On Monday, two candidates vying for the 1st Congressional district seat in South Carolina participated in a spirited debate. Elizabeth Colbert Busch is a first time candidate running against the Mark Stanford the former Governor of South Carolina. The debate was not held on local television but Colbert Busch’s question to Sanford about his Argentina disappearance back in 2009 was the lead story on... 

Official notices of furloughs will be issued at the IRS next week for its employees. The agency will shut its doors for five days because of the five unpaid days of leave handed down to its employees this summer. The furloughs are a result of the sequester that became in effect on March 1 when lawmakers could not come to an agreement to stave off the huge budget cuts. Steve Miller, the Acting Commissioner... 

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced he had accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad who handed his resignation in on Saturday. Abbas asked that Fayyad head the caretaker government, said officials following a meeting held in Ramallah. An official, who is high-ranking, said Fayyad told him he would not remain as the head of the government, regardless if he were asked to stay... 

Bipartisan broadsides came at President Obama after he handed Congress his budget proposal for 2014 on Wednesday. The White House’s intent was to please both Republicans and Democrats yet it succeeded in angering both. The spending plan of $3.77 trillion, which is two months late being delivered to Congress, attempts to curb the deficits by increasing taxes further on the country’s top earners... 

Legislators in Kansas passed a measure on Friday that contains sweeping anti-abortion legislation, sending a bill to Governor Sam Brownback that says life starts at the moment of fertilization. The measure also blocks tax breaks for providers of abortions and bans abortions that are performed solely due to the sex of the baby. The Kansas House voted for the compromise version of the measure 90-30 after... 

President Barack Obama said he would return 5% of his presidential salary as a sign of solidarity to the federal workers who are facing upcoming furloughs because of the huge budget cuts now known as the sequester. The president earns $400,000 per year making his give back $20,000. That amounts to a very large amount for many Americans but a drop in the bucket for others. For the president that amount... 

Arab and Western governments pledged more material and political support for the civil opposition in Syria. The governments called for arms supplies to be immediately halted for the Assad government. Following a meeting in Rome with the Friends of Syria, a statement was released that said the Syria regime must stop immediately its indiscriminate bombarding of populated areas, which cannot go unpunished... 

A scud missile attack by the Syrian army was condemned by the United States. The attack killed more than 58 people on Friday in Aleppo. The U.S. has invited the opposition in the Syrian conflict to talks that will try to find a settlement to the ongoing bloody conflict. A statement from the U.S. State Department said the Aleppo attack along with other assaults including attacks on city blocks and at...