After months of taking incoming fire from the prime-time stars of Fox News, the Obama White House is firing back, charging that FOX News is different from all other news.

"FOX News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican party," said Anita Dunn, White House communications director.

In a fiery speech that felt more like a partisan campaign rally than a formal transfer of power, outgoing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin reflected upon her administration's most significant achievements and shared her vision for the country's future. But the address was most notable for Palin's remarkably blunt swipes at her favorite nemesis: the media.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's decision to resign at the end of this month is one of the most surprising, perplexing and just plain fascinating moves from a national politician in recent memory.

As such, it produces any number of consequences -- intended and otherwise -- in the political world. (Like it or not, Palin is a prime mover on the national scene; she acts and others react.)

Senior Obama administration officials on Monday defended U.S. handling of the Iranian election crisis amid criticism that President Barack Obama has not been forceful enough on the issue. The White House said it has seen no justice in Iran's crackdown on protesters after the president's weekend call for an end to violence by Tehran authorities.

Administration officials are reiterating their call for a fair and non-violent resolution of the Iranian election conflict,

Sonia Sotomayor was born on June 25, 1954, in New York to parents who moved there from Puerto Rico during World War II.
At the age of 8, Sotomayor was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
Sotomayor's father was a factory worker who didn't speak English. He died when she was 9, and her mother worked six days a week as a nurse to provide for Sotomayor and her brother.

Gordon Brown is waiting to see whether his limited cabinet reshuffle has served to quell unrest among Labour MPs after a tumultuous week for the party.
The prime minister responded to a string of ministerial resignations and a "painful" local election drubbing by vowing: "I will not walk away".

Meira Kumar is also a member of the "untouchable" Dalit class, the lowest rung in the centuries-old caste system in the country.

The speaker conducts the proceedings of the house. She will preside over 543 elected members, of which 58 are women.

A 266-page document that gives detailed information about civilian nuclear sites and programs, marked "highly confidential," was accidentally made public by the federal government, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

The document's publication was revealed Monday in an online newsletter about federal secrecy issues. The Times described the document as including maps that identify where nuclear weapons fuel is stockpiled, though it contained no information about military nuclear operations.

The White House sought on Friday to quell a controversy over U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's 2001 comment indicating Hispanic women may decide cases better than white men, saying she used a poor choice of words.

In an NBC interview, President Barack Obama said he was sure Sotomayor "would have restated" her comment.

Republicans kept the pressure on the president's Supreme Court pick Friday, pushing the idea that Judge Sonia Sotomayor is an activist judge who will bring a leftist agenda to the bench.
Meanwhile, the White House tried to soften remarks Sotomayor made in 2001 that have rankled conservatives, who say her assertion that her experiences as a Latina woman might make her judgments more sound than those of a white man brands her as a racist.