Iowa

A search for two Iowa girls missing for more than three days has thus far revealed few clues, and family and friends of the girls acknowledged Monday that they've become discouraged. Elizabeth Collins, 8, and Lyric Cook, 10, who are cousins, were last seen Friday about noon when they left their grandmother's house in Evansdale on their bicycles, said family friend Renee Wrabek. The bikes, along with Elizabeth's purse, were later found near Meyers Lake, a mile and a half from the house.

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. - One day after President Obama put forward a proposal to extend tax cuts for the middle class and Mitt Romney attacked the plan, the presidential rivals took to swing states to press their views. Romney, the unofficial Republican nominee, participated in a question-and-answer session with voters in a heavily Republican part of Colorado, as he sought to highlight the continuing struggle to bring back jobs to a particularly hard-hit region of the country.

President Obama plans to talk about his plan to build an American economy “from the middle out, not the top down” as he heads to Iowa to campaign Tuesday, according to campaign officials. The message comes fresh after the president's two-pronged announcement on the Bush-era tax cuts: Obama is asking Congress to extend the ones for the middle class and pledging to veto any attempt to extend the full range of cuts. Republican Mitt Romney is expected to take his argument - that Obama's plans will hurt job creators and the economy broadly - to a town hall in Grand Junction, Colorado this morning.

President Obama took Iowans on a trip down memory lane Tuesday, recalling his first “kinda nervous” foray on the presidential campaign trail in their state four years ago. “This is a state that gave me a chance when nobody else would,” Obama told a crowd in Cedar Rapids, recalling his initial campaign appearance in Waterloo, Iowa, as he appealed for the backing of the state's voters in his reelection bid. Obama was in folksy campaign...

The fearsome guns of the battleship Iowa protected FDR from torpedo attacks and helped destroy the Japanese military in World War II. They shelled North Korea in the 1950s and patrolled the Central American coast during the Cold War. On Saturday, with the grand opening of the country's newest battleship museum in San Pedro, the artillery that struck so much fear in America's enemies got a new role: photo op. More than 3,000 people walked...

For years, officials in San Pedro have tried to spruce up the Port of Los Angeles by adding parks, trails and fountains along the water's edge. But it was never enough to entice Angelenos to make the trek down to the southern tip of the county. This summer, the community is hoping its fortunes are about to change. The arrival of the Iowa, a World War II battleship turned floating museum, is expected to draw 400,000 visitors a year after it opens Saturday. Another lure: the opening of a massive marketplace of handmade goods and specialty food.

An important Jackson Pollock painting owned by the University of Iowa that Republican state legislators have lobbied to sell is now leaving the state -- temporarily. Next month the massive 1943 oil painting called "Mural" is traveling to the Getty Center, where it will be the subject of an extensive conservation effort expected to last 18 months. Pollock painted the canvas, which measures roughly 8 feet tall by 20 feet long, as a commission for collector Peggy Guggenheim a few years before he began his so-called drip paintings, his most famous work.

DES MOINES — Rick Santorum narrowly won January's Iowa caucuses, and future Republican nominee Mitt Romney finished a close second. But when the state's delegates head to the Republican National Convention in August, most of them will be loyal backers of third-place finisher Ron Paul. His haul of delegates from a weekend Iowa convention is part of the Texas congressman's quiet strategy to have a strong, vocal presence at the national gathering in Tampa, Fla. There's no mathematical way for Paul to derail Romney's nomination.

DES MOINES - Rick Santorum won the Iowa caucuses in January, with Mitt Romney a close second, but neither was the true winner this weekend when the delegates who actually will vote at the Republican National Convention were selected. That would be Ron Paul. The congressman from Texas finished a distant third in the Iowa caucuses more than six months ago, but of the 28 delegates selected Friday and Saturday to head to the national convention, 23 are Paul supporters - and they are not bound to support the victor of the state's first-in-the-nation voting contest.

As a fireboat shot plumes of water and crowds waved jubilantly from the shore, the battleship Iowa docked at its new permanent home at Berth 87 on the San Pedro waterfront Saturday, where the historic war horse will become a floating museum. Hundreds of elected officials, regular civilians and sailors who served aboard the ship during World War II were on deck as the Iowa, pulled and guided by tugboats because it no longer has power of its own, completed its final 3.4-nautical-mile journey through Los Angeles Harbor.