For 40 years, members of the Minnesota National Guard and the Norwegian Home Guard have participated in an exchange program that promotes good will, improves cultural understanding, and sharpens military readiness between the two nations. This week, Gov.

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. (AP) - An aggressive President Barack Obama accused challenger Mitt Romney of favoring a "one-point plan" to help the rich in America and playing politics with the recent deadly terrorist attack in Libya in a Tuesday night debate crackling with energy and emotion just three weeks before the election. Romney pushed back hard, saying the middle class "has been crushed over the last four years," that 23 million Americans are struggling to find work and that the death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya was part of an unraveling of the administration's foreign policy.

BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) - The U.S. dispatched an elite group of Marines to Tripoli on Wednesday after the mob attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. Officials were investigating whether the rampage was a backlash to an anti-Islamic video with ties to Coptic Christians or a plot to coincide with the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.

BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) - Around 30,000 Libyans marched through the eastern city of Benghazi on Friday in an unprecedented protest to demand the disbanding of powerful militias in the wake of last week's attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

Here's a look at protests and events across the world on Friday connected to an amateurish anti-Muslim film produced in the United States and vulgar caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in a French satirical weekly.

DANVILLE, Ky. (AP) - At odds early and often, Joe Biden and Republican Paul Ryan squabbled over the economy, taxes, Medicare and more Thursday night in a contentious, interruption-filled debate. "That is a bunch of malarkey," the vice president retorted after a particularly tough Ryan attack on the administration's foreign policy.

LIMA, Peru (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is taking responsibility for security at the U.S. consulate in Libya where an attack by extremists last month killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. Pushing back against Republican criticism of the Obama administration for its handling of the situation, Clinton said Monday in Lima, Peru, that security at all of America's diplomatic missions abroad is her job, not that of the White House.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House has put special operations strike forces on standby and moved drones into the skies above Africa, ready to strike militant targets from Libya to Mali - if investigators can find the al-Qaida-linked group responsible for the death of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Libya.

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) - President Barack Obama sharply challenged Mitt Romney on foreign policy in their final campaign debate Monday night, accusing him of "wrong and reckless leadership that is all over the map." The Republican coolly responded, "Attacking me is not an agenda" for dealing with a dangerous world.

Ryan Crocker sounds very far from Washington - and not only because he is talking over an uncertain phone line from Kabul.