Fraud allegations against Afghan President Hamid Karzai are complicating and delaying President Obama's review of US strategy in that country. The head of Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission, Kai Eide, said Monday "there was widespread fraud," in the August election though he couldn't quantify it, adding "any specific figure at this time would be pure speculation."

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            A senior US official says the disclosure of a second, secret Iranian uranium enrichment facility "sets back Iran's nuclear program and increases our leverage. And we intend to use it." Several officials briefed reporters after President Obama, French President Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown revealed the existence of the facility, before the start of economic meetings at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh. Keep Reading ...

President Obama is under pressure from the Union representing workers at American tire companies, to level tariffs on cheap Chinese tires allegedly crowding US made tires out of the market. His decision may force him to choose between pleasing big labor, which largely supported his campaign, and big business, which largely did not. And he'll have to decide this month, before hosting the leaders of China and 18 other nations, at a summit on the global economic crisis. Keep Reading ...

On a tough Labor Day for organized labor, with unemployment at 9.7 percent and more people out of work longer than six months than at any time since World War II, President Obama attended an AFL-CIO picnic in Cincinnati. The President thanked the labor movement for worker rights that he said many Americans take for granted, telling the audience "the 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, health insurance, paid leave, pensions, Social Security, Medicare-they all bear the union label."

The White House has added ten people to the list of administration officials who've received waivers from the President's policy of not hiring people with lobbying or previous business ties to the government agencies they now hold leadership positions in. The lobbyist ban was one of the first rules of the Obama administration and three days after taking office, the President waived the ban for a Deputy Defense Secretary. Officials said then the waivers would be infrequent enough to close what they called a 'revolving door policy' under previous administrations that allowed former lobbyists to return to government and steer business to companies they'd been associated with in the past. Keep Reading ...

Prompted by what officials say are inaccurate reports from China, the White House is denying claims it will mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic by flying the Chinese flag on the South Lawn. China Daily, citing other media reports, says the President of the Fujian Association of the United States has been granted permission to hoist the flag "in a ceremony in front of the President's residence." Actually, the ceremony will take place on the Ellipse, not on the White House grounds, on the other side of E Street from the Presidential residence. Keep Reading ...

White House aides say conservatives have misrepresented the President's planned address to students next Tuesday but the Education Department has changed plans for a suggested lesson that would have had elementary kids write essays on how they can "help the President."

That proposal drew strong objections from conservatives. Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer accused the administration of trying to "indoctrinate" students in a "socialist agenda." Even supporters of Mr. Obama agreed it was politically insensitive to suggest students write about how to help him, given the controversy raised by his proposed health care reforms, bank and auto company bailouts and budget deficits. Opposition to the speech spread faster over the internet and conservative talk shows than the White House could contain it.

Aides insist the President never planned to talk about political or policy matters. Officials say the speech will focus on the need for students to stay in school, study hard and take responsibility for their own achievement.

The Education department had suggested curriculum initiatives for schools including the essays about how to help the President, and building "background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama." The theme for the suggested essays has been changed to how students "will achieve their own short term and long term education goals." Teachers are advised to "collect the goals and redistribute them at an appropriate later date, to make students accountable."

President Obama's speech to school kids on Tuesday won't be the first. The first President Bush talked to kids at a Washington junior high school in November of 1991. His address was carried into classrooms from coast to coast by CSPAN and CNN. President Reagan also delivered an address to school kids in 1988.

By Wendell Goler

FOXWIRE (Washington) The White House says opponents of the President's health care reform effort are misrepresenting parts of the House and Senate legislation.

At a town hall meeting at the AARP headquarters in Washington, Mr. Obama answered a woman in North Carolina, who asked if it was true "that everyone that's Medicare age will be visited and told they have to decide how they wish to die." Keep Reading ...

At a conference outside Washington, 500 State and local health officials traded lessons from the swine flu outbreak this Spring, and got warning from the federal government that we haven't dodged a bullet just because outbreak wasn't as serious as was feared. Officials say it may come back with a vengeance during regular flu season this Fall. Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says it's still not certain there will be a vaccine for the H1N1 strain. It's being tested next month to make sure there's no repeat of the 1976 debacle when the government urged people to take a swine flu vaccine and reactions to it left two dozen people dead, and hundreds more with a neurological disorder. Keep Reading ...

United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice says the United States is "very pleased" with new sanctions imposed on North Korea in response to its recent nuclear and missile tests, and she says that Washington won't be intimidated by North Korea's threat to consider them an act of war. Briefing reporters at the daily White House briefing, Rice said the sanctions amount to an international demand that North Korea halt its nuclear activities and return to the "Six Party" talks. Rice said the unanimously passed United Nations Security Council resolution toughens sanctions in several areas: It imposes a complete embargo on North Korean arms exports, which are a major source of the country's revenue and it broadens restrictions on weapons North Korea is allowed to import. The resolution imposes new financial restrictions on North Korean individuals and institutions and calls on other countries to stop new loans and credits except for humanitarian aid. Rice said additional companies and individuals may be added to the list in 30 days. She said the resolution also establishes a new regime for voluntary inspection of ships suspected of carrying contraband to North Korea, requiring flag states to followup evidence of contraband with inspections, and requiring all countries to deny fuel to ships that refuse to submit.