In a campaign speech in Ohio on Thursday, President Obama said that the economic problems the country faces have been “more than a decade in the making”—while also blaming partisanship in Washington for the lack of a solution. Saying that the “basic bargain in this country started to erode” for a long time before he took office—blaming tax cuts and the pricey foreign wars—Obama told the crowd that if they wanted "big tax cuts, huge spending cuts, and the agenda of the Bush years, then you should vote for Romney." Obama made an appeal to the middle class, telling them that he wanted a "stronger, growing middle-class." Just 250 miles away, Republican challenger Romney will speak about his plan for the economy.

Egypt’s highest court ruled Thursday that the last prime minister to serve under ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak can remain in the presidential race. Ahmed Shafiq will be allowed to contest his runoff election this past weekend with Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi after the court decided that a law banning former regime officials from running for office was unconstitutional. The court also decided that a third of the candidates elected to Egypt’s parliament ran illegally, forcing a new election for those seats and possibly the entire legislature.

The U.S. is expanding its secret intelligence forces in Africa to spy on terrorist hideouts, but many of the spying missions are actually being run by contractors who supply the aircraft, pilots, and personnel to collect intelligence from airspace above Uganda, Congo, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic. Contractors were previously used to conduct airborne spying operations in Latin America in the 1990s and early 2000s. The Pentagon often turns to outside contractors for “deniability,” according to an expert with the Brookings Institution, but “it rarely turns out that way,” he adds. “When things go bad, you can have two scenarios. Either the contractors are left holding the bag, complaining about abandonment, or else some kind of abuse happens and they’re not held accountable because of a mix of unclear legal accountability and a lack of political will to do something about it,” he says.

A former Penn State police officer who took the stand Wednesday in the Jerry Sandusky trial said he argued in 1998 that the former football coach be charged, but prosecutors disagreed at the time. Ronald Sheffler testified that he was one of the officers who was hiding in the home of alleged Victim 6 when his mother confronted Sandusky about sexually abusing her son. In court, Sheffler said he heard Sandusky tell the woman, “I wish I could ask forgiveness. I know I can’t get it from you. I wish I were dead.” Several other alleged victims testified Thursday, including Victim 3, who claimed Sandusky made inappropriate advances during showers at Penn State and sleepovers at Sandusky’s house. A judge said the prosecution is expected to complete their case today.

The Pentagon is planning its first-ever event to recognize gay and lesbian troops, officials said on Thursday. The event, which will coincide with gay pride month, is the first time the Pentagon has honored gay soldiers since the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in September. Officials said Defense Secretary Leon Panetta wants to bestow this honor.

This certainly isn’t W.’s day. According to a Gallup poll released Thursday, 68 percent of Americans blame former president George W. Bush for the country’s economic woes. A full 90 percent of Democrats who responded said Bush is to blame for the weak economy, and only 19 percent said Obama should carry much of the blame. As for Republicans, they were more split: 49 percent said Bush had a moderate amount or a great deal of the blame while 51 percent said Bush deserved not much of the blame or none at all. The poll had 1,000 respondents and was conducted by telephone from June 7 to June 10.

What’s $100 million to a man worth nearly $25 billion? Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate who donated $21 million to a super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich and followed up this week with $10 million to a pro–Mitt Romney super PAC, will apparently donate “whatever it takes” to defeat President Obama, a source told Forbes. The owner of the Las Vegas Sands casino will reportedly make “limitless” donations to get Romney elected, the source said—which certainly is in line with Adelson’s recent comments that he could donate as much as $100 million to Romney’s campaign. To make a comparison, the $10 million Adelson just donated to the Romney campaign is equivalent to an American family with a net worth of $100,000 donating $40.

Call it the Kentucky Derby Playoffs. Churchill Downs is upending its 139-year-history of using grade stakes to determine Derby entries and adopting a points system to set the 20-horse field  for next year’s Run for the Roses. Officially named the “Road to the Kentucky Derby,” the new system will be implemented this fall through points accrued in selected preparatory races. Churchill’s management is hopeful that the points system will get fans more geared up for the race. “People understand the Derby is the Super Bowl of racing, but they don’t understand what the ‘league’ structure is and what the series is to get there,” track President T. Kevin Flanery said in a statement. Points will be accrued in 36 races, as opposed to 185 races that previously factored into selection.

First they were poppin’ bottles, then they were throwing them: Chris Brown and Drake had an altercation at a Manhattan nightclub early Thursday morning that left Brown with a nasty gash on his chin. The NYPD confirmed the brawl between the singers and their respective entourages, noting that five people were injured in the dustup, though no arrests were made. Shortly afterward, Brown posted a photo of his bloody chin to his Twitter feed with a provocative message, “How u party wit rich n*** that hate? LOL…throwing bottles like girls? #shameonya!” The tweet has since been removed from Brown’s account. Drake, who dated Rihanna shortly after her controversial breakup with Brown, has kept quiet about the spat.

This is one way to get ratings. HBO and Game of Thrones apologized on Wednesday after the fantasy series featured former President George W. Bush’s head on stake. The head of the former president appeared for just a second in the fantasy series last year, and went unnoticed until a Reddit user flagged it. In the DVD commentary for the series’ first season, one of the writers admitted Bush’s head appears in some of the beheading scenes—but insisted there were no political motives.

On her first trip to Europe since 1988, Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday called for the international community to invest in her homeland. “I think the international community is working very hard to bring our country into it and it is up to our country to respond in that way as well,” Suu Kyi said upon her arrival in Geneva. On the two-week tour, Suu Kyi will also stop in Britain, Ireland, France, and Norway. But her trip has also been marred by ethnic fighting that broke out earlier this week in her homeland.

Allen Stanford, the Texas financier who was convicted last year of a $7 billion Ponzi scheme involving 30,000 people in some 113 countries, was sentenced to 110 years in jail by a federal judge on Thursday. Stanford made a plea to the court, defiantly fighting back tears and blaming his financial woes on the government. “We could have paid off every depositor and still have substantial assets remaining,” Stanford said. The federal prosecutor, William J. Stellmach, called Stanford’s comment “obscene.” A federal jury in March found Stanford guilty of 13 out of 14 counts of fraud, and prosecutors have argued that he consistently lied to investigators.

The U.S. has expanded its secret intelligence forces in Africa, with Special Operations forces establishing a network of small airbases to spy on terrorist hideouts, The Washington Post reported on Thursday. According to documents, and people involved in the project, the operation uses small, turboprop aircraft with hidden sensors that can record full-motion video, track infrared heat patterns, and vacuum radio and cellphone signals—but are disguised as private planes. Mainly based out of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, dozens of U.S. personnel and contractors have traveled there to work under the classified surveillance program known as Creek Sand. The U.S. began building its presence in Burkina Faso in 2007, and since then, about a dozen Air Force bases have been established throughout Africa, including in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, and the Seychelles.

These days it takes some star power to get some good causes noticed, and both Hillary Clinton and Ben Affleck are lending some of theirs to help prevent childhood deaths. Clinton and Affleck made appearances at a two-day conference Wednesday, along with about 700 other government and private sector leaders. The Call To Action for Child Survival gathering is being held at Georgetown University. More than 7.5 million children die under the age of five die each year. The idea is to eradicate the causes of preventable death like malaria.

Five people were injured on Wednesday when an Air Force CV-22 Osprey crashed at a Florida base during a routine training exercise, a military official said. The cause of the accident is under investigation. The Osprey was first developed by the army in 1982 and was nearly scrapped in 1989 by then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, who said the costs were too high. Questions have been raised about its safety before, after a 1992 crash in Virginia and two crashes in 2000. The Osprey is a tilt-rotor aircraft that can fly like an airplane but lands like a helicopter.

The Obama administration has implemented new Customs and Border Control procedures that require visitors to the U.S. and those returning home to undergo screening before they reach the country. At airports in Ireland, Madrid, Panama, and Japan, passengers are being searched for explosives and undergoing customs checks before they even get on a plane—in addition to the respective airports’ security procedures already in place. The new American system is an attempt to tighten security after al Qaeda’s several attempts to place bombs on planes headed for America.

The Buckeye State sure is popular. President Obama and Mitt Romney will both travel to Ohio, one of the election’s key battleground states, on Thursday to give speeches touting their economic plans—although the fighting had already started on Wednesday night. Romney, who will be speaking in Cincinnati, predicted Obama would use his speech as an opportunity to “change course” after the president said last week the private sector was “doing fine.” Obama, who will be speaking at a community college in Cleveland, is planning on highlighting the distinctions between his economic plans and Romney's—as well as underscoring the dire economic situation Obama inherited upon taking office in 2009.

After a worse-than-expected quarter, Nokia announced on Thursday that it would be cutting 10,000 jobs—about one in every five positions. Hit hard by rivals Apple and Samsung, Nokia also cut its earnings outlook for the third quarter. To compete in the ever-growing global cellphone business, Chief Executive Stephen Elop is pinning all his hopes on the Lumia phone, which uses Microsoft software—but sales have been sluggish to start. Shares in the Finnish-based Nokia were down 10.5 percent on Thursday, below the psychologically important 2 euros per share—with analyst Mikko Ervasti saying there is “no definitive bottom” for the share price to reach.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said the relationship between
 politicians and the press has “gone wrong” and that they have become
 “too close.” In his testimony on Thursday before the Leveson Inquiry—the Parliamentary committee investigating media ethics in the wake of
 the hacking scandal at News Corp.—Cameron said he doesn't “believe the
 regulatory system works” and said that he’s “not trying to blame 
the whole thing on New Labour, but I think it’s been a developing 
story.” Cameron said he never “traded a policy” to receive
 favorable coverage.


United Nations monitors arrived in the Syrian town of Haffeh on
 Thursday, the site of an alleged massacre where President Bashar
al-Assad had prevented them from entering on Tuesday. U.S. officials
 charged that Russian-made weapons were killing civilians in Syrian “hourly.” But U.S. officials
 backtracked 
from earlier claims that Russia has been supplying the Syrian 
government with arms, with officials saying late Wednesday that the
 Russian-made helicopters were “not new.” Meanwhile, China’s foreign
 minister 
indicated problems with France’s proposed plan to enforce U.N. special
 envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan, saying China opposed any plan “leaning 
toward sanctions and pressure.”


Attorney General Eric Holder proposed Thursday a meeting with Rep. Darrell Issa in order to settle a dispute over Justice Department documents that Issa is demanding as part of his investigation into Operation Fast and Furious. Holder said on Thursday that he is willing to turn over documents relating to the case and that the department is willing to provide a briefing “explaining how the department’s understandings of the facts of Fast and Furious evolved.” Issa has scheduled a vote for next Wednesday on a contempt citation against Holder for failing to turn over the relevant documents.