Presidential Candidates

washington -- Mitt Romney twice emphasized his unique business background when he and eight other Republican presidential candidates faced off in a debate last week in Iowa. "I've spent the last, as I've told you, 25 years in the private sector," former Massachusetts Gov. Romney declared at one point. "I understand why jobs come and why jobs go. I've done business in 20 countries."

GREENSBORO, N.C. — For a fourth day Wednesday, the jury in the John Edwards trial deliberated without reaching a verdict in a case focused on an illicit affair and federal campaign finance laws. The jury of eight men and four women must decide whether Edwards violated election laws when payments from two wealthy donors were used to cover up his affair with videographer Rielle Hunter during Edwards' failed run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Prosecutors contend that Edwards solicited $925,000 in illegal contributions from the donors in order to hide the affair and keep his campaign from collapsing in scandal.

Barack Obama announced Saturday that he and his wife had resigned as members of their Chicago church in the wake of controversial remarks from its pulpit that have become a serious distraction to his presidential campaign. In a letter dated Friday to the pastor, the Rev. Otis Moss III, Obama said he and his wife, Michelle, had come to the decision "with some sadness."

Handsome, youthful, Cuban American and Republican, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida has been mentioned repeatedly as a potential running mate for Mitt Romney - in part because of hopes that the presence of the first Latino on a major national ticket would draw that key voting group Romney's way. But outside of his enormously important home state, the prospect for that sort of boost seems less than likely. Some voters would probably be attracted by the idea of a Latino, any Latino, being that close to the White House.

CAIRO — Egyptians gathered in living rooms and cafes Thursday night to mark another first in their troubled political odyssey toward a new democracy: a televised presidential debate that was as captivating as it was surreal. The two leading candidates, former Foreign Minister Amr Moussa and Islamist favorite Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, clashed in an exchange that would have been fiction during the 30-year rule of deposed President Hosni Mubarak. The spectacle was a rare moment in a region enthralled by Arab uprisings but largely dominated by autocrats and political uncertainty.

The morning after Pastor Rick Warren interviewed both major presidential candidates at his evangelical church in Orange County, he delivered a Sunday sermon urging his congregation to judge Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain on how their characters would affect their decisions as leaders. "Don't just look at issues, look at character," Warren said to a crowd of nearly 3,000 during one of two morning sermons at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest. "Look at the candidate and say, 'Does he live with integrity, service with humility, share with generosity, or not?

A political insider tapped by Barack Obama to vet potential running mates resigned Wednesday, saying he wanted to prevent a controversy over his personal finances from hurting the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign. The unpaid advisor, Jim Johnson, was chosen by Obama last month to serve on a three-member team screening prospective nominees for vice president.

California, the ATM for politicians nationwide, has spit out cash for Barack Obama at an extraordinary clip. One of every five dollars he has raised in itemized contributions to his campaign has come from the Golden State. At last count, in mid-October, the Democratic presidential nominee had withdrawn $84 million from California, or 20% of his contributions of more than $200 -- the threshold at which campaigns must disclose detailed information about donors.

Race has bedeviled this country from the start, when the Founding Fathers ducked the slavery issue for fear of killing the nation in its cradle. Obviously, much has changed. For one thing, Americans are seriously weighing the prospect of elevating a black man to the White House in November. But as this past week's debate over "the race card" illustrates, there is still no subject in American politics as fraught as the color of a candidate's skin.

With 197 countries participating and perhaps as many as 100 heads of state attending, the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games will be one of the most widely watched events of all time. Massive television coverage will mean that much of America and the rest of the world will be watching on July 20 when President Clinton says, "Let the Games begin," at opening ceremonies. In many other ways, Clinton will reap a rich harvest of publicity from the Games.

AGA, Egypt - After an unfriendly journalist was tossed off, Amr Moussa's campaign bus headed north to the Nile Delta, where barefoot boys and peasants greeted him with horns, drums and two dancing horses. Moussa arrived as both novelty and sensation, a front-runner in Egypt's first freely contested presidential election. The former diplomat who once negotiated with world leaders walked roads strewn with hay and spotted with manure, giving speeches on dignity and chatting with elders near herds of sheep and sheds full of broken farm equipment.

CAIRO — Egyptians gathered in living rooms and cafes Thursday night to mark another first in their troubled political odyssey toward a new democracy: a televised presidential debate that was as captivating as it was surreal. The two leading candidates, former Foreign Minister Amr Moussa and Islamist favorite Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, clashed in an exchange that would have been fiction during the 30-year rule of deposed President Hosni Mubarak. The spectacle was a rare moment in a region enthralled by Arab uprisings but largely dominated by autocrats and political uncertainty.

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt - The stage along the sea was a politically crafted advertisement for Egypt's diversity: An unveiled woman chatted with a bearded Islamist and a retired soccer star shared the spotlight with a young hero from last year's revolution. A roar erupted from a crowd, mostly students, when a white-haired man in a linen blazer raised his arms. As fireworks flashed in the night sky, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh called for national unity to end military rule and unrest that have soured the euphoria since Hosni Mubarak was forced from power.

CAIRO - At least 11 people were killed Wednesday when unknown attackers armed with guns and firebombs clashed with protesters near Egypt's Defense Ministry in an escalation of violence highlighting political divisions that threaten the country ahead of this month's presidential election. Assailants stormed about 500 demonstrators at dawn, many of them supporters of Hazem Salah abu Ismail, an ultraconservative Islamist preacher recently disqualified from the presidential race. Police did not intervene for hours, and authorities said as many as 200 people were wounded in the nation's worst violence in months.

Jurors in the federal criminal trial of John Edwards were clearly not given a primer on the intricacies of the campaign finance laws he is accused of violating. Instead, they listened to Andrew Young, the former presidential candidate's once-trusted aide, describe how Edwards called his mistress a "crazy slut," used a secret "Bat phone" to call her, and accepted money from rich friends to pay her expenses. Although Young's salacious testimony seemed to keep jurors awake, he may not have been as strong a lead witness as the prosecution had hoped.

Is President Obama trying to wedge his way to a second term? The economy will doubtless be the overriding issue in November's presidential contest, and Obama is hardly ignoring it. But a successful candidate appeals to all sorts of voters harboring all sorts of concerns, and the president and his backers appear to be using a pair of wedge issues to target two groups, Latinos and women, with messages grounded more in emotionalism than economics....

An increasingly militant series of anti-abortion demonstrations aimed at Democratic presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis turned violent for the first time Tuesday as shouting demonstrators and Dukakis supporters engaged in a shoving match here, partially disrupting Dukakis' speech. Ignoring the candidate's appeals for calm, roughly a dozen demonstrators shouted "Abortion is murder!" at Dukakis, preventing him from being heard in a crowded Polish union hall in this Chicago suburb.

AGA, Egypt - After an unfriendly journalist was tossed off, Amr Moussa's campaign bus headed north to the Nile Delta, where barefoot boys and peasants greeted him with horns, drums and two dancing horses. Moussa arrived as both novelty and sensation, a front-runner in Egypt's first freely contested presidential election. The former diplomat who once negotiated with world leaders walked roads strewn with hay and spotted with manure, giving speeches on dignity and chatting with elders near herds of sheep and sheds full of broken farm equipment.

GREENSBORO, N.C. — A former aide to John Edwards on Tuesday described the detailed plans he said the former presidential candidate devised to hide his extramarital affair and his mistress' pregnancy, including accepting money from a wealthy benefactor to pay for his paramour's expenses. Andrew Young, the prosecution's chief witness, testified throughout the second day of the criminal trial against Edwards, who is accused of six counts related to campaign finance violations. Young testified that he approached a number of Edwards supporters seeking money to pay the living and healthcare expenses for mistress Rielle Hunter, who gave birth to Edwards' daughter.

GREENSBORO, N.C. - A desperate politician willing to break federal laws to get elected president? Or a husband and father trying to protect himself and his family from humiliation from public disclosure of his extramarital affair? Those were the starkly different portraits of John Edwards presented during opening arguments Monday, the first day of the former presidential candidate's criminal trial on charges that he violated campaign finance laws. Edwards is accused of accepting more than $900,000 from benefactors to pay for expenses of his mistress and hide the affair from his family - revelations that could have derailed his bid for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.