NEW YORK — President Barack Obama (pictured left) and Republican challenger Mitt Romney (pictured) are returning to the sometimes-nasty rhetoric of a close presidential campaign after a brief truce, renewing their focus on two battleground states and preparing for next week’s final, perhaps pivotal, debate.

SEE ALSO:Mitt Romney And The Politics Of Disrespect^[1]

Romney and Obama set aside their differences — mostly — to poke fun of themselves and each other Thursday night at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner^[2]. On Friday, it’s back to campaigning in Florida and Virginia, two of just a handful of states that will decide the election, now less than three weeks away.

Obama was planning a speech at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., rallying college students in the northern part of the state. Romney was to fly to Daytona Beach, Fla., for a rally with running mate Paul Ryan.

While they’re both focused on the South, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls released T

PORTLAND, Oregon —Local Boy Scout leaders, police officials, prosecutors and mayors helped hush up numerous child sex abuse allegations against scoutmasters and other volunteers, according to details in a trove of nearly 15,000 pages of so-called “perversion files” compiled by the Scouts from 1959 to the mid-1980s.

Billie Jolene Warburton, 3o, was found  passed out in the parking lot of the Mills E. Godwin, Jr. Courts Building in Virginia behind the wheel of her car with her 23 month old son crying in the backseat, reports the Huffington Post^[1].

Even more disturbing, if that’s possible, the Virginia woman had fresh injection marks in her arm from shooting up heroine and was arrested for “possession of heroin, driving under the influence of drugs, and felony child neglect.”

She told officers at the scene that her son was crying because he hadn’t been fed since the day before. Warburton also claimed that she had not planned on getting high, she just had the paraphernalia in her purse.

The Huffington Post^[2] has more:

Warburton came to the attention of police when an officer on patrol observed her car parked at the courthouse. The officer stopped to see if she was in need of assistance and found her slumped over the steering wheel of her vehicle. Warburton’s window was open, the motor was running, and

A Las Vegas police report reveals that Flavor Flav–real name William Drayton, Jr.,–reportedly flung his fiancée Liz Trujillo to the floor, ripped out her earrings, then chased Trujillo’s teenage son around the house with two knives in his hands, TMZ reports^[1].

SEE ALSO: Wyclef’s Half-Naked Photo Fail: Where Were His Boys? [Opinion]^[2]

The alleged attack began when Trujillo accused the performer of cheating. The argument quickly went south when Flav’s manhandling of Trujillo, which resulted in him throwing her to the floor twice.

SEE ALSO:  Flavor Flav Arrested for Assault With a Deadly Weapon^[3]

Trujillo told authorities that her 17-year-old son quickly jumped to her defense when Flav allegedly ripped her earrings out of her ear lobes. However, his heroics only intensified the already volatile situation.

According to the police documents, Flav grabbed a knives a pair of knives, chased him around the house, kicked down a door to get to him and reportedly threatened his life. Flav denies