Politics News

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama and his family spent a low-key night out at the home of a senior White House adviser after a whirlwind week spent on a presidential trip to Asia.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's eight-day trip to Asia produced no tangible wins for the United States, though he is citing talks with Asian allies that he says could help create thousands of job and open new markets for American goods in the future.

BETHESDA, Md. - Fresh from his weeklong trip through Asia, President Barack Obama is taking time to catch up on dad duty.

WASHINGTON — The government intercepted at least 18 e-mails between the alleged Fort Hood gunman and a radical Muslim cleric, and a key senator says there could be more communications that might have tipped off law enforcement or military officials.

WASHINGTON - Invoking the name of the late Edward M. Kennedy, Senate Democrats sealed a 60-vote majority needed to advance health care legislation Saturday ahead of an evening showdown with opposition Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama.

Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid won over the last of his party’s holdouts, bringing him to the verge of victory in the first big test of whether he can keep Democrats united behind health-care legislation.

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department intends to drop manslaughter and weapons charges against one of the Blackwater Worldwide security guards involved in a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting, prosecutors said in court documents Friday.

WASHINGTON - There may be additional e-mails that could have tipped off law enforcement or military officials to the Fort Hood shooter before he went on his deadly rampage, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Friday.

WASHINGTON - A retired State Department worker and his wife accused of a decades-long plot to spy for Cuba pleaded guilty Friday in a deal that will leave him behind bars for the rest of his life but gives her a chance at freedom in six years.

BERN, Switzerland - A bear has attacked a man who entered its enclosure at a new park in Switzerland, and a policeman opened fire on the animal to defend the intruder.

VATICAN CITY - After offering a home in his church to disaffected Anglicans, Pope Benedict XVI assured the archbishop of Canterbury on Saturday that he is still committed to seeking closer relations between Catholics and Anglicans.

BRUSSELS (AFP) - The hunt began in earnest Saturday for a new Belgian prime minister after Herman Van Rompuy was chosen as the EU first president, with his predecessor Yves Leterme appearing in pole position.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - A group of black Connecticut firefighters hopes to block promotions for white firefighters who won a discrimination case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (AN'-toh-nihn skuh-LEE'-uh) has said in a speech at Ohio State University the Constitution is best treated as an original document within the context of its historical creation, not as a text subject to modern reinterpretation.

FREDERICK, Md. - More than 150 years after the U.S. Supreme Court issued the notorious Dred Scott decision affirming slavery, a Maryland city unveiled a plaque Tuesday to educate visitors about the opinion and the local man who wrote it — and to quell a local controversy.

After emerging out of nowhere over the summer as a seemingly potent and growing political force, the tea party movement has become embroiled in internal feuding over philosophy, strategy and money and is at risk of losing its momentum.

WASHINGTON - Invoking the name of the late Edward M. Kennedy, Senate Democrats sealed a 60-vote majority needed to advance health care legislation Saturday ahead of an evening showdown with opposition Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama.

Congressional Democrats could be careening toward a head-on collision with the White House over $200 billion in leftover bailout money — money that Republicans think should simply be returned to taxpayers.