Government - Nation

WOODSTOCK – Francisca Dimas has gone from serving her country in Afghanistan to struggling to survive the civilian world, as the veteran's medical costs mount and a three-year wait for her disability claim lingers.

WASHINGTON – Memo to supporters of bipartisan legislation moving to the Senate floor: Make sure you stress that immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally would have to work, learn English, pass a background check and, especially, pay taxes before they could gain citizenship.

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — Opening a two-day summit, President Barack Obama drew attention to contentious economic and cybersecurity issues Friday night as he warmly received Chinese President Xi Jinping to a California desert estate for high-stakes talks.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama vigorously defended the government's newly disclosed collection of massive amounts of information from phone and internet records on Friday as a necessary defense against terrorism, and assured Americans, "Nobody is listening to your telephone calls."

MOORESVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Touting the need to give every child the tools for success, President Barack Obama on Thursday toured a North Carolina school where every student has a laptop and called for 99 percent of American students to be connected to super-fast Internet within five years.

CHICAGO (AP) — Republican legislative leaders are split on whether it was a right move for Gov. Pat Quinn to call a special session on pensions.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House has passed a $45 billion measure boosting the Department of Homeland Security's budget by about 2 percent above spending levels imposed by an ongoing round of automatic budgets cuts.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic-controlled Senate stopped a proposal that would link student loan interest rates with the financial markets but it was uncertain whether lawmakers could prevent interest rates from doubling on July 1.

WASHINGTON – U.S. border agents should continue to be allowed to search a traveler's laptop, cellphone or other electronic device and keep copies of any data on them based on no more than a hunch, according to an internal Homeland Security Department study. It contends limiting such searches would prevent the U.S. from detecting child pornographers or terrorists and expose the government to lawsuits.

ANTIGUA, Guatemala — The United States and Venezuela have agreed to begin a high-level dialogue with the aim of restoring ambassador-level relations and ending more than a decade of steadily deteriorating ties, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday.

WASHINGTON – A century of laws and rules curbing political activity by tax-exempt organizations has left us with this: One statute says to qualify, groups must engage "exclusively" in social welfare projects while a regulation eases the threshold to "primarily."

WASHINGTON (AP) — Shaking up his national security team, President Barack Obama tapped diplomat Susan Rice as his national security adviser, defying Republicans who have vigorously criticized her faulty explanation about the attack on Americans in Benghazi, Libya.

WASHINGTON — Already heavily criticized for targeting conservative groups, the Internal Revenue Service absorbed another blow Tuesday as new details emerged about senior officials enjoying luxury hotel rooms, free drinks and free food at a $4.1 million training conference. It was one of many expensive gatherings the agency held for employees over a three-year period.

WASHINGTON – It’s Republican versus Republican in the latest round of political battles over health care.

WASHINGTON – Medicare’s long-term health is starting to look a little better, the government said Friday, but both Social Security and Medicare are still wobbling toward insolvency within two decades if Congress and the president don’t find a way to shore up the trust funds established to take care of older Americans.