A recent report from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provides hard data that the first six months of 2012 were the hottest since records began being kept in 1895.

Given that an overwhelming number of African-Americans consistently support Obama, some have openly wondered if the nation's first African-American president is taking them for granted. And if he is, is that a risk he can afford to take.

Over the past eight years, many features have been added to the social network, multiplying the ways people can interact with each other. You can chat and message someone, tag them in a photo or a post, check them into a location, post on their timeline or mention them in your own posts.

The economic sentiment is "exceedingly glum" all around the world as the public mood has worsened since 2008, with the global economic crisis "widely eroding" support for capitalism.

Just like Mitt Romney the day before, Vice President Joe Biden was booed at the NAACP convention. Unlike Romney, however, he wasn't booed because the crowd was upset but because they didn't want Biden to stop talking.

(CNN) -- Louis Freeh -- a former FBI director who led a probe into the Penn State child sex scandal -- said there was an active agreement among top university officials to conceal sexual abuse by Jerry Sandusky. "There are more red flags here than you can count," Freeh said Thursday, who added that the attacks occurred just "steps away" from where head coach Joe Paterno worked in the university's Lasch Building.

George Zimmerman, charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, had a "little hero complex" but was not a racist, a Sanford, Florida, homicide investigator told federal agents, according to reports released Thursday.

Rep. Buck McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, led a group of Republicans in a news conference Wednesday to attack the Department of Defense over the brevity of a report about China's military.

Jesse Jackson Jr. grew up in his father's shadow, placing him on history's stage as the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. led civil rights campaigns, including Operation PUSH and the Rainbow Coalition.

A delegation of Russian senators is in Washington this week in a last-ditch lobbying attempt to persuade their fellow legislators not to pass a bill that would ban Russian officials who violate human rights from visiting the United States and freeze their assets.

A top independent conservative group is going up with their second straight television commercial that slams President Barack Obama over the nation's unemployment rate.

Mitt Romney's campaign is shooting down a new Boston Globe report Thursday that claims the former private equity CEO remained at his firm, Bain Capital, for three years longer than he claims.

As one of a shrinking number of moderate Senate Republicans willing to vote across party lines, Susan Collins is accustomed to enormous attention being paid to many of the votes she casts. After all, her yeas or nays often determine whether key legislation lives or dies.

Mexico's frontal assault against drug cartels has been "largely ineffective" and in some instances counterproductive to reducing violence, a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report concludes.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blasted Mitt Romney Thursday in personal and biting terms, so to speak, telling reporters the presumed Republican presidential nominee could not be confirmed as "dog catcher" by the Senate.

Vice President Joe Biden delivered a rousing address to the NAACP in Houston on Thursday, bolstering support for President Barack Obama and drawing sharp contrasts with the Republican Party on civil rights issues.

Two former hotel workers have been cleared of the high-profile murder of an Irish newlywed on her honeymoon in Mauritius last year, police on the Indian Ocean island said Thursday.

The presumptive GOP presidential nominee defended his speech in an interview later in the day.

President Barack Obama's campaign and national Democrats have been blasting Romney over reports that the candidate holds offshore investments in places considered to be tax havens for Americans–Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Switzerland.

Wind industry says those programs fueled a boom that created American jobs.

The president cites a scheduling conflict for skipping the NAACP convention.

The 30-second spot, "No evidence," responds to one of Obama's latest slams that claims his opponent's former private equity firm, Bain Capital, in part specialized in advising companies on 'outsourcing.'

With less than four months until the November election, the dueling realities will only become more starkly divided.

The ad, by Crossroads GPS, is their second spot to run on TV since last Friday's release by the Labor Department of a disappointing June jobs report.

The newspaper points to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that state he owned 100% of the company until as late as 2002, though Romney says he left in 1999.