WORLD

With four days remaining until the United States hits its debt limit, President Barack Obama on Friday told deeply divided Republicans and Democrats to stop bickering and find a way "out of this mess."

The Russian Federal space agency has retracted a decision to sink the International Space Station (ISS) in the Pacific Ocean, after an international uproar over the plan.

Officials with the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms did not inform the White House of a disastrous program that allowed weapons to flow to violent Mexican drug cartels.

Bilal Zaheer Ahmad, 23, from Wolverhampton in the West Midlands was also sentenced for other offenses related to terrorism.

The fast food joint offers its French customers a taste of home.

President Barack Obama is deeply involved in trying to win a debt deal and his White House was working flat out, aides said, pushing back against any impression Congress had sidelined the administration.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Friday said that he "cannot wait any longer" for the Republican-led House of Representatives to act on a debt limit increase and he will begin taking steps to move legislation.

The man who hit Rupert Murdoch with a pie has been convicted of harassment.

Eric Schmidt, the executive chairmen and former chief executive of search engine giant Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) will testify before Congress on September 21, reportedly to discuss the company?s business practices and competition.

The Speaker struggles to hold his party together.

Police believe the AWOL American soldier accused of planning a bombing and shooting spree outside Fort Hood, Texas was inspired by al Qaeda.

New medical devices that are hazardous or ineffective have made it onto the market because of a regulatory loophole, a report by the U.S. Institute of Medicine charged.

Majority whip Dick Durbin of Illinois said that the federal government needs to focus strategically on the long-term budget consequences of extreme weather events, which are increasing in severity and frequency.

China's state news agency criticized the United States for its reckless "game of chicken."

The U.S. economy grew at a slow-crawl pace in the first half of this year, slower than economists had expected. Unemployment remains high also. Until companies stop hoarding cash and start hiring again, the environment isn't likely to change soon.

"In the [budget review] we planned for ? a 25 percent reduction in the cost of civilian personnel by 2015, bringing the size of the MoD civil service down to a total of some 60,000 civilian posts."

The debt deal saga is becoming a defining moment for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Not only is the Singaporean Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, the highest paid elected leader in the world (bringing home a cool $2.4-million per year), but most of his top ministers earn in excess of $1-million annually (not including generous perks and pensions).

The debate over how humans supplanted Neanderthals may have a simple solution: there were more of us.

The U.S. Commerce Department reported Friday that the U. S. economy barely grew at all in revised numbers for the first quarter of this year.

Norway is in mourning Friday, as the nation holds memorial and funeral services for the 76 victims of last week's attacks.

Predictions about al-Qaeda's imminent collapse threaten to lull the U.S. into a false sense of complacency about the continued threat the terror network represents, a recently retired top counter-terrorism aide said.

Indiana state lawmakers, who are analyzing the implications of amending its drug laws to decriminalize marijuana, were told by a panel of experts that the prohibition of marijuana in U.S. is a failed model and Indiana stands a chance to benefit from decriminalizing marijuana.

With less than five days until a U.S. Government default, incredibly, neither House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, nor Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has a bill capable of attracting the bipartisan support needed to raise the debt ceiling. And understandably, financial markets are getting more nervous by the day.

Republican leaders will scramble to rescue their budget deficit-cutting plan on Friday after conservatives mounted a rebellion that heaped uncertainty on efforts to avert a catastrophic debt default.

Combined Honduran and U.S. naval forces recovered 2.5 metric tons of cocaine from a submarine intercepted on its way from Colombia to the United States, authorities said Thursday.

China's latest crackdown on intellectual property piracy has netted more than 20,000 fake Tibetan-language text books, 90,000 copies of a well-known Chinese film as well as porn films, state media said on Friday.

Urgent efforts to avoid an unprecedented U.S. debt default suffered a new blow on Thursday when some fiscally hardline Republicans blocked a budget deficit plan proposed by their own congressional leaders.

Eman al-Obaidy, an alleged rape victim from Libya who fled the country and is currently staying in the U.S., remained tight-lipped though she publicly accused Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces of gang-raping her in March.