Reuters - The 2013 defense budget that President Barack Obama sent to Congress on Monday includes funding for a shift in strategic focus to the Asia-Pacific even as it slashes spending on weapons and personnel in a bid to reduce costs by $487 billion over the next decade.

Reuters - President Barack Obama's 2013 election-year budget took investors by surprise with a call for significantly higher taxes on dividends, a major change from his earlier tax proposals and one that will raise the ire of dividend-paying companies.

Reuters - Global planemaker Airbus joined a chorus of concern that a European scheme to charge airlines for carbon emissions risks triggering a full-blown trade war, with implications for plane deals and even Europe's crippling sovereign debt crisis.

Reuters - Even as he greets China's vice president in the Oval Office on Tuesday, President Barack Obama is quietly overhauling U.S. economic policy toward Beijing, looking for new ways to extract results on issues such as market access and currency manipulation that have bedeviled him and his predecessors.

Reuters - The European Union will not bow to pressure to suspend a controversial scheme to charge airlines for their carbon emissions, but is willing to be flexible in finding a solution to a row that threatens to escalate into a full-blown trade war.

Reuters - President Barack Obama will seek billions of dollars for jobs and infrastructure in his 2013 budget, an appeal to voters that draws election-year battle lines over taxes and spending as Republicans slammed him for "debt, doubt and decline."

Reuters - Syrian forces unleashed new tank and rocket bombardments on opposition neighborhoods of Homs on Saturday while diplomats sought U.N. backing for an Arab plan to end 11 months of bloodshed in Syria.

Reuters - The Greek cabinet approved late on Friday a draft law setting out the tough reform and austerity program it needs to take as the price of a new EU/IMF bailout.

Reuters - President Barack Obama will project a $901 billion deficit for fiscal 2013 in his upcoming budget proposal, a sharp drop from the funding gap this year, a White House official said on Friday.

AP - It could be the beginning of the end for No Child Left Behind.

ContributorNetwork - COMMENTARY | It has been reported by Associated Press that President Obama will free 10 states from the educational constraints put in place by No Child Left Behind. The controversial education plan put in place by President Bush calls for schools to meet minimum educational standards by 2014 or face penalties. Unfortunately, the plan has not unfolded as many had hoped, and schools are now faced with the daunting challenge of meeting steep expectations. Will NCLB rebound, or is this the first step towards the end?

ContributorNetwork - COMMENTARY | The Obama administration announced today that 10 states will get a waiver from the stringent requirements of the Bush-era "No Child Left Behind Act." It's the beginning of the end for NCLB, unless Congress passes a bipartisan reform of the controversial education law.

Reuters - President Barack Obama said on Thursday he was granting 10 states exemptions from parts of the "No Child Left Behind" education law, a move that could prove popular in an election year with parents and teachers who have criticized the law - but raises concern among some advocates for low-income and minority students.

Reuters - A U.S. Roman Catholic television network said on Thursday it has filed suit in federal court to block President Barack Obama's new rule on contraceptives, while a Catholic Church leader and top Republicans stepped up their criticism of Obama.

AP - President Barack Obama on Thursday declared that 10 states are free from the No Child Left Behind law, allowing them to scrap some of the most rigorous and unpopular mandates in American education. In exchange, the states are promising higher standards and more creative ways to measure what students are learning.

ContributorNetwork - COMMENTARY | Through executive order, President Barack Obama will allow 10 states a pass on the deadline requirements set under No Child Left Behind, according to Fox News. This continues a stream of executive orders given by the president. As a political scientist, I see the president's actions suspicious when added with the fact of how the 2012 election is right around the corner. How many votes will he try to buy through his executive order ability?

Reuters - Greece's jobless rate rose to a fresh record of 20.9 percent in November, highlighting the pain imposed by austerity on ordinary Greeks as the country negotiates a new pain-for-gain package with its EU and IMF lenders.

Reuters - Obese Americans in the military are a national security hazard and first lady Michelle Obama wants to see that change.

Reuters - President Barack Obama will seek $80 million in new funding for a program to boost science and math education in U.S. schools, the White House said on Tuesday.

Reuters - President Barack Obama's re-election campaign, worried about the influx of money to groups supporting Republican candidates, said on Monday it would start supporting the struggling Super PAC designed to help Obama stay in office.

Reuters - The United States closed its embassy in Damascus on Monday and President Barack Obama vowed to ratchet up pressure on Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to step down, even as world powers remained divided over how to end the crisis.

Reuters - German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Greece on Monday to make up its mind fast on accepting the painful terms for a new EU/IMF bailout, but the country's political leaders responded by delaying their decision for yet another day.

Reuters - It does not guarantee him re-election in November, but it is an advantage President Barack Obama is likely to carry into the fall: a broad base of supporters who have given him the symbolic vote of confidence with a donation of less than $200.

Reuters - Republican front-runner Mitt Romney cruised to an easy victory in Nevada on Saturday, crushing his three remaining rivals and taking firm command of the party's volatile presidential nominating race.