passing a federal budget for the remainder of the fiscal year were continuing ahead of a Friday deadline to avert a shutdown of a big portion of the government, as House Republicans and Senate Democrats allied with President Obama sought to break an impasse that could put hundreds of thousands of workers on leave without funding in place.

If a shutdown does begin after a Friday deadline passes, hundreds of thousands of federal employees would be furloughed, tax refunds from paper-based filers would not be processed and federal loans for small businesses and new federal home loans would not be processed, Senior Obama Administration officials said on Wednesday.

As the Friday deadline approaches for Congress to decide on funding the federal government, past experience shows that a shutdown in the government would necessitate furloughing many employees not directly related to saving lives or protecting property, with the exception of programs which have multi-year funding such as Social Security.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY on Wednesday said some progress was made in afternoon talks Tuesday meant to break an impasse on the 2011 fiscal year federal budget between House Republicans and Senate Democrats ahead of another possible meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House.

President Barack Obama and the Republican Congressional leaders, who met at the White House a for a marathon discussion on the proposed budget cuts, failed on Tuesday to resolve the crisis which now threatens a government shutdown in a week's time.

The White House, locked in a battle on the 2011 budget, weighed in on the 2012 Republican proposal unveiled on Tuesday, saying it did not do enough to spread the sacrifice needed to reduce the federal budget deficit in the coming years.

President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that if House and Senate leaders could not reach a deal on the 2011 fiscal budget, he wants to meet with them again Wednesday until the matter is settled.

House Speaker John Boehner did not reach a deal at a meeting at the White House with President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats to fund the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year, his office said on Tuesday.

President Barack Obama has invited House and Senate lawmakers to the White House for Tuesday talks on the federal budget as a Friday deadline to agree to fund the federal government for the next six months, averting shutdown of some services.

Congress is looking ahead to negotiating the 2012 federal budget as a deal nears on the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year budget, with House Republican leadership outlining its goals and a top Democrat saying the Tea Party has had some effect on previous budget talks, but said lawmakers misread their own constituents in seeking larger cuts than were possible in the 2011 fiscal year.

U.S. forces will significantly dilute their role in Libya though they played crucial role in the first phase of Operation Odyssey Dawn, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told the House Armed Services Committee.

The star-studded Christie's Green Auction: Bid to Save the Earth which took place at Rockefeller Center in New York on March 29, raised a staggering $1.4 million.

A top NATO official on Thursday said there is no purely military solution to the crisis in Libya, as the coalition of North American and European nations took control of protecting civilians while rebels fighting Gaddafi-backed forces suffered setbacks after gains earlier in the week and talk of arming them grew.

Amidst reports that Libyan rebels are retreating in the face of the superior firepower of Moammar Gaddafi’s armies, the head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has ruled out the possibility of providing weapons to the beleaguered rebel groups.

President Barack Obama on Monday accepted an award celebrating transparency in government in a meeting closed to the press.

President Barack Obama told U.S. students on Wednesday that with rapid growth in China and India, global demand for energy will continue to increase and a solution for reducing U.S. dependence on imported oil would require long term solutions, setting out goals for reducing oil imports and boosting the use of alternative electricity sources decades from now.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday is expected present a vision of decline for the U.S. oil industry in next two decades, highlighting its lack of development at existing land leases as the country shifts to other 'Clean Energy' industries linked to nuclear power, 'clean coal,' natural gas, biofuels, wind and solar power.

The new program drastically reduces the cost of licensing any of the roughly 15,000 patents held by the federal government's National Laboratories.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev spoke by phone on Thursday morning, discussing developments in the Middle East at length, with a particular focus on Libya, the White House said.