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Sarah Palin is facing fresh allegations that she abused her power as governor of Alaska. An investigation has revealed she charged the state for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later changed expense reports to indicate that they were on official business. The charges, which totalled more than £10,000, included costs for hotel stays and commercial flights for three daughters to watch their father in a snowmobile race.

Sorry Sarah, you're no Hillary - at least according to the women of America. A new poll of 600 female voters found that most view Hillary Clinton as a better mom, role model and leader than Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the first woman to be named to a Republican ticket. "Hillary Clinton may not have won the Democratic nomination, but she appears to have won the hearts of American women," said pollster Mickey Blum of Blum & Weprin Associates. "Palin appeals to a much smaller group."

After months in the lead, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama has slipped in the polls to dead even with Republican challenger Sen. John McCain. As we enter the season of high political anxiety, here's my advice to Democrats: Dumb it down.I don't need to give that advice to Republicans. They've been dumbing it down for years. That's why they keep winning.

DENVER - It has become a tradition at national conventions to speculate on the size of the presidential candidate's "bounce." The gold standard was set by Bill Clinton in 1992, when the newly anointed Democratic nominee busted out of his convention and rolled by bus across the swing-state heartland, buoyed by a hike of 16 percentage points in the Gallup poll.

DENVER -- With Barack Obama poised to become the first black candidate nominated by a major party for president, Ohio's delegates to the Democratic National Convention this week say race is his biggest obstacle to being elected. Delegates also are concerned about what could be perceived as Obama's inexperience or an agenda that's too liberal, but race by far was the top worry of those who responded to a mail survey by The Dispatch.

CHICAGO -- Saying its earlier decision to not release papers relating to a school reform foundation that Barack Obama had worked with and which was linked to 1960s radical activist Bill Ayers, "had been called into question," the University of Illinois at Chicago announced it will release records documents from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

Is he ready to be president? Does he care enough about ordinary people to deliver for them? The buzz about Obama's pick for vice president - expected any day now - is irrelevant background noise. No one votes for second banana. People vote for commander in chief. Leadership and empathy at the top of the ticket matter much more than any consultant's notion of balance at the bottom.

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - The headline, prime-time speaker during the opening of the Democratic National Convention will be Michelle Obama, the wife of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL). The Convention Committee said Michelle Obama will speak Aug. 25, a Monday. She will be followed by Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) on Tuesday, the nominee for vice president on the third day, and Sen. Obama on Thursday.

BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) – Former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry told donors at a Boston fundraiser for Barack Obama Monday night that John McCain is "dangerous" for the direction of the country.

If elected president, Sen. John McCain promises to stage a press conference every week, a singular horror that, of itself, should be enough to doom his chances.This McCain threat shows no mercy for his staff, which trails this creaky circus doing what the man with the shovel does for the elephant. "Being human and tripping over your tongue occasionally doesn't mean a thing," said one top official for the GOP nominee. By contrast, McCain dismissed his opponent's verbal appeal last week as Sen. Barack Obama blitzed the Middle East and Europe, smooth-talking some 200,000 in Berlin.

John McCain on Tuesday questioned Bill Clinton’s credentials to discuss the mental health of prisoners of war after the former president told an audience in Aspen that it’s just a matter of time before a former POW snaps and relives the nightmare of his imprisonment.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has told his cabinet that two soldiers captured by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah are dead, officials say. His comments came as ministers debated whether to go ahead with a prisoner swap with Hezbollah. Mr Olmert is reportedly backing the deal.Critics oppose swapping prisoners for the bodies of dead Israeli troops.

Bill Clinton is so bitter about Barack Obama's victory over his wife Hillary that he has told friends the Democratic nominee will have to beg for his wholehearted support. Mr Obama is expected to speak to Mr Clinton for the first time since he won the nomination in the next few days, but campaign insiders say that the former president's future campaign role is a "sticking point" in peace talks with Mrs Clinton's aides. The Telegraph has learned that the former president's rage is still so great that even loyal allies are shocked by his patronising attitude to Mr Obama,...

The balloons are a problem. Though billed as biodegradable, they’ve sat in a steaming compost heap in Denver with nary a sign of breaking down. But even Andrea Robinson, the first-ever director of greening for the Democratic National Convention, concedes it would be going too far to ban them. Balloons, after all, are an all-but-mandatory backdrop for crowning a party’s presidential nominee in the television age.

WASHINGTON, June 25 /Standard Newswire/ -- U.S. Congressman Mike Pence gave the following speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives today calling on Democrats to sign a discharge petition that would bring H.R. 2905, the Broadcaster Freedom Act, to the floor of the U.S. House. The Broadcaster Freedom Act would ensure that no future president could bring back the 'Fairness Doctrine' without an act of Congress.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An explosion rocked a municipal building Tuesday in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood, killing six Iraqis, two U.S. soldiers and two civilian U.S. Embassy employees, officials said. An Iraqi soldier removes razor wire to allow a vehicle to pass in Baghdad's Sadr City earlier this month.

The GAO and Pentagon cited less violence but also Iraqi forces unprepared to go it alone. WASHINGTON - Two new government reports, one by the Pentagon, pointed Monday to encouraging security improvements in Iraq but were pessimistic about prospects for political and economic progress and warned that costly military gains remain fragile.One report, by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that many political reconciliation efforts have stalled, that Iraq's security forces remain largely unable to operate without U.S. assistance and that its central government has not fulfilled commitments to spend its own money on reconstruction efforts....

Custer reenactor Steve Alexander rides the trail that Gen. Custer rode as part of the celebration. On June 25, 1876, a force of 200 U.S. soldiers under Gen. George Armstrong Custer is wiped out by the Sioux Indians at Little Big Horn, Montana. - Photo courtesy of Sandy Alexander In 1876, General George Custer led the 7th Cavalry of the United States Army on a fateful journey across four hundred miles of prairie in thirty nine days. Today, Monroe resident and Custer reenactor Steve Alexander begins recreating Custer's last ride, leading troops of the Frontier Army of Dakotas and...

FORMER North Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle was as giddy as a school girl preparing for her first prom. One could see him jumping up and down yelling, "We'll have a candidate, we'll have a candidate by the end of the week." His choice for prom king all along was Barack Obama. He like many others in the Democratic Party were in a twitter because the primaries had gone on too long and the party needed a candidate. A long list of other Washington politicos, including Howard Dean, head of the Democratic National Committee, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, wanted the...

They both ran for the White House, though one got closer—much closer—than the other. They both sit on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with their junior colleague Barack Obama. And if the Illinois senator is elected president in November, they both apparently would like to be his secretary of State. A source close to Massachusetts' John Kerry, who asked for anonymity when discussing the senator's political aspirations, says the Foreign Relations Committee's third-ranking Democrat (and 2004 presidential runner-up) is keen to be the nation's top diplomat.