It's important for the president of the United States to get as much information from as many sources as possible, but Obama may be overdoing it. His Twitter account — the third most popular, after Lady Gaga's and Justin Bieber's — has signed up for updates from 697,726 people, more than anyone else on the entire site. In addition to security briefings from the Director of National Intelligence and jobs reports from the Office of Management and Budget, the President ...

Recently the University of Wisconsin and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released its second annual County Health Rankings, a within-state comparison of county health covering each county in every state the United States. Newspapers and TV news programs jumped all over the results — particularly local outlets serving counties that were ranked comparatively lower than their neighbors. "If you are looking for a healthy county, head north," read a March 30 article in the Inland Valley ...

Afghanistan has been something of a forgotten war in recent months because of the world's preoccupation with Libya and Egypt and the wave of antigovernment protests spreading throughout the Middle East. That will soon change, now that the Obama Administration is stepping up talks with the Taliban in an effort to come up with some peaceable endgame to the half-trillion-dollar war. Part of the plan is to involve nations like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the talks ...

South African President Jacob Zuma landed in Tripoli Sunday to meet with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to discuss a resolution to the ongoing crisis. The United Nations Security Council mandated no-fly zone was briefly lifted in order to allow Zuma and his entourage to arrive directly in Tripoli, the first high-profile delegation from international leaders since the start of the crisis. Meanwhile, other members of the African Union plan to go to the rebel-held capital Benghazi on ...

A man from New Zealand last week stumbled over that beautiful and dangerous phrase, "United Nations." Like many another man, stubbing his toe gave him an idea."The United Nations" is President Roosevelt's label for the 28 nations which up to this week have signed the Roosevelt-Churchill Atlantic Charter . It may, according to the President, include any & all nations "which are, or which may be, rendering material assistance and contributions in the struggle for victory over Hitlerism." But the label "United Nations" is dangerous because too many people ...

Dubai's financial crisis may have calmed a bit now that the central bank of the United Arab Emirates has promised to stand behind the city state's banks with fresh liquidity. After all, the UAE, to which Dubai belongs, has perhaps $700 billion accumulated from petroleum riches — a resource that Dubai, which is apparently stuck with tens of billions of dollars in debt, does not enjoy. But the question remains, if the central bank in Abu Dhabi decides ...

Colombia and the United States signed an agreement Friday that allows U.S. personnel to be stationed at seven military bases in the South American nation.

President Obama announced Friday that he will lift a 22-year-old ban on entry into the United States for people infected with HIV/AIDS.

The FBI on Wednesday arrested another suspect that it says is linked to a group that sought to establish an Islamic state in the United States, an FBI spokeswoman said Thursday.

A U.N. special investigator on torture said he was denied entry into Zimbabwe on Wednesday for an eight-day trip to look into alleged attacks against opposition party members.