In response to the latest mass shooting during his presidency, President Obama is seriously considering circumventing Congress with his executive authority and imposing new background-check requirements for buyers who purchase weapons from high-volume gun dealers.
Senate Democrats are preparing a legislative push to curb guns, a week after a mass shooting at an Oregon community college refocused attention on the nation’s toll of firearms deaths.
The biblical flooding in South Carolina is at least the sixth so-called 1-in-1,000 year rain event in the U.S. since 2010, a trend that may be linked to factors ranging from the natural, such as a strong El Nino, to the man-made, namely climate change.
South Carolina is enduring its worst rains “in 1,000 years,” Gov. Nikki Haley said this afternoon, urging residents to stay off the roads as conditions were “changing by the minute,” with roads flooding and rivers at their highest levels in decades.
Hurricane Joaquin is rapidly intensifying. Joaquin reached Category 3 status late Wednesday evening. The storm is now expected to strengthen into a Category 4 storm sometime late Thursday or Thursday night.
A temporary funding measure that would keep the government open past a midnight deadline should make its way to President Barack Obama on Wednesday with time to spare.
House conservatives aren’t expected to force a government shutdown over Planned Parenthood funding this week, but they are gearing up for a public face off with the organization and its president, Cecile Richards.
Freedom of religion isn’t reason enough to deny any American their constitutional rights, President Barack Obama said Sunday as he addressed members of the LGBT community, one of his major sources of political and financial support.
The full text of Pope Francis’ speech before Congress on Thursday as prepared by the Holy See’s press office.
Fresh off his meeting with President Barack Obama, Pope Francis delivers a speech on Thursday to a U.S. Congress led by Republicans who have opposed Obama on issues of importance to the pontiff including climate change and immigration.
A hair shy of half of Americans believe the federal government presents “an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens,” a new Gallup Poll finds.
Federal authorities are mobilizing one of the largest security operations in U.S. history ahead of Pope Francis’s arrival Tuesday, an effort that is straining law enforcement resources in Washington, New York and Philadelphia.
A U.S. appeals court has ruled that President Barack Obama’s healthcare law violates the rights of religiously affiliated employers by forcing them to help provide contraceptive coverage even though they do not have to pay for it.
As firefighters began to make significant progress on two of the 12 deadly wildfires raging in drought-stricken areas of California, emergency crews on Tuesday had to also contend with a small earthquake near one of the wildfires and flooding in Los Angeles.
The federal government collected a record amount of taxes in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2015, exceeding $2.88 trillion in revenue, according to the latest monthly Treasury Department statement. Despite the revenue, which is still a record amount when adjusted for inflation, the federal government ran a deficit of $529 billion.
The U.S. will take in “at least 10,000” refugees from Syria in fiscal 2016, which starts Oct. 1, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Thursday.
Pressing their advantage, the White House and insistent Senate Democrats locked up the votes Tuesday to frustrate attempts by outraged Republicans to pass a legislative rebuke to the Iran nuclear accord.
Rowan County, Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis has been jailed without bail since Thursday for refusing to allow her office to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
A Kentucky county clerk was jailed on Thursday for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, and a full day of court hearings failed to put an end to her two-month-old legal fight over a U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding same-sex marriage.
President Obama’s intense lobbying on Wednesday secured support from a 34th Senate Democrat, ensuring his Iranian nuclear deal will survive a veto battle with Congress and setting into motion the extraordinary imposition of a foreign agreement over the objections of large numbers of voters and big majorities in both the House and Senate.