Washington, Dec. 5 : The United States Supreme Court plans to meet on Friday to decide whether to hear a case that could determine whether President-elect Barack Obama ever becomes the nation''s president.

Justice Clarence Thomas picked up the petition to hear New Jersey attorney Leo Donofrio''s lawsuit after Justice David H. Souter denied it.

Justice Thomas referred it to the full court, which decided to distribute the case for the judges'' conference.

Washington, Dec. 5 : US President-elect Barack Obama’s adviser on South Asian affairs, Bruce Riedel, has alleged that the terrorists who carried out last week’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai were professionals and had links to Pakistani intelligence agencies.

Washington, Dec. 5 : A close ally of Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain has charged US President-elect Barack Obama with having followed his predecessor Richard Nixon’s 1972 path to victory — drowning his opponent with cash.

“If the roles were reversed and it was the Republican Party nominee who had decided to walk away from the system and spend hundreds of millions of dollars more than the Democratic nominee — having a very direct effect on the election — I do not think it would have been taken with as much equanimity by the press and the powers that be as has been the case this year,” said Trevor Potter, a McCain confidant who served as the top lawyer to the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign.

Washington, Dec. 5 : US President-elect Barack Obama has yet to take office, but his candidacy has generated a national naming craze and a holiday in one Alabama county.

In his 2004 keynote address at the Democratic Convention, Obama had called himself a "skinny kid with a funny name." Now, four years later, that funny name is appearing on public buildings and birth certificates, reports Fox News.

MOSCOW, Dec. 4  -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he expects better relations between Russia and the United States when Barack Obama becomes president.

Putin took questions from the public during a three-hour session that was broadcast on radio and television, his first such appearance since he became prime minister, the RIA Novosti news agency reported..

He said Obama appears to be less enthusiastic about a proposed missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic than the Bush administration. Obama has said he would only support the shield if it is shown to be effective.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 4  -- A Florida congresswoman, certain she was the victim of a joke, hung up on President-elect Barack Obama -- not once, but twice.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., told that Obama wanted to speak with her, cut the caller off, telling the person on the other end she thought "this is a joke" by a radio station known for pulling pranks, CNN reported Thursday.

Obama's White House chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel -- who served with Ros-Lehtinen in the U. S. House of Representatives -- called to let her know she really was talking to the next president. She hung up again -- again thinking it was a crank call.