National

President Obama is facing criticism that his message has gone off track at a crucial time for his party and administration. With the midterm elections just 10 weeks away, the president’s approval ratings are at their lowest. Analysts are predicting big wins for Republicans in November.

Discouraged by the avalanche of foreclosures around them in Detroit, Mona Ramsey and her husband started looking at states where they would move.

Assistant Polk County attorney, Romonda Belcher-Ford was chosen this week to become Iowa’s first female, African-American judge, officials announced Friday.

Reverend Franklin Graham, son of renowned Christian evangelist Billy Graham, said Thursday that the reason a growing number of peoplebelieve President Obama to be a Muslim is because he was, in fact, born into that religion due to the “seed of Islam” that was passed to him through his father, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr.

Vice President Joe Biden boldly predicted Friday that voters would reject a “Republican tea party” of extreme candidates and Democrats would retain control of Congress this November. In a pep talk for the party’s rank and file, the vice president challenged the widespread notion that significant losses in House races, and perhaps the Senate, could […]

A majority of Americans see no end in sight in Afghanistan, and nearly six in 10 oppose the nine-year-old war as President Barack Obama sends tens of thousands more troops to the fight, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll. With just over 10 weeks before nationwide elections that could define the remainder of Obama’s […]

Police in Massachusetts are investigating the mysterious disappearance of Trudie Hall, a pregnant Nantucket woman who has been missing for almost a month. Media reports suggest Hall may have been married to two men and leading a double life, but those who know her best say all that matters is getting her home safe.

California congresswoman Maxine Waters charged with violating House ethics rules says the congressional office that helped prompt the probe of her behavior is known for sloppy work.

Gainesville’s fire department yesterday denied a permit for a public Quran burning being organized by the city’s Dove World Outreach Center, a self-described “New Testament, Charismatic, Non-Denominational Church,” according to the Gainesville Sun (via theOrlando Sentinel).

FRIDAY afternoon was sliding at last toward evening, with what promised to be a weekend of memories and laughter ahead. Defarra Gaymon, 48, the charming and dapper chief executive of a credit union 900 miles south in Atlanta, had been back in his boyhood home in New Jersey for only a matter of hours, and […]

A former hip-hop record exec who converted to Orthodox Judaism was killed last night during a robbery at the Flatbush kosher-wine store where he worked, police and witnesses said.