Poll shows Obama, Romney in a dead heat

President Obama and Mitt Romney are deadlocked with each holding 49 percent support nationally as they head into Tuesday's election, though Mr. Romney holds a lead on enthusiasm, according to this week's The Washington Times/Zogby Poll of likely voters, released Thursday night.

Romney's message largely in tact

Subtract the jokes about corn qualifying as amber waves of grain, and Mitt Romney's basic message to voters — captured in his standard 20-minute stump speech — remains remarkably the same today as it was a year ago in the frozen cornfields of Iowa: He's the government turnaround artist the country has been waiting for.

Obama tries new tack in stump speech

After presiding over four straight trillion-dollar deficits and a stubbornly weak economic recovery, President Obama billed himself as the real candidate of change Thursday as his tight race against Republican Mitt Romney entered the final days of campaigning.

Environmentalists still in Obama's camp

While even he admits disappointment in his first-term record on the fight against climate change, President Obama continues to enjoy strong support from environmentalists who say they are confident he can deliver a carbon tax and other far-reaching measures against global warming in a second term.

Test plugs prevent flooding of tunnels

Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security announced a successful test for a giant high-pressure balloon that can plug a mass-transit tunnel, in theory preventing damaging floods such as the ones flowing through New York's subway system.

Republicans fire at Obama on 'Watergate redux'

The Obama administration's response to the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi is increasingly being compared by Republicans with Watergate, the 1972 break-in that eventually toppled President Nixon.

In Obama vs. Romney, Redskins elect to talk it out

Lorenzo Alexander's life was simpler four years ago. He did not have a family of five. He did not own a pilates studio in Ashburn, and he did not have a strong foothold professionally as a co-captain of the Washington Redskins.

Bloomberg issues surprise endorsement of Obama

New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, an independent, issued a surprise endorsement of President Obama's re-election Thursday, pointing to the president's belief in global warming.

IG: Immigration courts 'flawed,' behind in caseloads

The federal court that hears immigration cases and administers the nation's immigration laws is "flawed" and has failed to keep up with pending cases despite an increase in the number of judges, a report said Thursday.

Inside the Beltway: That pesky change

The campaigns only wish they could trademark the word "change," which technically functions as both noun and verb. President Obama and Mitt Romney are duking it out over who's got the biggest "change" in the nation as Election Day looms, now some 96 hours away.

Outsiders turn on spending spigot full blast

Outside political groups spent $90 million on ads and activism in a single day Monday, a high-water mark in the history of political spending, as super PACs, parties and nonprofit political groups furiously unloaded money that will have little value to them in just one week.

Orientalist art's reversal of fortune

As recently as 20 years ago, Arabs showed little interest in Orientalist works — paintings of Middle Eastern scenes by European artists — which were seen as an exotic distortion of the reality of the Middle East and its people aimed at a Western public. More recently, that negative perception has changed.

Births assisted by clinics way up

The number of babies born with the help of fertility clinics has almost tripled since 1996, but these children are also more likely than others to have difficult births because so many are born as twins or triplets, the federal government says in a report released this week.

Graham Spanier: Ex-Penn State president charged in Jerry Sandusky case

Former Penn State President Graham Spanier was charged Thursday with hushing up child sex-abuse complaints against Jerry Sandusky, taking the accusations of a "conspiracy of silence" to the highest level of the university and marking another chapter in the dramatic downfall of a once-renowned administrator.

Israel confirms killing Arafat deputy in 1988

Lifting a nearly 25-year veil of secrecy, Israel acknowledged Thursday that it killed the deputy of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in a 1988 seaborne raid in Tunisia.

Briton in missiles-to-Iran case pleads guilty in Texas

A British man accused of trying to buy missile parts from undercover American agents and resell them to Iran pleaded guilty Thursday in a deal that would carry nearly three years in prison but could allow him to serve much of that time in his native United Kingdom.

Commentary

DECKER: 5 Questions with Phyllis Schlafly

Phyllis Schlafly is president of Eagle Forum, a grassroots organization she founded in 1972 to champion the traditional family, constitutional principles and national sovereignty. She is universally recognized as an architect of the modern conservative movement.

GILMORE: Mitt Romney will win Virginia

As the presidential election of 2012 draws near, the polls in Virginia are very close. Virginia's 13 electoral votes may determine who will be our new president. Mitt Romney seems to have a slight lead, but clearly, the messages of the two major candidates in the last week of the campaign will determine the winner.

KUHNER: Obama and the future of our republic

President Obama must be defeated on Tuesday. Our republic hangs in the balance. A second term would enable him to achieve his seminal goal: the transformation of America into a European social democracy. The nation of our Founding Fathers will cease to exist.

MILLER: All Obama's bureaucrats

Whether he's a one- or two-term president, Barack Obama's legacy will be the ginormous federal government he left behind. Trillion-dollar annual deficits weren't enough to make him reconsider the wisdom of his spending sprees.

GHEI: Sandy's broken windows

Northeasterners affected by Tuesday's massive storm are beginning the process of assessing the damage. Initial estimates suggest it could cost anywhere from $20 billion to $100 billion to bring things back to where they were before Hurricane Sandy struck.