EXCLUSIVE: Richard Grenell hounded from Romney campaign by anti-gay conservatives  —  Richard Grenell, the openly gay spokesman recently hired to sharpen the foreign policy message of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, has resigned in the wake of a full-court press by anti-gay conservatives.

Berean Baptist pastor disavows advice to punch gay kids as a joke  —  A Fayetteville pastor says he was joking when he told parents in a sermon Sunday to hit children who show signs of being gay.  —  Sean Harris, pastor of Berean Baptist Church on Glensford Drive, said he does …

USA TODAY interview: Gingrich ready to support Romney  —  WASHINGTON - Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, on the eve of suspending his roller coaster presidential bid, said in an interview with USA TODAY that he will embrace Mitt Romney's candidacy Wednesday and is ready to campaign for his former rival.

Obama's Afghan trip: 14,000 miles for brief remarks lacking one crucial word  —  As usual with this president, Obama's trip to and speech from Afghanistan had way more to do with politics than any real substance.  —  Seven thousand miles, one way, is a long journey to share war remarks …

Washington Post Rebuts Obama's Malicious Lie  —  Barack Obama never lets truth get in the way of political advantage.  Nothing new about that; mendacity has been a consistent theme of his 3 1/2 years in office.  But it seems that more media outlets are willing to call the president on his falsehoods these days.

A beating at Church and Brambleton  —  The Virginian-Pilot  —  Wave after wave of young men surged forward to take turns punching and kicking their victim.  —  The victim's friend, a young woman, tried to pull him back into his car.  Attackers came after her, pulling her hair …

Becoming Obama  —  When Barack Obama met Genevieve Cook in 1983 at a Christmas party in New York's East Village, it was the start of his most serious romance yet.  But as the 22-year-old Columbia grad began to shape his future, he was also struggling with his identity: American or international?

A better case for Keystone XL  —  THE CASE FOR ultimately approving the Keystone XL pipeline — always strong — has grown stronger.  —  A key environmentalist argument against Keystone XL has been that the project would encourage the extraction of bitumen, a particularly dirty oil-like substance, from the “oil sands” in Alberta.

Presidential Proclamation — Loyalty Day, 2012  —  BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA  —  More than two centuries ago, our Founders laid out a charter that assured the rule of law and the rights of man.  Through times of tranquility and the throes of change …

Obama appears in ad for Warren  —  Via the Boston Globe's Glen Johnson, Elizabeth Warren's campaign is set to air an ad with President Obama, using footage in which he offered her strong praise.  —  “She's a janitor's daughter who has become one of the country's fiercest advocates for the middle class,” Obama says in the spot.

Blind Chinese Dissident Leaves U.S. Embassy for Medical Treatment  —  BEIJING — Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese dissident who fled house arrest last month in a dramatic escape from security forces, left the American Embassy in Beijing on Wednesday after securing assurances from the Chinese government …

“Occupy” Movement Was Infiltrated By FBI Informant In Cleveland Bridge Bombing Probe  —  Buster  —  The federal probe that resulted last night in the arrest of five purported anarchists for allegedly plotting to bomb an Ohio bridge began last year at an Occupy Wall Street rally in Cleveland …

China's Vanishing Trade Imbalance  —  America's economic imbalance with China has been a singular concern of policy makers for more than half a decade.  Senators Charles E. Schumer and Lindsey Graham wanted to punish China for pegging the exchange rate to the dollar in 2005 …