ALL RECENT AP STORIES

Seventy-two airport towers and other air traffic control facilities that were slated to close at night due to budget cuts will get to stay open, the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday. The FAA had announced earlier this year that it would eliminate midnight shifts of air traffic controllers at 69 airport towers, two regional approach control facilities and one combination tower and approach control facility in order to meet across-the-board, automatic spending cuts required by Congress....

The nation's slowly improving jobs picture hides problems like stagnant wages and fewer working hours that strike directly at President Barack Obama's base of support _ young people, racial minorities and the less affluent. As the president launches a new focus on jobs, his traditional allies contend Obama has put too much of an emphasis on a deficit-cutting grand bargain with Republicans at the expense of creating jobs. New college graduates face a downbeat labor market. The unemployment rate...

The Senate rejected an effort Wednesday to expand the use of firearms on some of the nation's most frequently visited federal lands, handing gun control advocates a modest success. The measure, backed by the National Rifle Association, represented one of two efforts Wednesday by gun rights supporters to take the offensive in Congress. Across the Capitol, a Republican-run House committee voted to make it easier for some veterans with mental difficulties to get firearms. The rejected Senate proposal...

Voters booted Republican Dan Foley from office after a decade in the New Mexico Legislature, and within months he began collecting taxpayer-financed pension benefits _ even though he was only 39 years old. By the time he turns 67 and qualifies for full Social Security benefits, Foley will have received nearly $450,000 in pension payments in exchange for the $5,000 he contributed to the plan while serving in the state House of Representatives. New Mexico's unique and generous legislative retirement...

Just six months after Minnesota voters turned back an effort to ban gay weddings, lawmakers are poised to make the state the first in the Midwest to pass a law allowing them. The startling shift comes amid a rapid evolution of public opinion nationally in the debate over marriage. But with Minnesota and possibly Illinois set to broaden the definition to include same-sex couples, coastal states may soon have some company in enacting changes. In November, voters unexpectedly defeated a measure...

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel demanded more information Wednesday after the Air Force removed 17 launch officers from duty at a nuclear missile base in North Dakota over what a commander called "rot" in the force. The Air Force struggled to explain, acknowledging concern about an "attitude problem" but telling Congress the weapons were secure. Hagel reacted strongly after The Associated Press reported the unprecedented sidelining of the officers at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., where one of their...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he wants legislation that would strip military officers of the ability to overturn convictions for sexual assault. In a letter to the leaders of the Armed Services Committee, the Nevada Democrat said he wants the measure in the sweeping defense policy bill that Congress has passed every year for decades. He said it would ensure justice for victims of assault and prevent attacks in the future. The Pentagon estimated in a report released Tuesday that up to...

The government's food stamp program, which helps feed 1 in every 7 America, was one of the few programs exempted from this year's automatic spending cuts. But now it is likely to get trimmed. Unresolved is by how much. The Democratic chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee is only willing to take roughly one-half of 1 percent, or about $400 million annually, off the top as the panel prepares to move a massive farm bill through committee next week. Her Republican counterpart in the House,...

Newly elected Congressman Mark Sanford and his ex-wife have settled a complaint that said he was at her home without her permission in violation of their divorce agreement. Sanford, who won his old seat in South Carolina's 1st District seat on Tuesday, has said he was at Jenny Sanford's home on Feb. 3 so their youngest son would not have to watch the Super Bowl alone. Under the settlement, Sanford admits he was in contempt of the divorce decree then and on previous occasions. The judge agreed...

A look at the New Mexico Legislature's pension program. Q: Who is eligible for a pension? A: Legislators and lieutenant governors can receive pension benefits after they leave office at any age with 10 or more years of service. At age 65, they need five or more years of service to start receiving retirement benefits. Lawmakers can buy an additional five years of service credit, such as if they had served in the military before becoming a legislator. As of last year, 163 retirees and their survivors...

Voters booted Republican Dan Foley from office after a decade in the New Mexico Legislature, and within months he began collecting taxpayer-financed pension benefits _ even though he was only 39 years old. By the time he turns 67 and qualifies for full Social Security benefits, Foley will have received nearly $450,000 in pension payments in exchange for the $5,000 he contributed to the plan while serving in the state House of Representatives. New Mexico's unique and generous legislative retirement...

An analysis by the Social Security Administration says a bipartisan immigration bill pending in the Senate would boost the retirement program's trust fund by adding millions of taxpayers to the economy. The finding comes in a letter to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who requested the analysis, from Stephen C. Gross, chief actuary for the agency. It could provide a boost for the immigration bill, which has been attacked by some conservatives as overly costly, as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares...

Religious leaders said Wednesday that adding a gay rights proposal to immigration legislation could risk their support for the bill, setting up a potential Senate showdown. "We're extremely hopeful that this bill will remain an immigration bill and not get tangled up with the issue of gay rights," said Richard Land, a leader of the Southern Baptist Convention. "But if it did, if it did, the Southern Baptist Convention would not be able to support the bill." Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the...

The Senate has rejected an effort to expand the use of firearms on the heavily visited lands of the Army Corps of Engineers in a congressional victory for gun control supporters. The vote for the proposal by Sen. Tom Coburn was 56-43 for the legislation, but that fell short of the 60 votes needed. The measure would have let people carry guns onto Corps property for any legal purpose. They currently can only be used there for activities like hunting or target shooting. The agency oversees nearly...

Senate Republicans have used a procedural move to delay a panel from considering the confirmation of Thomas Perez to head the Labor Department. A vote in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that was set for Wednesday has been pushed back to May 16. The move to delay the hearing came hours after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell delivered a floor speech calling Perez a "crusading ideologue" who would ignore the law to advance a left-wing agenda. It's the second time...

When school started this fall in this sparsely populated rural area at West Virginia's southern tip, 1 of 7 classrooms was without a teacher because leaders couldn't recruit enough educators. When officials turned on the mandatory security cameras at one elementary school, the rest of the building lost its Internet connection because it wasn't wired for this century. When it came time for parent-teacher conferences, fewer than half of the biological parents got invitations because the others...

A House panel voted Wednesday to place a five-year moratorium on bonuses to senior executives at the Department of Veterans Affairs. The sponsor of the proposal, Rep. Jeff Miller, Republican chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, said the legislation was in response to media reports about various executives who received performance bonuses despite significant problems that occurred at the VA during their watch, such as the increase in the number of disability claims pending longer...

A House panel has approved legislation that would greatly curtail when veterans deemed mentally incompetent are reported to the FBI's background check system. The move to winnow what records get placed into the database comes even as both sides of the gun-control debate have called for strengthening the background-check system. Currently, the Department of Veterans Affairs automatically submits the names of those veterans who are deemed unable to handle their own financial affairs and have a...

A House Republican and Democrat are pushing a bill that would strip the authority of military officers to overturn convictions for major offenses such as sexual assault. Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio and Democratic Rep. Niki Tsongas of Massachusetts plan to introduce the bill on Wednesday. A version of the measure is likely to be included in the sweeping defense policy bill that the House considers this summer. The legislation comes just a day after the Pentagon estimated that up to 26,000...

Seventeen-year-old Kelsey Raffaele's last words were over a cellphone to a friend: "I'm going to crash!" The car she was driving had clipped a snow bank and spun into oncoming traffic, where it was T-boned by an SUV. She died at a hospital without regaining consciousness. Police chalked the accident up to mistakes made by a novice driver, unaware that she had been on the phone at the time. Her phone was found later in the back seat, and the possibility that distracted driving might have been...

Four years after scandal derailed his political career, ex-Republican Gov. Mark Sanford once again holds a South Carolina political office, winning back his old congressional seat Tuesday after a race in which he battled his past and an opponent who outdid him in fundraising. Sanford's resurrection was completed when he defeated Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of political satirist Stephen Colbert, in a district that hasn't elected a Democratic congressman in more than three decades....

Landmark immigration legislation is doomed to fail in Congress unless border-security provisions are greatly strengthened, Republican senators bluntly warned on Tuesday. "If in fact the American people can't trust that the border is controlled, you're never going to be able to pass this bill," declared Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. His admonishment, joined by those of other GOP lawmakers, came as both Democratic...

Vice President Joe Biden is praising U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and her authoritative role in the Obama administration. Biden says Rice has, in his words, "the absolute, total, complete confidence of the president." He says that when Rice speaks about foreign policy, nobody doubts that she's speaking for President Barack Obama. Biden spoke Tuesday night at a gala for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. The think tank focuses on African-American issues and is honoring Rice with...

The U.S. Department of Interior is cutting mineral payments to 35 states as a result of the automatic federal spending cuts that took effect in March. A list of the cuts, which total $110.86 million: Alabama $217,731 Alaska $603,381 Arizona $759 Arkansas $98,739 California $5,500,974 Colorado $8,417,896 Florida $28,853 Idaho $245,792 Illinois $10,717 Indiana $187...

Sexual assaults in the military are a growing epidemic across the services and thousands of victims are still unwilling to come forward despite a slew of new oversight and assistance programs, according to a new Pentagon report. Troubling new numbers estimate that up to 26,000 military members may have been sexually assaulted last year, according to survey results released against a backdrops of scandals including an ongoing investigation into more than 30 Air Force instructors for assaults on...

U.S. senators from Wyoming and New Mexico said Tuesday they plan to roll out legislation this week to restore about $110 million in cuts to a federal minerals payment program that hit their states the hardest. Wyoming, the nation's biggest coal-producing state, stands to lose more than $50 million this year, while New Mexico faces a loss of about $25 million. They top a list of 35 states that face mineral payment cuts this year. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., told Interior Secretary Sally Jewell at...

Gun homicides have dropped steeply in the United States since their 1993 peak, a pair of reports released Tuesday showed, adding fuel to Congress' battle over whether to tighten restrictions on firearms. A study released Tuesday by the government's Bureau of Justice Statistics found that gun-related homicides dropped from 18,253 in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011. That's a 39 percent reduction. Another report by the private Pew Research Center found a similar decline by looking at the rate of gun homicides,...

Minnesota appears poised to legalize gay marriage, as the Democratic speaker of the state House said Tuesday that a gay marriage bill endorsed by the governor and likely to pass in the state Senate also now has enough backing in his chamber. The House will vote on the measure Thursday, and if it passes, the Democratic-led Senate could vote on it as soon as Saturday. House Speaker Paul Thissen, of Minneapolis, said that the 73-member Democratic majority he leads will produce at least the 68 votes...

The White House says President Barack Obama has invited House Democratic leaders to dinner Wednesday at a hotel near the White House. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California will attend the private dinner, along with the No. 2 and No. 3 Democrats in the House, congressmen Steny Hoyer of Maryland and James Clyburn of South Carolina. The top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, Maryland's Chris Van Hollen, will be there, plus the chair of the House Democrat's campaign arm, Steve Israel...

President Barack Obama is courting 25 Democratic donors at a fundraiser near the White House. The event raises money for the Democratic National Committee and is being held at a hotel a few blocks away from the White House. Ticket prices start at $10,000 and go up to $32,400. The DNC says the fundraiser is closed to the press because the president is not making formal remarks. Obama has committed to headlining at least 14 fundraisers for Democratic congressional candidates this year, some in...

Government auditors told a House panel Tuesday that efforts to build four veterans medical centers are taking on average about three years longer to complete than estimated and costing an additional $366 million per project. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., said the Veterans Affairs Department's oversight of major constructions projects doesn't meet industrial standards and described it as dysfunctional. Coffman, who chairs a House subcommittee, said the construction problems ultimately lead to delayed...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's comment likening a Republican lawmaker to a schoolyard bully is drawing a rebuttal from his target _ and a suggestion from another senator that he apologize. Reid made the remark about Sen. Ted Cruz on Monday after the Texan objected when Democrats sought formal negotiations with the House on a budget compromise. In a next-day rebuttal that was part tongue-in-cheek, Cruz thanked Reid for his candor _ in not disputing that Democrats want to use the negotiations...

The United States and Russia pledged Tuesday to set aside more than two years of differences over Syria's civil war, saying they'd convene an international conference later this month to try to corral President Bashar Assad's regime and the rebels into talks on a political transition. Yet even as leaders from both countries hailed their joint strategy as proof of enhanced U.S.-Russian cooperation, it was unclear how their plan might now prove effective in ending a war that has become even more...

On this, some of Washington's highest-ranking budget players can agree: A "grand bargain" this year to close the nation's chronic budget deficits seems like a long shot. That was the consensus at an annual Washington "fiscal summit" thrown by billionaire deficit hawk Pete Peterson, who's staked $1 billion of his fortune on a foundation aimed at raising public awareness of the dangers of the government's growing debt. But barely 100 days into President Barack Obama's second term _ supposedly a...

A top Labor Department official who took the blame for budgeting mistakes and cost overruns at the federal Job Corps program has resigned. Jane Oates said in an email to employees on Monday that she is leaving her position as assistant secretary of the agency's Employment and Training Administration at the end of the month. The email, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, cites her accomplishments as assistant secretary and does not mention problems at Job Corps. Earlier this year, Labor...

In another blow to the nation's dwindling labor unions, an appeals court on Tuesday struck down a federal rule that would have required millions of businesses to put up posters informing workers of their right to form a union. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the National Labor Relations Board violated employers' free speech rights in in trying to force them to display the posters or face charges of committing an unfair labor practice. Unions had hoped the posters...

Democratic Rep. John Barrow says he won't be running for the U.S. Senate next year. The congressman from Augusta issued a statement Tuesday saying he will seek re-election to the House next year in eastern Georgia's 12th District, a seat Barrow has held since 2004. Known as a supporter of gun rights and opponent of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, Barrow has carved a niche for himself as one of Georgia's most conservative Democrats. Barrow's success at winning competitive races...

As of Tuesday, May 7, 2013, at least 2,083 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan as a result of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to an Associated Press count. The AP count is one less than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Monday at 10 a.m. EDT. At least 1,725 military service members have died in Afghanistan as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. Outside of Afghanistan, the department reports at least 119 more...

Illinois GOP Chairman Pat Brady has resigned, citing his wife's battle with cancer and his desire to focus on family. Social conservatives opposed to Brady's support of gay marriage and others have persistently called for him to resign the position he's held for nearly four years. But Brady tells The Associated Press he's not bowing to pressure and that internal rifts worsened by 2012's poor election results didn't influence his decision. Brady says his wife has battled "very serious" cancer...

Seventeen-year-old Kelsey Raffaele's last words were over a cellphone to a friend: "I'm going to crash!" The car she was driving had clipped a snow bank and spun into oncoming traffic, where it was T-boned by an SUV. She died at a hospital without regaining consciousness. Police chalked the accident up to mistakes made by a novice driver, unaware that she had been on the phone at the time. Her phone was found later in the back seat, and the possibility that distracted driving might have been...

The Obama administration has levied financial sanctions again eight drug gang bosses accused of working for Mexico's powerful and violent Sinaloa Cartel. The government accused the eight regional bosses of managing drug smuggling operations for Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the purported head of the Sinaloa Cartel, the Treasury Department announced Tuesday. By declaring the men specially designated narcotics traffickers under the Kingpin Act, Washington has made it illegal for U.S. citizens to do...

The Obama administration has levied financial sanctions again eight drug gang bosses accused of working for Mexico's powerful and violent Sinaloa Cartel. The government accused the eight regional bosses of managing drug smuggling operations for Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the purported head of the Sinaloa Cartel, the Treasury Department announced Tuesday. By declaring the men specially designated narcotics traffickers under the Kingpin Act, Washington has made it illegal for U.S. citizens to do...

The government says firearm-related homicides have fallen 39 percent since the mid-1990s, from 18,253 in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011. The study also says that in 2011, about 70 percent of all homicides were committed with a firearm, mainly a handgun. The report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics also found that non-fatal firearm crimes have declined 69 percent since the mid-1990s, from 1.5 million in 1993 to 467,300 in 2011. The trend in firearm-related homicides is part of a broad nationwide decline...

Air Force officials say the across-the-board spending cuts have led the service to cease operations for one third of the bomber and jet fighter force. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Chief of Staff Mark Welsh told a Senate committee that nine fighter units and three bomber units have stood down. They say that when a unit is down for 60 days, it is unable to meet mission requirements and readiness is degraded. Overall, they say, the Air Force is slashing nearly $10 billion from its budget...

The sexual battery arrest of the Air Force officer who led the service's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response unit underscores how far the Defense Department has to go in addressing the plague of sexual crimes in the military, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., told a committee hearing that a Pentagon report to be released later Tuesday reportedly estimates that, on average, there are more than 70 sexual assaults involving military personnel...

Gun control forces are targeting Sens. Kelly Ayotte, Max Baucus and others as they struggle to persuade five senators to switch their votes and revive the rejected effort to expand background checks to more firearms buyers. With Congress back from a weeklong recess, the bottom line remains familiar: Advocates of broadened checks lack the new votes they need and Congress has moved on to other issues. A few lawmakers who opposed expanding the checks when the Senate defeated the measure last month...

One of the principal sponsors of defeated gun background check legislation says he isn't giving up on getting a bill passed. West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin says backers of expanded background checks for gun purchases must focus on "where the comfort zone is" with gun owners. A bill Manchin co-sponsored with Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania failed to clear the Senate last month. The National Rifle Association, which staunchly opposed the measure, celebrated its defeat at a...

It's now up to voters render a verdict on former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's quest for political redemption, as one of the more unusual political campaigns in a state known for rough and tumble politics draws to a close. Sanford, once mentioned as a potential GOP presidential contender, saw his political career disintegrate four years ago when he disappeared for five days, telling his staff he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. He returned to admit he had been in Argentina with his mistress...

Four members of Army special forces ready to head to Benghazi, Libya, after the deadly assault on the American diplomatic mission had ended were told not to go, according to a former top diplomat. Gregory Hicks also argued in an interview with Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that if the U.S. military had flown aircraft over the Benghazi facility after it came under siege it might have prevented the second attack on the CIA annex that killed two CIA security officers....

Vice President Joe Biden wants pastors, rabbis and nuns to tell their flocks that enacting gun control is the moral thing to do. But another vote may have to wait until Congress wraps up work on an immigration overhaul. Biden met for two-and-a-half hours Monday with more than a dozen leaders from various faith communities _ Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh, to name a few. Both Biden and the faith leaders encouraged each other not to give up on what has been an arduous and thus far fruitless...

Minnesota is preparing to give victims, historians and engineers a chance to claim some of the crumpled steel wreckage from the deadly 2007 collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge before the rest is sold for scrap. Aug. 1 marks the six-year anniversary of when the bridge buckled and fell into the Mississippi River during evening rush hour in downtown Minneapolis, killing 13 people and injuring 145 others. The Minnesota Department of Transportation had to store the bridge's steel beams and plates...

Housewares retailer Williams-Sonoma Inc. has agreed to pay a $987,500 civil penalty to settle charges that it failed to immediately report a defect in Pottery Barn wooden hammock stands. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which made the announcement Monday, said Williams-Sonoma already was aware of 45 incidents involving the hammock stands when it filed a report to the agency on Sept. 11, 2008, explaining the defects. The San Francisco, Calif.-based company and the government announced a...

The Senate sided with traditional retailers and financially strapped state and local governments Monday by passing a bill that would widely subject online shopping _ for many a largely tax-free frontier _ to state sales taxes. The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 69 to 27, getting support from Republicans and Democrats alike. But opposition from some conservatives who view it as a tax increase will make it a tougher sell in the House. President Barack Obama has conveyed his support for the...

A bipartisan Senate immigration bill would cost the government a net $6.3 trillion over the next 50 years to provide benefits for millions of people now living in the U.S. illegally, the Heritage Foundation said in a report Monday, setting off a fierce dispute with fellow conservatives who attacked the study as flawed and political. The study from the prominent conservative think tank said immigrants granted new legal status under the bill would eat up more than $9 trillion in health, education,...

It seems like a simple proposition: give employees who work more than 40 hours a week the option of taking paid time off instead of overtime pay. The choice already exists in the public sector. Federal and state workers can save earned time off and use it weeks or even months later to attend a parent-teacher conference, care for an elderly parent or deal with home repairs. Republicans in Congress are pushing legislation that would extend that option to the private sector. They say that would...

Goodbye, No. 2 pencils. Hello, iPads. Starting as early as spring 2015, the ACT college admissions exam will go digital, reflecting students' tech savvy and the demand for quicker results. The tests will still have the familiar multiple-choice options for college hopefuls but they will also expand to include interactive portions, such as a simulated science lab for students to conduct experiments or space for students to explain concepts in their own words. "The days of paper-and-pencil admission...

The government is expanding its expedited airport security screening program to some international travelers for the first time. The Transportation Security Administration said passengers flying internationally from 40 US airports may be eligible to receive the expedited screening beginning Tuesday. Travelers enrolled in TSA's PreCheck program are allowed to leave on their shoes, light outerwear and belt, keep their laptop in its case, and keep small amounts of liquids and gels in their carry-on...

Former Gov. Mark Sanford campaigned with prominent Republicans while businesswoman Elizabeth Colbert Busch appealed for votes as her campaign bus crossed South Carolina's 1st Congressional District ahead of Tuesday's special election. Sanford, a Republican, and Colbert Busch, a Democrat and sister of political satirist Stephen Colbert, are to face off for the seat vacated when Tim Scott was appointed to the U.S. Senate. Green Party candidate Eugene Platt also is on the ballot. Sanford is seeking...

Republican Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez is on his own _ at least for now. National Republican allies, conservative activists and major GOP donors outside Democratic-leaning Massachusetts are skeptical of Gomez's chances in the state's June 25 special election to replace former Sen. John Kerry. While local Republicans are excited about the former Navy SEAL-turned-businessman, the early skepticism is blocking the larger flow of money and manpower that helped Republican Scott Brown score an unlikely...

It was among the first states to legalize gay marriage and served as the 2008 campaign liftoff site for the first black president, but in other arenas Iowa isn't quite so progressive _ it's also one of just two states to never elect a woman governor or member of Congress. The other is Mississippi, a fact that causes a certain amount of handwringing among Iowa's political classes. With Senate and House seats open in 2014 in the wake of Sen. Tom Harkin's decision to retire, many think this...

The Pentagon for the first time used its annual report on China to directly assert that Beijing's government and military have conducted computer-based attacks against the U.S., including efforts to steal information from federal agencies. In a new report on the Chinese military, the Defense Department goes a small step further than it has gone in the past, when it said that cyber-attacks originated in China and may be linked to Beijing's use of civilian experts in clandestine attacks against...

The conservative Heritage Foundation is claiming in a new report that bipartisan immigration legislation pending in the Senate would cost taxpayers $6.3 trillion. The study from the Republican-led group opposed to an immigration overhaul is sure to come under fire. Already, the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute has decried it as "fatally flawed." Critics say it doesn't measure economic boosts from the bill. Heritage says the costs come from more than $9 trillion in government benefits to newly...

Absent a magic potion or explosive economic growth, it was all but inevitable President Barack Obama would have to break some of his campaign promises to keep others. If there's one thing that distinguished them besides their ambition, it was their incompatibility. Cut a staggering $4 trillion from deficits while protecting big benefit programs, subsidizing more health care, plowing extra money into education and avoiding tax increases on everyone except the rich? Not on this Earth. The postelection...

A stronger-than-expected April rebound in job creation and recent dramatic discoveries of vast U.S. oil and gas reserves are helping to lift the American economy out its long funk. The economic good news is also drawing attention to the importance of private-sector innovation rather than government policy in fostering growth. The Labor Department's report that payrolls expanded by 165,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate declined to a four-year low of 7.5 percent does not represent explosive...

This may be the year Congress decides what to do about the millions of immigrants living illegally in the U.S. After years of gridlock, there are ideas whizzing all around Washington. For now, all eyes are on an 844-page Senate proposal with the you-said-a-mouthful title of the "Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013." Look for the Senate Judiciary Committee to take its first votes on the legislation on Thursday. What's in that bill? Is there a Plan...

The philandering Mark Sanford and the sexting Anthony Weiner are running on redemption. Based on the comebacks attempted by plenty of other politicians, athletes and celebrities felled by scandal, the strategy just may work. To a certain degree, it already has: Both men are back in the national political spotlight just a few short years after their dalliances led many observers to declare their careers over. Chalk up their rebounds thus far to a conflicted public that initially revels in the...

Immigration, guns and national security are dominating the discussion on Capitol Hill, but Americans by and large are still focused on their bottom line. So President Barack Obama is launching a series of quick jaunts around the country to remind Americans he's still got jobs and the economy on his mind. Obama will kick off the effort Thursday with a trip to Austin, Texas, the White House said. While in Texas, the president will visit a technical high school and meet with entrepreneurs. He'll...

A senior British Conservative Party politician arrested on suspicion of rape and sexual assault said Sunday the allegations against him are "completely false." Deputy House of Commons Speaker Nigel Evans, 55, was arrested on Saturday. He was questioned about sex offenses that allegedly took place between July 2009 and March 2013 and was later released on bail. Evans _ who has served in Parliament for two decades and is one of Britain's most prominent gay lawmakers _ said the allegations were...

Absent a magic potion or explosive economic growth, it was all but inevitable President Barack Obama would have to break some of his campaign promises to keep others. If there's one thing that distinguished them besides their ambition, it was their incompatibility. Cut a staggering $4 trillion from deficits while protecting big benefit programs, subsidizing more health care, plowing extra money into education and avoiding tax increases on everyone except the rich? Not on this Earth. The postelection...

Buy anything on the Internet lately without paying sales tax? In all but a few states, you're probably a tax cheat. That's right, even if Internet retailers don't collect sales tax at the time of the purchase, you're required by law to pay it in 45 states and the District of Columbia. Here's the problem for states: hardly anyone pays the tax, and there's not much states can do about it. The Senate is expected to pass a bill Monday making it easier for states to collect sales taxes for online...

A stronger-than-expected April rebound in job creation and recent dramatic discoveries of vast U.S. oil and gas reserves are helping to lift the American economy out its long funk. The economic good news is also drawing attention to the importance of private-sector innovation rather than government policy in fostering growth. The Labor Department's report that payrolls expanded by 165,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate declined to a four-year low of 7.5 percent does not represent explosive...

President Barack Obama is back in the U.S. after a trip that took him to Mexico and Costa Rica over three days. Air Force One arrived at Maryland's Andrews Air Force Base, outside of Washington, about 6:45 EDT Saturday night. The president returned to the White House just after 7 p.m. Obama had left the U.S. last Thursday. In Mexico, Obama cheered advances in that nation's economy and voiced his support for an overhaul of U.S. immigration policies. While visiting Costa Rica, the president urged...

This may be the year Congress decides what to do about the millions of immigrants living illegally in the U.S. After years of gridlock, there are ideas whizzing all around Washington. For now, all eyes are on an 844-page Senate proposal with the you-said-a-mouthful title of the "Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013." Look for the Senate Judiciary Committee to take its first votes on the legislation on Thursday. What's in that bill? Is there a Plan...

President Barack Obama is defending the FBI's handling of the Boston Marathon bombing investigation as Republicans ready for oversight hearings on the attack. Obama tells the Spanish-language television network Univision he doesn't think it's fair to say law enforcement "dropped the ball" The president says "there are going to be times where individuals decide they want to cause harm to people for crazy reasons, for no good reason, for ideological reasons." He says it's a challenge when would-be...

Mere months after the 2012 election, South Carolina is a buzz of political activity with a slate of potential presidential candidates already looking ahead to the state's "first in the South" primary _ still three years away. Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a tea party favorite with national aspirations, descended on South Carolina on Friday to whip up the partisan faithful and offer a presidential campaign tease for the state. Both parties are preparing...

Israel launched an airstrike into Syria, apparently targeting a suspected weapons site, U.S. officials said Friday night. The strike occurred overnight Thursday into Friday, the officials told The Associated Press. It did not appear that a chemical weapons site was targeted, they said, and one official said the strike appeared to have hit a warehouse. The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Israel has targeted weapons...

Mere months after the 2012 election, South Carolina is a buzz of political activity with a slate of potential presidential candidates already looking ahead to the state's "first in the South" primary _ still three years away. Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a tea party favorite with national aspirations, descended on South Carolina on Friday to whip up the partisan faithful and offer a presidential campaign tease for the state. Both parties are preparing...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is urging Republicans to work together to help the party take back the Senate next year, telling South Carolina Republicans that, in his words, "change can come quickly." Cruz spoke at a South Carolina GOP dinner Friday night. He says the GOP fell on hard times during the second term of President George W. Bush and then during the Obama administration. Cruz says conservatives helped defeat gun legislation in the Senate and that Obama's health care reform is becoming more unpopular...

It was a party atmosphere along Barack Obama's motorcade route from the airport after he arrived in this Central American country for his first visit as president. Thousands of locals, who are known as "Ticos," lined the road to welcome their fourth visiting American president. The most recent one to visit was Bill Clinton in 1997. Municipal employees were given the day off to ease traffic. Some of those who lined the roadway _ two and three people deep _ waved American flags. Others held homemade...

Vice President Joe Biden is scolding Republicans in Congress, telling Democrats in South Carolina that the new Republican Party is down on America. Biden is questioning what Republicans don't understand about the U.S. and the people who built the country and fought to defend it. He says the one thing all Democrats have in common is an absolute commitment to the middle class. Biden spoke Friday night at an annual fundraising dinner for the South Carolina Democratic Party. He says he knows his...

President Barack Obama isn't saying whether the United States recognizes Nicolas Maduro as Venezuela's new president. When asked on Spanish-language network Univision, Obama replied that it's up to the people of Venezuela to choose their leaders in legitimate elections. Obama said reports indicate that basic principles of human rights, democracy, press freedom and freedom of assembly were not observed in Venezuela following the election. Maduro is the hand-picked successor to Venezuela's late...

The White House budget office is recalculating how to apply automatic spending cuts for a handful of agencies, freeing up almost $4 billion for the Pentagon and another $1 billion or so for other agencies like the Homeland Security Department and NASA. Capitol Hill aides familiar with the White House changes say the administration has identified almost $5 billion in cuts that can be restored under its reading of the arcane budget rules governing the across-the-board cuts, known as sequestration....

An overnight fire at the Labor Department's headquarters shut the building down for most employees early Friday, but the agency's monthly employment report was released as scheduled. Department employees and members of the news media involved in the release of the report were allowed in the building as usual. But all other Labor employees who were scheduled to work in the Frances Perkins building received administrative leave. District of Columbia fire department spokesman Lon Walls said the...

The U.S. Forest Service is in the business of preventing fires, not starting them. Yet the agency set off alarms in Congress and state capitols across the West by citing automatic spending cuts as the basis for demanding that dozens of states return $17.9 million in federal subsidies. And it's all come down to a bureaucratic squabble over whether the money is subject to so-called sequestration because of the year it was paid _ 2013 _ as the Obama administration contends, or exempt from the cuts...

Despite budget cuts requiring most federal agencies to furlough workers, the State Department says it will not have to force any of its employees to take unpaid leave. State's top management official said Friday that the budget sequester cut for the department would be only $400 million, less than half of $850 million that was originally estimated. Because of that and other cost-saving measures already implemented, Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary of state for management, said department employees...

The U.S. called Thursday for North Korea to grant amnesty and immediately release a Korean-American sentenced to 15 years' hard labor for "hostile acts" against the state. Kenneth Bae, 44, a Washington state man described by friends as a devout Christian and a tour operator, is at least the sixth American detained in North Korea since 2009. The others eventually were deported or released without serving out their terms, some after trips to Pyongyang by prominent Americans, including former presidents...

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said Thursday the investigation into the Boston Marathon bombings shows how difficult and sensitive the issue of racial profiling can be. Speaking with young students in Denver, Sotomayor noted that some people asked whether authorities had done enough to track the two suspects, both ethnic Chechens. "Is that profiling? Could be," she said. "Is it something you just can't ignore? Maybe sometimes not." Sotomayor, who was in Denver for the dedication of a...

U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa of Hawaii announced her candidacy for U.S. Senate on Thursday, setting up a primary showdown that almost certainly will be the state's marquee race next year. The former state lawmaker starting her second term in Congress will be running against fellow Democrat and incumbent U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, who was appointed to the post after longtime Sen. Daniel Inouye died in December. Schatz's appointment by Gov. Neil Abercrombie came as a surprise to some in Hawaii, after...

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio says a new immigration bill he helped write needs stronger border security provisions or it will fail in the House and may even have trouble getting through the Senate. Rubio, who is the chief emissary to conservatives on the contentious legislation, said in a radio interview and in an opinion piece being published in Friday's Wall Street Journal that he's been hearing concerns in recent days that more work is needed to boost the bill's language on the border...

Thousands of workers at health care giant Kaiser Permanente have voted again to remain with the Service Employees International Union rather than switch to a smaller rival. The National Labor Relations Board says Kaiser workers in California voted 58.4 percent to 40.6 percent in favor of the 1.9-million-member SEIU over the National Union of Healthcare Workers. The vote was a replay of an election from nearly three years ago. But the previous result _ which SEIU also won _ was thrown out after...

The Obama administration extended Thursday by one year targeted U.S. sanctions against Myanmar to prevent backsliding on democratic reforms. But to sweeten the pill, the administration eased some of the U.S. visa restrictions imposed against Myanmar's former military regime in recognition of the nation's dramatic shift from authoritarian rule. The actions come as expectation mounts that Myanmar's reformist President Thein Sein will visit the White House this month. It would be the first such...

A House committee chairman renewed his criticism Thursday of the bonuses paid to senior executives at the Veterans Affairs Department and called on the VA to recoup a nearly $63,000 bonus given to an official who oversaw a Pittsburgh hospital where an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease killed five veterans. Rep. Jeff Miller, chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, said that giving the government's top award for its senior professionals to VA regional director Michael Moreland showed...

A top Republican senator asked the Obama administration Thursday to explain how a student from Kazakhstan charged with trying to help get rid of evidence for one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects managed to enter the country without a valid student visa. In a three-page letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, asked for additional details about the student visa applications for Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev, the college roommates from...

The Obama administration is rethinking its opposition to arming rebels opposed to the Syrian government, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Thursday. At a Pentagon news conference, Hagel said the administration is considering a range of options. He said he personally has not decided whether it would be wise to provide weapons to the rebels. "Arming the rebels _ that's an option," he said. "We must continue to look at options." He said the U.S. is considering a range of options in consultation...

President Barack Obama on Thursday chose two old friends with corporate executive experience for top posts on his economic team, naming longtime fundraiser Penny Pritzker as Commerce secretary and adviser Michael Froman as U.S. Trade Representative. Pritzker, a Hyatt hotel heiress, businesswoman and philanthropist, is Obama's pick to fill a Cabinet post that has been vacant since former Secretary John Bryson resigned last summer, after he said he suffered a seizure that led to a series of traffic...

Presidential campaigns are long in the making, quick to be forgotten. But one part of them lives on for years: the victor's promises. President Barack Obama paved his path to re-election with fewer promises than in 2008. The ones he did lay down, though, are meaty, legacy-shaping for him and consequential to ordinary lives today and for generations to come, for better or worse. They also are extraordinarily difficult to achieve in a time of gridlock grief and budgets that are tight when they...

The early stages of the 2016 presidential race feature an unusual cluster of high-powered potential candidates hailing from the same states, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Rep. Paul Ryan among them. Walker gained Republican Party cult-figure status when he beat back a labor union attempt to oust him from office last year. A few weeks later, Ryan shot into the GOP stratosphere as the party's vice presidential nominee. Now, party activists view both as having serious shots at the White House should...

The issue: Even after a hard-fought deficit-cutting deal in 2011 and a tax-increase measure in January, Washington still has a considerable way to go to wrestle intractable budget deficits under control. The Congressional Budget Office estimates cumulative deficits of roughly $7 trillion over the coming decade and warns "such high and rising debt would have serious consequences," including higher interest costs for the government, reduced national savings and investment and a potential fiscal...

State legislatures across the nation are taking up immigration laws, and many proposals were introduced or signed in conjunction with May Day immigrants' rights rallies. The changes create a state-by-state patchwork, but the overall effect has emboldened activists who want more freedoms for the 11 million people in the U.S. without legal permission. _ Alabama: In March, officials said the state would allow young immigrants in the country illegally to obtain driver's licenses under the Deferred...

A look at how states are putting in place President Barack Obama's health care law, including health insurance exchanges and expansion of Medicaid coverage, along with the number of people in each state who don't have health insurance: STATE EXCHANGE OPTION MEDICAID OPTION UNINSURED RESIDENTS Alabama Federal exchange Not expanding 696,000 Alaska Federal exchange Not expanding 128,000 ...