BARACK OBAMA

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.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prompted a walkout from his speech to a U.N. racism summit on Monday when he accused Israel of racism against the Palestinians.

Oil fell more than 6 percent to around $47 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.

U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said on Monday more talk and deeper trust were needed to defuse nuclear disputes with North Korea and Iran, and urged Washington to stick to dialogue with both states.

Al Qaeda's second-in-command told Muslims not to be fooled by U.S. President Barack Obama's policies which, he said on an Islamist website on Monday, are no different to those of his predecessor, George W. Bush.

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on Sunday the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba must go, but he was mum on his brother Raul Castro's recent offer to talk with Washington about everything, including political prisoners and human rights.

President Barack Obama plans to crack down on deceptive credit-card industry practices that have saddled U.S. consumers with huge debts and soaring interest rates, U.S. officials said on Sunday.

Barack Obama's presidency has been a wild ride for the U.S. Congress and lawmakers are bracing for more turbulence when they begin returning on Monday to tackle an array of tough issues from healthcare to energy.

Wall Street was set to fall at the open on Monday on worries that problems persist for the struggling banking sector and after Bank of America's results relied heavily on one-time items as credit quality deteriorated markedly.