Browsing: National

The Supreme Court wrestled Wednesday with the appropriate role for religion in government in a case involving mainly Christian prayers at the start of a New York town’s council meetings.

The justices began their day with the marshal’s customary plea that “God save the United States and this honorable court.” They then plunged into a lively give-and-take that highlighted the sensitive nature of offering religious invocations in public proceedings that don’t appeal to everyone and governments’ efforts to police the practice.

Illinois lawmakers on Tuesday positioned their state to become the largest in the heartland to allow gay marriage, finally pushing the measure through the House after months of arduous lobbying in President Barack Obama’s home state.

Under the legalization measure, which the state House approved 61-54 before sending it on to the Senate for technical changes, gay weddings could be held in Illinois starting in June. The bill heads next to Gov. Pat Quinn, who has pledged to sign it, though it wasn’t immediately clear when.

The Supreme Court on Monday declined for now to jump back into the long-running legal fight over abortion, but a flood of new state restrictions has increased the chances that the issue soon will be back before the justices.

The court stepped back from a dispute over a now-nullified Oklahoma law to limit drug-induced abortions.

The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, The Washington Post reported Wednesday, citing documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

A secret accounting dated Jan. 9, 2013, indicates that NSA sends millions of records every day from Yahoo and Google internal networks to data warehouses at the agency’s Fort Meade, Md., headquarters.

Move over, website woes. Lawmakers confronted the Obama administration Tuesday with a difficult new health care problem — a wave of cancellation notices hitting small businesses and individuals who buy their own insurance.

By Ricardo Alonso-Zalvidar and Stephen Ohlemacher Associated Press WASHINGTON — Move over, website woes. Lawmakers confronted the Obama administration Tuesday with…

Whether you’re a twister or a dunker, eating just one Oreo may seem next to impossible. A recent study might hold the clue to this phenomenon.

Research conducted by college students and a professor at Connecticut College has found that “Milk’s favorite cookie” is as addictive as drugs, at least to lab rats.

Trick or treat. Halloween is neat. Don’t give Fido something bad to eat.

It’s Halloween time again. With all the festivities, there are many dangers for pets. Candy is a common danger, but there are many more than most pet owners even considered.

Doctors now have convincing evidence that they put HIV into remission, hopefully for good, in a Mississippi baby born with the AIDS virus — a medical first that is prompting a new look at how hard and fast such cases should be treated.

ATLANTA — A new high-dose flu vaccine for seniors works better than the standard shot in that age group, according to a long-awaited study by the vaccine’s manufacturer.

A student at a Nevada middle school opened fire with a semi-automatic handgun on campus just before the starting bell Monday, wounding two 12-year-old boys and killing a math teacher who was trying to protect children from their classmate.

A group of House Republicans planning Senate campaigns next year took different bets on a bill in Congress ending a government shutdown and avoiding a default. For some, a general election loomed large while for others, the vote was a matter of competing for conservative primary voters.

The high-profile vote Wednesday night to end the 16-day partial government shutdown and stave off a national default divided Republicans in the House and Senate and could turn into a noteworthy issue in next year’s midterm elections.

The case of a 14-year-old girl who says she was raped by an older boy from her Missouri high school and left passed out on her porch in freezing temperatures is expected to get a fresh start under a special prosecutor.

A special prosecutor will be able to launch his own investigation, interview witnesses and work independently from the local prosecutor who’s faced intense scrutiny for dropping felony charges in the case last year, experts said Thursday.

Visitors lined up for Washington’s museums to finally reopen Thursday after a 16-day government shutdown that cost each site money in lost retail sales, theater tickets and concessions.

The Smithsonian museums, National Gallery of Art and U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum returned to regular operating hours. Tours resumed at the U.S. Capitol visitor’s center, and barriers were removed at the memorials on the National Mall.

A majority of students in public schools throughout the American South and West are low-income for the first time in at least four decades, according to a new study that details a demographic shift with broad implications for the country.

The analysis by the Southern Education Foundation, the nation’s oldest education philanthropy, is based on the number of students from preschool through 12th grade who were eligible for the federal free and reduced-price meals program in the 2010-11 school year.

Up against a deadline, Congress passed and sent a waiting President Barack Obama legislation late Wednesday night to avoid a threatened national default and end the 16-day partial government shutdown, the culmination of an epic political drama that placed the U.S. economy at risk.

Washington adopted rules Wednesday for the recreational sale of marijuana, creating what advocates hope will be a template for the drug’s legalization around the world.

Mexico, Uruguay, Poland and other countries and states already are reviewing the new regulations, which cover everything from the security at and size of licensed marijuana gardens, to how many pot stores can open in cities across the state, said Alison Holcomb, the Seattle lawyer who drafted Washington’s marijuana initiative.

Associated Press WASHINGTON — The Senate has voted to avoid a financial default and reopen the government after a 16-day…

The government shutdown is slowing the wheels of justice in federal courts by delaying civil cases, forcing prosecutors to operate with skeleton staffs and raising uncertainty about the system’s immediate future if the stalemate continues past Thursday.

That’s when federal courts officials expect the reserve funds they have been using since the Oct. 1 start of the shutdown will run out.

Stocks rose Monday, helped by signs that Washington was moving closer to a deal that would avert a default by the U.S. government.

The stock market started the session broadly lower after negotiations between the White House and House Republicans broke down over the weekend.

However, stocks erased those losses in early afternoon trading following news that President Barack Obama would meet with Congressional leaders. The market extended those gains after Senate leaders in both parties said progress was being made.

President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner offered hints of possible compromise but also traded heated rhetoric Tuesday, a frustratingly inconclusive combination that left the eight-day partial government shutdown firmly in place and the threat of an unprecedented national default drawing closer.

“There’s a crack there,” Boehner said of the impasse near the end of a day of maneuvering at the White House and the Capitol. Yet the Ohio Republican added that it was not enough to warrant optimism.

A woman with a 1-year-old girl led Secret Service and police on a harrowing car chase from the White House past the Capitol Thursday, attempting to penetrate the security barriers at both national landmarks before she was shot to death, police said. The child was unhurt.

“I’m pretty confident this was not an accident,” said Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier. Still, Capitol Police said there appeared to be no terrorist link. The woman apparently was unarmed.

By Bradley Klapper and Laurie Kellman Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A woman driving a black Lexus tried to ram…

A police officer was reported injured after gunshots at the U.S. Capitol, police said Thursday while putting the entire complex on lockdown.

“There are reports of injuries,” said Terrance Gainer, the Senate’s Sergeant at Arms.

FBI agents were also headed to the scene.

A hidden website operated by a San Francisco man using an alias from “The Princess Bride” became a vast black market bazaar that brokered more than $1 billion in transactions for illegal drugs and services, according to court papers made public Wednesday.

A criminal complaint in New York accused Ross William Ulbricht of being the mastermind and charged him with narcotics trafficking, computer hacking and money laundering. A separate indictment in Maryland accused him in a failed murder-for-hire scheme.

President Barack Obama brought congressional leaders to the White House on Wednesday for the first time since a partial government shutdown began, but there was no sign of progress toward ending an impasse that has idled 800,000 federal workers and curbed services around the country.

The standoff continued after a White House summit with chief executives as financial leaders and Wall street urged a resolution before serious damage is done to the U.S. and world economy.

For the first time in nearly two decades, the federal government staggered into a partial shutdown Monday at midnight after congressional Republicans stubbornly demanded changes in the nation’s health care law as the price for essential federal funding and President Barack Obama and Democrats adamantly refused.

As Congress gridlocked, Obama said a “shutdown will have a very real economic impact on real people, right away,” with hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed and veterans’ centers, national parks, most of the space agency and other government operations shuttered.

A glitzier, high-tech version of America’s $100 bill is rolling off the presses and headed for wallets soon.

Despite years of production-related delays, the updated $100 bill has undergone a major makeover that includes a color-changing ink well, 3-D security ribbon, and more texture on Benjamin Franklin’s collar.

U.S. and Russian negotiators remain at odds on a U.N. Security Council resolution that would hold Syria accountable if it fails to live up to pledges to dismantle its chemical weapons stockpiles, American officials said Tuesday, as President Barack Obama warned the world body that it risks its credibility and reputation if it does not act.

Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met for nearly 90 minutes at the United Nations and though progress was made in some areas, they were unable to reach agreement on the text of a resolution that would meet Obama’s standard, the officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss publicly the closed-door meeting.

Clicking “Like” on Facebook is constitutionally protected free speech and can be considered the 21st century-equivalent of a campaign yard sign, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond reversed a lower court ruling that said merely “liking” a Facebook page was insufficient speech to merit constitutional protection.