A doctor. A cop. A little girl. A Phillies fan.

Vice President Joe Biden returned to Iraq Monday to mark this week's formal end to U.S. combat operations and push the country's leaders to end a six-month postelection stalemate blocking formation of a new government. 

The air is quickly coming out of the recovery balloon, and economists have mixed views on how to pump it back up.

Faced with data showing the economy is growing sparingly, President Obama on Monday called for a "full-scale attack" to revive the struggling economy and urged lawmakers fixated on the November election to pass another aid package for small businesses. 

Conservative commentator Glenn Beck says his revival-style rally at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday was about restoring America's honor and returning to the values on which it was founded.

If current polls are a guide, the midterm elections probably won't be good for President Obama and his party. The Democrats are in danger of losing control of the House of Representatives and of seeing their majority in the Senate diminish.

Americans spent last month at the fastest pace in four months, helped by a jump in demand for automobiles. 

Faced with mounting debt and looming costs from the new federal health-care law, many local governments are leaving the hospital business, shedding public facilities that can be the caregiver of last resort.

President Obama says he isn't worried about a recent poll showing that nearly one-fifth of Americans believe he is a Muslim.

Calling the federal response to Hurricane Katrina "a shameful breakdown in government," President Obama said officials are looking ahead to avoid a repeat when future disasters strike.

The U.S. State Department on Sunday issued a statement criticizing an Israeli rabbi who reportedly wished God would send a plague to kill off all Palestinians, including the "evil hater of Israel," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Crist, Meek Tout Economic Plans as Rubio Laments Obama Policies

The Delaware House seat being vacated by Rep. Mike Castle is a potential pick-up this fall, Democrats hope.

The controversial ex-pastor to President Obama spared no criticism of those who question the president's faith, saying they will attack anyone who disagrees with the Iraq war.

 President Obama is in New Orleans celebrating the city's revival from Hurricane Katrina and pledging common purpose with residents in the continuing struggle to protect and rebuild the Gulf Coast.

Conservative commentator Glenn Beck says his weekend revival-style rally was meant to reclaim the U.S. civil rights movement "from politics."

The federal government is driving the nation into bankruptcy, and Alaska's resources should be turned out of federal hands to save the state and the nation, Alaska Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller said Sunday.

Alaska's political leadership has spent decades touting its ability to bring federal dollars back from Washington. But the man who may have unseated incumbent Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski in last week's primary says forget the cash -- he'd rather have real estate.

If you own a big tech firm, you aren't Microsoft, and you weren't named in the patent lawsuit filed this week by Paul Allen's Interval Licensing, well... you're probably looking deep into your soul today and asking where it all went wrong. If you aren't a defendant - which includes AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google and Yahoo! - why not? After all, the technology in dispute is, according to Interval, "fundamental to the ways that leading e-commerce and search companies operate today." Dammit, you say to yourself. Maybe you aren't one of those leading e-commerce and search companies. Sponsor Wait: most of your work is with open-source software. Like Java! Maybe that's why you aren't being sued by anyone. Aw, dammit. Ah, well. Maybe it's for the best. Not everyone can be on the A-list or in land of corporate jets, gargantuan mergers and stratospheric lawsuits. Hell, if it weren't for those of us on the B-list (or, in my case, somewhere way down in the YYs), there wouldn't be an A-list. So chin up. With a little more work, a few game-changing innovations and - yes - some luck, someday you, too, could be on the receiving end of a lawsuit big enough to alter global currency markets. Good luck with that! More Noise to Signal. Discuss

On the 47th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington on Saturday, the first sight on the National Mall for thousands of marchers was a four-story art installation that displayed four images and quotations of Martin Luther King Jr..