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 - A bruising debate on health care awaits the Senate after Thanksgiving now that the historic legislation has cleared a key hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Edward M. Kennedy will be a tough act to follow, even for the Kennedys. His death, coupled with the decision by family members not to seek the seat he held for nearly five decades, has prompted predictions that the family's long-running political dynasty is over.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Senate, torn along party lines, voted to formally launch debate on historic legislation to enact President Barack Obama's signature drive to remake US health care, handing him a win for now.

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.

LONDON - A British newspaper claims leaked government documents show plans for the 2003 invasion of Iraq were drafted more than a year earlier — calling into question Tony Blair's public statements on the military buildup.

BUCHAREST (AFP) - Romanians voted on Sunday in a tight presidential election seen as a chance to resolve a political crisis that has hindered the recent EU member's bid to recover from a deep recession.

BUCHAREST, Romania - Romanians were voting for a new president on Sunday in an election that could help end a leadership crisis that has threatened an international loan aimed at stopping the country's painful recession.

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.

WASHINGTON - A bruising debate on health care awaits the Senate after Thanksgiving now that the historic legislation has cleared a key hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama.

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.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Budget shortfalls pose a direct threat to millions of U.S. jobs, many in the private sector, as state and local governments lay off workers and cut spending on contracts and other business services, a think tank said on Thursday.