Mike Huckabee charmed Iowa with his playful personality, his gift of gab and his success at losing more than 100 pounds. But it was his conservative convictions on abortion and gay marriage that secured the vote of evangelical Christians, about 60 percent of Iowa's Republican turnout. ...more

January 11, 2008

New Year's Eve has been and gone, but for oilmen, the party continues. On Jan. 2, helped across the line by a New York trader eager for bragging rights, the first business day of the year, the price of their product topped $100 a barrel for the first time. Oil is now almost five times more expensive than it was at the beginning of 2002. ...more

January 11, 2008

The 60-year-old Egyptian farmer spent years scraping together $11,000 to bring his wife and son here to perform Islam's hajj pilgrimage. ...more

December 23, 2007

Millions of Muslims marked the zenith of the annual hajj Tuesday, praying for God's forgiveness here on a rocky desert hill, where, in Muslim tradition, Adam and Eve were reunited after leaving Eden. ...more

December 19, 2007

This week's Mideast peace conference is unlike any previous U.S. attempt to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because the price of failure has risen dramatically: Radical Islamists could gain the upper hand in Palestinian areas and in an increasingly polarized Middle East. ...more

November 25, 2007

SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt - Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians sought Thursday to persuade skeptical Arab nations to attend a U.S.-sponsored Mideast peace conference, insisting it could open the door to a Palestinian state in the next year. Saudi Arabia and Syria remain the most important holdouts. ...more

November 23, 2007

Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif will make another attempt to return from exile, his party said Thursday, setting up a new confrontation with President Gen. Pervez Musharraf before Pakistan's critical parliamentary elections. ...more

November 23, 2007

In a bit of last-minute diplomacy, President Bush called the leaders of Israel, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority on Wednesday to discuss details of the U.S. peace conference set to begin in Annapolis, Md., next week, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the goal is to wrap up a peace deal to produce a Palestinian state by the time Bush leaves office. ...more

November 22, 2007

A below the belt fact Did you hear the one about the outsourcing of American jobs? Actually, it is about as funny as if you were to throw a boomerang into the air only to have it come back and hit you in the back of the head. If nothing else, it will surely make you roll your eyes. Or maybe you will roll hysterically in the unemployment line. ...more

November 20, 2007

I thought that price gouging was supposed to be illegal? The price of oil is set by Halliburton, and the rest of the oil cartel, not by the Iraqis, or Saudi Arabia. So why hasn't our elected officials done anything to stop this fleecing of the people? Or are they all bought off by the oil cartel to look the other way? That's just another example of greed and corruption within free enterprise. This is why I am voting all incumbents out of office. Maybe some day our corrupt politicians will get the message that the people are fed up with their corrupt cronyism. ...more

November 17, 2007