Mitt Romney is the clear Republican front-runner in Iowa in the final days before the first voting in the 2012 presidential election. But that's where the glimmer of clarity ends in this unpredictable nomination race. Five others are fighting, as they have all year, to emerge as the alternative to the former Massachusetts governor. Read More

Mitt Romney refused to be pinned down Wednesday on how Congress should break an impasse that threatens to raise taxes for 160 million workers — the latest pressing policy debate the Republican presidential hopeful has sidestepped. Rival Newt Gingrich, in contrast, castigated Congress for "an absurd dereliction of duty." Read More

The last U.S. soldiers rolled out of Iraq across the border to neighboring Kuwait at daybreak Sunday, whooping, fist bumping and hugging each other in a burst of joy and relief. Their exit marked the end of a bitterly divisive war that raged for nearly nine years and left Iraq shattered, with troubling questions lingering over whether the Arab nation will remain a steadfast U.S. ally. Read More

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday rejected opposition calls for a rerun of the parliamentary election, accusing those who organized massive protests against vote fraud of working to weaken Russia at the West's behest. Read More