Politics

Rail crossing stop signs faded at Md. crash site
Stop signs at a rail crossing where a train and trash truck crashed in a Baltimore suburb were faded and one was hung upside down and facing away from ...
House panel backs bill to ban later-term abortions
The House is girding for another wrenching debate on abortion after a House panel on Wednesday approved legislation that would ban almost all ...
Schools bill to give states more control
The Senate Education Committee on Wednesday finished its sweeping rewrite of No Child Left Behind that eases coast-to-coast requirements for schools ...
Judge: Supreme Court sign ban unconstitutional
In a case that could end with the Supreme Court deciding how much free speech to allow on its own doorstep, a federal judge has thrown out a law ...
NSA director: Programs work to protect America
The director of the National Security Agency says he wants to provide as much public detail as possible on the agency's surveillance programs, arguing ...
Challenges to phone records face legal obstacles
The government's massive collection of Americans' phone records is drawing protests and lawsuits from civil liberties groups, but major legal ...
House votes to limit reverse mortgage initial draw
The Federal Housing Administration could limit the size of initial lump-sum payments that lenders offer reverse mortgage borrowers and require escrow ...
Syrian rebels press US and allies to send weapons
With President Barack Obama weighing the issue, increasingly desperate Syrian rebels are pressing the U.S. and its allies to send weapons to even ...
Court: Texas inmate's decades-old sentence invalid
The life sentence given to a Texas man who has remained in prison for 33 years since being pulled off of death row isn't valid, Texas' highest ...
Lawsuits over government surveillance languish
Before there was Edward Snowden and the leak of explosive documents showing widespread government surveillance, there was Mark Klein — a ...
NSA debate pits far left, right against the middle
Revelations of massive government collections of Americans' phone and email records have reinvigorated an odd-couple political alliance of the far ...
All about immigration: Green cards? Citizenship?
After years of gridlock, this may be the moment when Congress at last does something about the millions of immigrants living illegally in the U.S.
Dad of Snowden's girlfriend 'shocked' by news
The father of the girlfriend of Edward Snowden described the leaker of national secrets as a shy and reserved man with convictions, but said Tuesday ...
Congress briefed on US surveillance programs
Dogged by fear and confusion about sweeping spy programs, intelligence officials sought to convince House lawmakers in an unusual briefing Tuesday ...
Immigration debate clears procedural Senate hurdle
In Spanish and English, the Senate pushed contentious immigration legislation over early procedural hurdles with deceptive ease on Tuesday as ...
Daley set to challenge Democratic governor in Ill.
A rare intra-party battle began taking shape Tuesday among big-name Democrats in Illinois, as former White House chief of staff Bill Daley positioned ...
US leaker Snowden faces hard choices while hiding
Edward Snowden, the former CIA employee who leaked top-secret documents about U.S. surveillance programs, has few options to stay one step ahead of ...
Fort Hood suspect, defense attorneys at odds
Defense attorneys ordered to help the Army psychiatrist charged in the deadly 2009 Fort Hood shooting rampage said Tuesday that it would be unethical ...
ACLU sues over NSA phone records program
The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Obama administration Tuesday, asking the government to halt a phone-tracking program that collects the ...
Man linked to hacker group agrees to plead guilty
An Ohio man linked to the hacker collective Anonymous plans to plead guilty to charges that he breached police-agency websites, under an agreement ...
Panel rejects request for military base closings
Another round of military base closings has hit a dead end. The Senate Armed Services readiness subcommittee on Tuesday approved legislation rejecting ...
Southern Baptists re-elect first black president
The Southern Baptist Convention re-elected its first black president, the Rev. Fred Luter Jr., at its annual meeting Tuesday. Luter was first elected ...
Google asks to publish more US gov't information
Google is asking the Obama administration for permission to disclose more details about the U.S. government's demands for email and other personal ...
Protest crackdowns test Obama ties with Turkish PM
Government crackdowns against protesters in Turkey could test the close ties between President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ...
Correction: Fort Hood Shooting story
In a June 9 story about how the Fort Hood massacre defendant's health problems could slow the pace of his trial, The Associated Press erroneously ...