GEORGE W. BUSH

The year began with a shooting in Tucson, Ariz., that left six people dead and 14, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, injured, and it ended with the last troops coming home from Iraq. It began with Congress deadlocked over spending and taxes and ended with Congress, well, deadlocked over spending and taxes.

JibJab's Elf Yourself holiday greeting card has proven itself to be an insurmountable (and hilarious) Christmastime staple.

The International Business Times has compiled comprehensive profiles of the top seven Republican presidential candidates, with complete rundowns of their political positions, from Rick Santorum on abortion to Newt Gingrich on taxes. These profiles will be updated as the primary campaign continues.

Whether it involves embarrassing tweets, tone-deaf CEOs or even the disappearance of money, some oops moments need be relived just one more time.

Reportedly, the first defector from the hermit state arrived in the U.S. in the spring of 2006.

Why has Bill Clinton finally agreed to be interviewed by Bill O'Reilly on The O'Reilly Factor? Perhaps it's a last-minute push for his recent book, Back to Work, as a Christmas gift?

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, revered at home by a propaganda machine that turned him into a demi-god and vilified in the West as a temperamental tyrant with a nuclear arsenal, has died, North Korean state television reported Monday.

Rick Santorum is struggling to convince Republicans that he is a viable all-around candidate and not just a stalwart social conservative. Here are his positions on a wide range of topics, from social issues to the economy to foreign policy.

British-born journalist and atheist intellectual Christopher Hitchens, who made the United States his home and backed the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, died on Thursday at the age of 62.

Christopher Hitchens, an Anglo-American author, journalist and pundit, died Thursday night at the age of 62, after fighting a long battle with esophageal cancer.

The Iraq War's end was celebrated at Baghdad International Airport with a few thousand troops on hand for a symbolic ceremony in which the flag of U.S. Forces-Iraq was officially retired, or cased, according to Army tradition. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and several other military leaders, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey and Gen. Lloyd Austin, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, made remarks.

Militants are also charged with making threats against Riccardo Pacifici, the head of Rome’s Jewish community.

Christine O'Donnell may think a lawn gnome can beat Barack Obama next year, but a new Reuters/Ipsos poll says otherwise. If the general election were held today, the poll found, Obama would beat Newt Gingrich by 13 percentage points and Mitt Romney by 8 points.

A new attack ad on Massachusetts U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren mistakenly frames the well-known liberal as a friend to Wall Street bankers.

As U.S. troops prepare for departure from Iraq, President Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met at the White House Monday for talks focusing on the future relationship between the two countries.

The 2012 election has witnessed a revival of Republican antipathy for the federal Department of Education, a longtime target of Republican calls to curtail government. What would happen if we did away with the federal Department of Education?

At one point, the cowboy-boot wearing huckster from the Lone Star State was the darling of the GOP's right, before shoddy debate performances and a goofy stump speech in New Hampshire sent his poll numbers plummeting. Now Perry has adopted a hyper-Christian posture in a last ditch effort at garnering support from Iowa's Evangelical base of Republican voters.

A U.S. appeals court appeared skeptical on Thursday toward attempts by California gay marriage opponents to overturn a landmark court decision because the judge overseeing the case did not disclose his own long-term homosexual relationship.

President Barack Obama needs several factors to break his way to improve his chance for re-election in 2012 -- the most important of which is U.S. job growth.

The health secretary overruled government scientists and refused to bring the controversial morning-after pill from behind the pharmacy counter and onto drugstore shelves.

Elian González, the center of a heated custody controversy between the U.S. and Cuban government in 2000, turned 18 Tuesday, according to reports. Here's a look at him over the years.