From the start, we were afraid that life with U.S. President Barack Obama would not be a picnic. The signals from Washington were quite clear from the start of the president's term; with all the problems he has to solve at home, he can't be expected to pamper Israel as his predecessors did. Moreover, we have a tendency to be suspicious of a president whose senior advisers are Jewish.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who heads a government that includes extremist elements, understood from the start that this was not the right time to irritate the new administration.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton complained Wednesday that domestic political battles are hurting the president's foreign policy goals and damaging America's image abroad.

Testifying before a congressional committee, Clinton said fights between the White House and Congress have led to "gridlock" in appointing officials to critical positions, including those with key foreign policy and international assistance responsibilities. That has created confusion among friends and allies, she said.

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Joe Biden said on Thursday the U.S. must spend significantly more to ensure the readiness of American nuclear warheads even as the president presses an agenda to rid the world of those weapons.

Biden was making the case for the big jump in spending so that scientists can make certain the aging U.S. nuclear stockpile remains ready for use, if needed, without test explosions.

NASA's grand plan to return to the moon, built on President George W. Bush's vision of an ambitious new chapter in space exploration, is about to vanish with hardly a whimper. With the release Monday of President Obama's budget request, NASA will finally get the new administration's marching orders, and there won't be anything in there about flying to the moon.

The budget numbers will show that the administration effectively plans to kill the Constellation program that called for a return to the moon by 2020. The budget is also a death knell for the Ares 1 rocket.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) - Honduras' new administration began its term Thursday saying the nation is bankrupt and will likely need international financial assistance to recover from months of diplomatic isolation over its June coup.

The first day of the new government also was marked by early morning police raids that resulted in 41 people being detained and several weapons seized in the capital.

Newly inaugurated President Porfirio Lobo swore in his Cabinet, including Finance Minister William Chong, who said the administration of interim president Roberto Micheletti left office with only about $50 million in government coffers.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Is "The Wanda Sykes Show" an uproarious, biting and insightful look at politics and the events of the previous week? Yes and no.

Yes in the first half-hour of Fox's Saturday-night entry, and no in the second.

Picking up from where she left off at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in May (where she hoped for the failure of Rush Limbaugh's kidneys in response to his hope for the failure of Obama's presidency), Sykes presented a spirited and well-crafted defense of the new administration.

After sliding through the summer, President Barack Obama’s job approval ratings have leveled out, settling in the low 50s and comfortably next to those of recent presidents.

Obama’s polling position going into the fall is a far cry from the spring, when he was cruising in the mid-60s. But despite his summer plunge, a number of top pollsters say that Obama’s 52 percent average approval rating in Gallup’s September survey is well within the expected range in the first year of a new administration.

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Americans are used to change -- we get a brand-new administration in Washington, D.C., every four years or so. But it happens a lot less often on NBC's venerable, 55-year-old "Tonight Show," and the last time there was a handover of power, let's just say it didn't go as smoothly as everyone might have liked.

Reporting from Singapore -- Drawing the most explicit U.S. line yet on North Korea, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates vowed that the Obama administration would hold North Korea "fully accountable" if it sold or transferred any nuclear material outside its borders.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is scheduled to give a major speech on the battle against terrorism Thursday.

But the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey, released Thursday morning, indicates that a majority of Americans still have an unfavorable opinion of Cheney.

Fifty-five percent of people questioned in the poll say they have an unfavorable opinion of the former vice president. Thirty-seven percent say they have a favorable opinion of Cheney, up 8 percentage points from January when he left office.

Barack Obama's presidency has been dominated by the economic crisis, but that has not stopped him from trying to launch a massive recalibration of US foreign policy.

Mr Obama has been reaching out to America's foes

The media's obsession with grading Barack Obama's first 100 days in office amuses me. Sure, in calmer times, maybe it was reasonable to look at a new administration after a little more than three months and try and figure out what kind of presidency the country was in for. But even George W. Bush waited until August 2001 to severely limit when federal money could be used to fund stem cell research, planting his flag in the ground as a leader who would try and impose his religious beliefs (and lack of respect for science) on the nation.

A narrow majority of Americans back President Barack Obama's decision to release details of the torture of suspected terrorists and want a legal investigation into whether any laws were broken, according to an opinion poll released to mark the new administration's 100th day in power.

The issue divides the country, with almost half saying that torture is justified in certain circumstances. Another poll shows a similar number believe torture has already led to the collection of valuable intelligence.

South Africa's incoming president Jacob Zuma has told the country that he will lead an inclusive government.

After 15 years in power, the African National Congress (ANC) has been given at least another five years in government, winning the election in a landslide.

The party's leader, Mr Zuma, must now find new ways to tackle unemployment, poverty and crime.

He says his new administration will govern for all South Africans.

Some change doesn't come easy.

President Obama pledged during the 2008 campaign to fix the "failed policies" of the "disastrous" Bush administration. But in his first 100 days in the White House he has not fully thrown off the mantle of his predecessor -- nor shown him to be a failure, foreign policy experts say.

Obama has clashed with George W. Bush on many of the issues that defined the 43rd president's tenure: on commitments in Iraq, engaging with Iran and other enemies, on the harsh interrogation of suspected terrorists.

President Barack Obama made an unannounced visit Wednesday to Arlington National Cemetery to take part in a wreath-laying ceremony honoring Medal of Honor recipients. Thirty-five recipients of the nation's highest honor for bravery were in attendance.

Reporting from Washington -- There will no longer will be "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Obama administration said Friday. Moreover, the new president no longer claims that his title as commander in chief allows him to order people deemed to be dangerous captured and held without trial.

Having abandoned a favored Bush administration term in the war on terrorism, however, the new administration has claimed roughly the same power to hold Guantanamo's detainees indefinitely -- even those who never held a gun or went near a battlefield.

WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday he expects the Obama administration will make a decision in the next few days on how many additional troops to send to Afghanistan.

Speaking to reporters at a Pentagon news conference, Gates called the internal administration discussions about a troop build up "a very constructive, deliberative process."