WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Friday delayed an overseas trip to focus on a final push to pass healthcare reform as the House of Representatives prepared to take up a final version of the bill next week. Obama, scheduled to leave on March 18 on his first overseas trip of the ...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had a narrow lead over rival Shi'ites, partial results in Iraq's tight election race showed on Friday, but a secularist challenger remained far ahead in minority Sunni areas. The race may remain too close to call until initial results are posted ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday that his government sent a "deeply negative signal" by taking steps which undermined renewed Middle East peace talks. Clinton telephoned Netanyahu and expressed ...

LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers targeting the Pakistani military killed at least 45 people in Lahore on Friday, officials said, in a challenge to government assertions that crackdowns have weakened Taliban insurgents. A third bomb exploded near a police station in Lahore later on ...

SANTA ANA, California (Reuters) - Southern California prosecutors filed the first U.S. consumer protection lawsuit against Toyota Motor Corp on Friday, claiming it had engaged in "fraud" by hiding evidence of dangerous vehicle defects. Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's stalled bid to overhaul the federal student loan program by cutting subsidies to private lenders and increasing aid to students received a boost on Friday. Democratic congressional leaders agreed to fold Obama's student-loan proposal into a bill ...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The head of Germany's Catholic Church apologized to victims of child abuse by priests on Friday and met Pope Benedict who encouraged him to press ahead with tough new measures. Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, head of the German Bishops' Conference, said his church would ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Janet Yellen, a monetary policy dove, tops President Barack Obama's list to be No. 2 at U.S. central bank, the White House said on Friday. Sarah Raskin, commissioner of financial regulation for the state of Maryland, and Peter ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vaccines that contain a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal cannot cause autism on their own, a special U.S. court ruled on Friday, dealing one more blow to parents seeking to blame vaccines for their children's illness. The special U.S. Court of Federal Claims ...

British researchers said their study, which should reassure many millions of women across the world who have taken oral birth control pills, found no link between the drugs and an increased long-term risk of dying sooner. "The results of this study are enormously reassuring and suggest that ...