Anchorage, Sept. 9 : It turns out that Alaska Governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.

According to the Washington Post, Palin also charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions.

Her husband, Todd, billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he made on official business for his wife.

London, Sept. 9 : Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is said to have kept the birth of her youngest child, Trig, a secret even from her closest aides.

According to The Independent, they did not know Palin was pregnant until a few weeks before Trig''s birth in April, and that was because she hid her pregnancy.

New York, Sept. 9 : Republican vice-presidential nominee and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is being hailed as a mix of Lara Croft and Britain’s “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher.

If the New York Post has praised John McCain’s decision to pick "the charming, but rock-solid, outsider Sarah Palin", the Scotsman has revealed that companies are scrambling to make dolls in Palin''s image.

One shows her as a bespectacled action figure with short white skirt, long black coat and pistol strapped to her thigh.

Republicans hope she can breathe new life into a party already demoralized by eight years of failure.

New York, Sept. 9: In her first campaign outing since the Democratic National Convention, New York’s junior Senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton, avoided criticizing new contender for female voters, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

The Obama Campaign is seeing Clinton as the best counter to Palin as far as attracting the votes of white working women and mothers who supported her during the Democratic primaries.

Leading an evening rally in Tampa, Clinton, however, chose to use a line that she had used at two earlier events -- “No way, no how, no McCain — no Palin!”

London, Sep 9: The most prominent women in American politics Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and New York Senator Hillary Clinton assisted Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s efforts to counter the polling power of Sarah Palin.

Although President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were showering compliments on Palin, Rice offered only the faintest praise, The Times reported.

She failed three times to defend the Alaskan Governor from charges that she does not have the necessary experience to be vice-president.

New York, Sept. 9: Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s frequent hugs with his running mate Sarah Palin leaves “room for the Holy Ghost”, says a etiquette and body language expert.

According to Christopher Buckley, a novelist and longtime satirist of the ways of Washington, Palin “seems to be cognizant that she is wandering into the danger zone, with the result that as she hugs him, she leans away from him so as to insert some chaste space between them.”