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The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said on Sunday it received $41 million in funding from the U.S. government for emergency aid in Mozambique. The WFP also said the United States is buying 150,000 metric tons of grain from Ukraine for shipment to African countries facing drought and starvation.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel quietly notified Congress last week that the military is set to transfer six Guantanamo Bay prisoners to Uruguay as soon as next month, The New York Times revealed Wednesday. The deal has been waiting for Mr. Hagel’s approval since March, but stalled after the Obama administration received a wave of backlash for releasing five Taliban detainees to Qatar in exchange for the release Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. The administration did not give Congress 30-days notice in that deal, but argued it was still legal because any delay could have risked Sgt. Bergdahl’s life. Of the six...

One of the Obama administration's major selling points in passing the Affordable Care Act in 2010 was a Congressional Budget Office forecast that the controversial legislation would reduce the deficit by more than $120 billion over the coming decade. The CBO has consistently projected that President Obama's overhaul will reduce the deficit, and the agency estimated that the Republicans’ 2011 effort to repeal the legislation would increase deficits by $210 billion from 2010 to 2021. In April, the agency quietly signaled that it can no longer make that projection; that the law had been changed and delayed so much that...

(CNSNews.com) – Eleven years later, President Obama has quietly extended the national emergency declaration first issued by former President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon. The declaration, which has to be reissued each year, invokes several war-time powers that give the president greater control of the military. Obama cited the continuing threat of a terrorist attack in justifying his decision to continue the now 11-year national emergency. “The terrorist threat that led to the declaration on September 14, 2001, of a national emergency continues. For this reason, I have...

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — By the time U.S. military forces left Somalia in 1994 after entering the lawless nation more than a year earlier to stop a famine, 44 Army soldiers, Marines and airmen had been killed and dozens more wounded. Thus ended America's last large-scale military intervention in Africa. But the U.S. has come back, using special forces advisers, drones and tens of millions of dollars in military aid to combat a growing and multifaceted security threat. This time the United States is playing a less obtrusive role but is focusing once again on Somalia. While putting few U.S....

Here we go again. Anyone surprised? The Boston Globe's Maria Sacchetti reports: Officials released President Obama's uncle from Plymouth County jail yesterday after holding him for more than two weeks on an immigration detainer for violating an order to return to his native Kenya in 1992. US officials refused to disclose any other information about Onyango Obama, who remained in the United States undetected until Framingham police arrested him Aug. 24 on drunken driving and other charges.

TAMPA - You may never have heard of Peggy Land, unless you're a Tampa Democratic political insider. She's a proverbial little old lady in tennis shoes, but along with her late husband John, she has also been a faithful Democratic political donor - some $20,000 to the party and its candidates over the last decade or so, plus more from fundraisers in their home, and none to Republicans. So who is Land backing in the U.S. Senate race?

President Obama's compensation czar has been meeting for weeks with executives at some of the country's largest and most troubled companies as they face a Thursday deadline to propose how much they will pay their top employees. Kenneth R. Feinberg has the unprecedented task of deciding executive compensation at seven companies that received large government bailouts. His meetings with American International Group, Citigroup, Bank of America, General Motors, Chrysler, Chrysler Financial and GMAC have been conducted in secret, with neither Feinberg nor the companies willing to say much in public.

WASHINGTON — While her inaugural wear, choice of a decorator and disapproval of unauthorized Sasha and Malia dolls make headlines, first lady Michelle Obama has quietly assembled a staff that's steeped in women's and workplace issues to support her role as a policy advocate. The Harvard-trained lawyer, community organizer and hospital executive offered a glimpse of what's to come when her husband, President Barack Obama, on Thursday signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, which gives women more legal standing to sue for pay discrimination. The first lady was in the audience, not at the president's side — but...

New outbreak as polio refuses to go quietly 17:44 07 June 2006 NewScientist.com news service Linda Geddes Namibia is suffering its first polio outbreak in more than a decade, setting back hopes that the disease might be eradicated from the world by the end of 2006. Three human cases of wild polio virus have been confirmed in Namibia so far, while a further 33 cases - including six deaths - are currently being investigated, say officials from the World Health Organization. The last recorded case of the disease in the country was in 1996. The Namibian outbreak is the latest...

SELLAFIELD (Reuters) - The nuclear power industry is quietly confident that the world is about to beat a path to its door in an increasingly desperate search for "clean" energy that doesn't heat up the planet. Soaring oil prices and new data on global warming -- brought into sharp focus by devastating hurricanes in the United States -- have heated up the nuclear debate and outraged the environmental lobby, which says nuclear power is not the answer. China plans to invest some $50 billion to build around 30 new nuclear reactors by 2020, there are investment incentives in the United...

SACRAMENTO - He's used his millions to benefit exotic show horses, a home for retired chimpanzees - and California's actor-governor. William Armsted Robinson has quietly become one of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's top donors, periodically trading off the pinnacle with San Diego Chargers owner Alex Spanos and Spanish language television entrepreneur Jerry Perenchio. Stockton real estate developer Spanos and Univision owner Perenchio are high-profile businessmen with long-term interests in California. But Robinson is an elusive, reclusive man whose first major foray into influencing politics is the $650,000 he has given Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger fund-raiser Marty Wilson describes Robinson as a "very private,...

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) - Former President Nelson Mandela celebrated his 86th birthday quietly Sunday at his family home in Qunu in the Eastern Cape with his wife Graca Machel and family members. The low key celebration was in keeping with the Nobel Laureate's announcement in June this year that he would cut back on public appearances, a spokesman from the Nelson Mandela Foundation said. Mandela said he did not want to withdraw completely from public life but would be more selective about events he attended. He has maintained a hectic schedule since retirement from active politics in 1999....