Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama plunged straight into the next, nationwide stage of the battle for the Democratic nomination on Wednesday after Clinton’s stunning comeback in the New Hampshire primary, both embarking on a fresh round of campaign events and fundraising. Clinton, having regained frontrunner status, announced a series of rallies, political endorsements and campaign events across 14 states.

Other candidates in John Edwards’s position might find hibernation appealing. Ice snaps underfoot. Cars lie buried in snow at the side of the road, red strips of plastic fluttering from aerials, and Edwards, despite logging more kilometres in this state than any other Democratic candidate, is struggling to persuade Iowans that he is still in the race.

Nearly two million Iraqis have become refugees in their own land in the past year, redrawing the ethnic and sectarian map of Baghdad and other cities, a report by the Iraqi Red Crescent said this week. In Baghdad alone, nearly a million people have fled their homes. Last month saw the sharpest rise so far in the numbers of Iraqis forced to abandon their homes — 71,1%.

United States President George W Bush suffered a serious rebuke from his wartime leadership on Monday when his army chief said he did not have enough money to fight the war in Iraq. Six weeks before midterm elections in which the war is a crucial issue, the protest from the army head, General Peter Schoomaker, exposes concerns within the US military about the strain of the war on Iraq.