WHITE HOUSE

Taiwan tested as many as 19 air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles even as Chinese President Hu Jintao was due to meet President Obama for a summit meeting.

Chinese President Hu Jintao on Tuesday flew to the United States for a state visit buffeted before he even lands by senior U.S. senators demanding tough action against China for manipulating its currency.

During an appearance on CBS TV’s Face the Nation program on Sunday, Rudy Giuliani did not the rule out the possibility of again running for the White House in 2012, despite an aborted Presidential bid in 2008.

Pentagon is not completely opposed to social media, as seen by its latest announcement stating that the Department intends to fully utilize these communication tools.

Cuba said on Sunday that U.S. President Barack Obama's move to relax more U.S. travel restrictions to the island was a positive step but did little to soften the decades-old trade embargo.

As President Barack Obama vowed to loosen the travel restrictions on US citizens for traveling to Cuba, his decision has drawn criticism from Cuban-American senators.

President Barack Obama stressed U.S. support for Pakistan during a meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday and reiterated plans to visit Pakistan later this year, the White House said.

Tunisian President Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali stepped aside on Friday after failing to quell the worst anti-government unrest in his two decades in power.

The expected vote on whether to repeal the health reform law comes less than a year after it was passed strictly along partisan lines last March.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), the federal agency, which oversees U.S. offshore drilling, has allowed Shell Offshore Inc. and 12 other oil and gas companies to resume deepwater drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico without the need to submit revised exploration or development plans for supplemental National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews.

China will not bow to foreign demand for faster gains in the yuan and will stick to its gradualist approach in currency reform, senior officials said on Friday, indicating Chinese President Hu Jintao may push back if President Barack Obama presses him on the issue next week.

Sarah Palin will probably never become President of the U.S. because she does not have an Ivy League education.

A Republican lawmaker says his party's push last week to cut the Congressional budget and match new spending with spending cuts elsewhere was just the beginning of a push to keep cutting.

The United States wants a real, demonstrative commitment from China that it is serious about shifting away from export-led economic growth, a U.S. official told Reuters on Tuesday ahead of next week's state visit by China's Hu Jintao.

The attempted assassination of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-AZ, and the murder of six innocent bystanders, at a “meet and greet” with constituents on Jan. 8, was a shocking and tragic event nationwide. Unfortunately, trying to kill American politicians is neither unique nor new.

Statistics released by the People’s Bank of China on Tuesday showed the Chinese forex kitty is bursting at seams with an 18.6 percent growth in 2010 which made it zoom to a record $2.85 trillion.

Arnold Fields, who was in-charge of investigating corruption from the United States, has resigned.

The presidents of the United States and the United States’ oldest ally, France, met today in Washington, and offered condolences to each other for recent violent tragedies suffered by each nation.

One of Jared Loughner’s favorite books, according to the 22-year-old Arizona assassin’s YouTube profile, is Gulliver’s Travels. So, my theory is that Irish satirists put him up to it.

Data showed on Monday the Chinese trade surplus narrowed in December, easing the conflict between Beijing and Washington over rising U.S. trade deficit even as Chinese President Hu Jintao is scheduled to meet President Obama in the White House on January 19.

The Democratic White House and the Republicans who control the House of Representatives each found the December jobs figures released today mildly encouraging. While the administration, however, took credit for the steady albeit slow improvement, the new Republican chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee said the plodding economy points up the need to change failed administration policies.