Posted: 3:28 AM Thursday's announcement promises to change the image of battlefields around the world, as debate rages on whether women can fight like men

Posted: 11:05 AM President Barack Obama will nominate Mary Jo White to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, tapping an attorney with broad experience in prosecuting white-collar crimes

Posted: 11:03 AM Sen. John Kerry, President Barack Obama's nominee for secretary of state, said Thursday that the United States must get its fiscal house in order to lead worldwide

Posted: 10:59 AM Allowing women to serve in combat roles will strengthen the U.S. military's ability to win wars, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday, shortly before his official announcement of the landmark change.

Posted: 10:57 AM Congressional Democrats are reintroducing legislation to ban assault weapons but the measure faces long odds even after last month's mass school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

Updated: 7:13 AM Democratic Sen. John Kerry, on a smooth path to confirmation as secretary of state, is likely to face friendly questioning when he testifies before the committee that he's served on for 28 years and led for the past four.

Posted: 6:57 AM The Pentagon's decision to lift the ban on women serving in combat presents a daunting challenge to top military leaders who now will have to decide which, if any, jobs they believe should be open only to men.

Posted: 6:55 AM The Republicans' new approach would require even deeper cuts in social programs than they pushed last year. Liberals denounced those earlier plans as severe and unfair

Updated: 6:52 AM Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered fiery rejoinders Wednesday to Republican critics of the Obama administration's handling of the deadly attack on a U.S. mission in Benghazi

Posted: 6:50 AM Gay rights advocates are renewing their push for President Barack Obama to sign an executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against gay employees.

Posted: 6:49 AM A letter signed by 53 senators said Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman's approval of a revised route through his state puts the long-delayed project squarely in the president's hands.

Posted: 6:47 AM Whatever the resolution, it probably won't require filibustering senators to debate on the Senate floor until exhaustion, like the actor Jimmy Stewart did in the movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."

Posted: 6:45 AM Republican soul-searching begins in earnest this week as GOP officials from every state in the nation come together for the first time since their party's November shellacking.

Posted: 6:44 AM Congress often gives itself more breathing room. In other words, it kicks the can down the road. It's an overused expression nearly everybody scoffs at or denounces. Yet lots of cans litter the road ahead.

Posted: 6:39 AM Vice President Joe Biden is launching a White House campaign of road trips to promote gun control with a visit to Virginia, a state that has experienced its own school shooting tragedy yet maintains an avidly pro-gun tradition.

Posted: 5:51 AM Under current rules, every lawmaker receives $173 each day to offset meals and lodging while they are participating in legislative proceedings, regardless of whether they spend the night at a hotel.

Posted: 1:46 PM In her last formal congressional testimony on Capitol Hill as America's top diplomat, Clinton once again took full responsibility for the department's missteps leading up to assault at the U.S. facility in Benghazi

Posted: 1:35 PM Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says the FBI is "following some very promising leads and putting together cases" as they investigate the Sept. 11 attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi

Posted: 9:55 AM Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) is teaming up with fellow Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah) to introduce new legislation to repeal the requirement that nearly all Americans have health insurance starting next year.

Posted: 6:00 AM With tacit support from President Barack Obama, House Republicans are moving to try to defuse a potential debt crisis with legislation to prevent an economy-rattling fiscal crisis for at least three months.

Posted: 5:57 AM Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton faces tough questions in her long-awaited congressional testimony concerning the assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi

Updated: 1:33 PM President Barack Obama's emphatic gay-rights advocacy in his inaugural address thrilled many activists. Yet almost immediately came the questions and exhortations as to what steps should be taken next.

Updated: 1:36 PM Gen. John Allen says he is pleased that he was exonerated in a Pentagon investigation into his email exchanges with a Florida socialite linked to the sex scandal that led David Petraeus to resign as CIA director.

Posted: 5:51 AM Joe Biden is thanking Democratic supporters in the afterglow of President Barack Obama's second inauguration, dropping plenty of hints that he may try to cement Obama's legacy with his own presidential campaign in 2016.

Posted: 5:49 AM The Obama administration says it won't oppose a House Republican proposal to increase the nation's $16.4 trillion borrowing authority for only three months