Wire Politics

The U.S. can't count on Russia - a major arms supplier to Syria - to force President Bashar Assad from power, Sen. John McCain said Sunday, blaming President Barack Obama for embracing a "feckless" foreign policy and punting tough decisions until after the fall election.

The father of a U.S. soldier who was taken prisoner in Afghanistan thanked the motorcycle riders of Rolling Thunder on Sunday for raising awareness of missing-in-action troops and prisoners of war.

One never knows when the Supreme Court will hand down its last, often biggest, opinions of the term. But the justices' summer travel schedules make it a pretty safe bet that blockbuster health care and immigration cases will be decided by the end of June.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Sunday defended the Obama administration's plans to wind down the more than decade-long war in Afghanistan, saying the U.S. is on "the right track."

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is defending the Obama administration's plans to wind down the more than decade-long war in Afghanistan.

Poll after poll shows public support for same-sex marriage steadily increasing, to the point where it's now a majority viewpoint. Yet in all 32 states where gay marriage has been on the ballot, voters have rejected it.

Hispanic voters are a crucial constituency in the presidential election, but reaching young Hispanics will require new tactics - and some experts say mobile-phone outreach will be key.

The U.S. can't count on Russia - a major arms supplier to Syria - to force President Bashar al-Assad from power, Sen. John McCain said Sunday, blaming President Barack Obama for embracing a "feckless" foreign policy and punting tough decisions until after the fall election.

Government spending and debt are emerging as a campaign tug-of-war, with Mitt Romney blaming President Barack Obama for a "prairie fire of debt" and Obama calling the charge a "cowpie of distortion." House Speaker John Boehner is talking about a debt ceiling that is still more than eight months away.

The CIA is remembering those lost in the hidden, often dangerous world of espionage, adding a new star to the intelligence agency's memorial wall and more than a dozen names to its hallowed Book of Honor.

Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday that the United States can now focus on new global challenges after a long decade of war in an election-year commencement address to jubilant graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

An analysis of the state-by-state race to 270 electoral votes, the total needed to win the presidency, and where Democratic President Barack Obama and probable Republican nominee Mitt Romney stand now. The numbers reflect electoral votes:

President Barack Obama faces new warning signs in a once-promising Southern state and typically Democratic-voting Midwestern states roughly five months before the election even as he benefits nationally from encouraging economic news.

The White House is aggressively pushing the idea that, contrary to widespread belief, President Barack Obama is tightfisted with taxpayer dollars. To back it up, the administration cites a media report that claims federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since the Eisenhower years.

President Barack Obama is paying tribute to veterans during Memorial Day weekend, honoring those willing to sacrifice their lives for their country.

In the risky business of running for president, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are largely playing it safe.

The White House is aggressively pushing the idea that, contrary to widespread belief, President Barack Obama is tightfisted with taxpayer dollars. To back it up, the administration cites a media report that claims federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since the Eisenhower years.

The Justice Department said Friday that its investigators had found no misconduct in the decision by federal prosecutors to abandon the teen sex-crime case against disgraced former Veco Corp. Chairman Bill Allen, the government's star witness in the failed prosecution of then-Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.

When civic leaders boasted that having the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte was a chance to showcase the great things about living and working in North Carolina, they probably didn't have recent events in mind.

When civic leaders boasted that having the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte was a chance to showcase the great things about living and working in North Carolina, they probably didn't have recent events in mind.

Visibly pained, Vice President Joe Biden recalls the wrenching sorrow of losing his first wife and his daughter to a car accident in 1972.

President Barack Obama will meet with Philippine President Benigno Aquino III on June 8 at the White House.

The Pentagon's investment in green energy requires too much green paper for some in Congress.

The commander in charge of the raid to kill Osama bin Laden is defending his proposal that would give him more authority to send special operations forces overseas to address problems like terrorism or sudden Arab Spring-style unrest.

The House will vote this summer on continuing wide-ranging tax cuts first enacted under President George W. Bush, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Friday as the GOP sharpened its plans for confronting Democrats on one of the election's top issues.

U.S. House members who are trying to make the step up to the Senate this year are finding themselves on the defensive about Washington experience that traditionally has been a big asset.

What, exactly, makes someone American Indian? Even Indians themselves don't agree as they debate the case of Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, whose disputed claim of Native American identity is shining a rare spotlight on the malleable nature of Indian heritage and the long history of murky claims to such ancestry.

The Senate Ethics Committee admonished Republican Sen. Tom Coburn on Friday over his contact with a top aide to former Sen. John Ensign, the Nevada lawmaker who resigned in disgrace last year after lying about his affair with the staffer's wife.

The battle between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney will be the most expensive presidential contest ever - by a long shot.