Facing a firestorm of criticism, North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis said Wednesday he may have made a "poor choice of words" when he suggested the state "find a way to divide and conquer" people on public assistance.
However, he stuck by other remarks that the state might consider drug-testing recipients of welfare and other public money, and even some state employees.
Police in Alabama are getting ready to enforce what is considered by many as the toughest immigration law in the United States.
Beginning Thursday, authorities can question people suspected of being in the country illegally and hold them without bond, and officials can check the immigration status of students in public schools, Gov. Robert Bentley said.
Those two key aspects of Alabama's new law were upheld by a federal judge on Wednesday.
The governor said parts of the law take effect immediately.
"We intend to enforce it," Bentley said.
Congress is once again allowing shutdown politics to bring the federal government to the brink of closing.
For the second time in nine months, lawmakers are bickering and posturing over spending plans. The difference this time is that everyone agrees on the massive barrel of money to keep the government running for another seven weeks.
The GOP-controlled House remains on track to pass $3.7 billion in disaster relief as part of a bill to avert a government shutdown at the end of the month, the No. 2 House Republican said Wednesday. But first the party must overcome opposition from Democrats and some tea party Republicans.
Democratic leaders, including some who said last week they would back the stopgap measure, came out solidly against it Wednesday morning because it contains $1.5 billion in cuts from a government loan program to help car companies build more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Can't have more fuel-efficient vehicles now! Corporate oil overlords have spoken, and 'Pukes are following.
Ms Thorning-Schidmt's victory brings the Danish left back to power after ten years in opposition, and is likely to mean Denmark will be less hostile to moves towards closer economic co-ordination within the European Union.
Casting himself as America's CEO, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Tuesday outlined a sweeping economic plan that would reduce regulations and taxes on companies, sanction China over its currency practices and weaken the clout of labor unions.
Trying to hold off surging rival Rick Perry, Romney traveled to economically suffering Nevada and stood inside a giant truck warehouse to deliver his multi-point plan designed to position him as the GOP contender with the most comprehensive approach to fixing the economy.
In this speech scheduling kerfuffle, Obama and Boehner both lose
The world will little note nor long remember the Great Scheduling Kerfuffle. But the episode speaks volumes - none of them attractive - about the current state of political affairs. The squabble began with President Obama looking petty and partisan and ended with House Speaker John Boehner looking churlish and disrespectful. If the two had gotten together to figure out how to make Americans think even less of Washington politicians, they couldn't have done much better.
US authorities are gearing up for the first hurricane to make landfall since 2008 as Hurricane Irene strengthened across the Caribbean, wreaking havoc in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
The US National Hurricane Center said Irene, currently classified as a category 2 storm, could increase in intensity to category 3, with winds reaching more than 111mph (178km/h) before hitting the south-east US coast, including Florida, North and South Carolina, by the weekend.
Former Delaware Senate candidate and Tea Party darling Christine O'Donnell stormed off the set of CNN on Wednesday after Piers Morgan tried to ask her about her views on sexual abstinence and gay marriage.
The FBI has determined a white powder contained in packages sent to members of Alaska's congressional delegation was not a hazardous substance but a sample of concrete material, according to two of the lawmakers.
The offices of Alaska's two U.S. senators and congressman had received suspicious packages through the mail Monday, prompting the evacuation of the federal building in Fairbanks and the closure of the sixth floor of an Anchorage office building, authorities said.
At least two of the packages contained a white powder. But by late Monday, Sen. Mark Begich and Rep. Don Young had issued statements saying the FBI had told them the powder was not harmful.
Oddly enough, the same district, good old Dist. 8, remember the one where 6,000 (or was it 14,000?) votes magically appeared a day later in the last recall election?? Well, guess what, same thing happened tonight, only it didn't take so long. Anyway, here's the tale of the tape:
Due to circumstances beyond ML's control, I woke up before she did and posted this. Because, you see, I believe she was hinting in that pos from yesterday (her acronym, not mine) that since she posted that pos that I should likely feel the need to post this one today.
So, I'll try my best to keep up the integrity of the pos posts here in order to make everyone happy.
With all eyes on Washington and the ongoing debate over raising the nation's debt ceiling, President Obama addressed the nation in primetime Monday night and expressed his confidence a compromise will be reached. That speech was followed by separate remarks by Republican House Speaker John Boehner.
The House has been frittering away precious time on ideological games, forcing Congress to miss its Friday deadline for an agreement on raising the debt ceiling. Fortunately, there are signs of adulthood in Washington's sandbox, and it remains possible that a deal could be reached to prevent the loss of America's credit standing.
Rupert Murdoch, for decades one of the most powerful and feared media figures in the English-speaking world, appeared to many who watched his grilling Tuesday to be a confused old man. And from his standpoint, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, professional crisis managers said.
At times, Murdoch seemed confused and slow to understand questions from the Culture, Media and Sport committee. At one point, he openly acknowledged that "I'm not really in touch" with the editors of all of his newspapers, although he said he did speak with the editor of The Sunday Times every week.
Investigators have found no sign of foul play in the death of a man identified as the whistleblower behind the scandal surrounding media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News International, British police announced Tuesday.
Sean Hoare was one of the first journalists to go on the record and allege phone hacking at Murdoch's now-defunct News of the World. He was found dead Monday at his home in Watford, northwest of London, the British Press Association said.
An autopsy conducted Tuesday afternoon "has concluded there is no evidence of third-party involvement and the death is non-suspicious," Hertfordshire police said in a statement. Earlier, police had called his death "unexplained, but not thought to be suspicious."
As negotiations continue over raising the nation's debt ceiling to avoid any potential default on America's fiscal obligations, the daily meetings at the White House on the subject have been getting more tense, people familiar with the negotiations tell CBS News.
Shorter paragraph:Republicans still unhappy Obama won't be rolled; throw tantrum when he sez get serious.
All six fake Democrats lost to Democrats supported by the party in primaries Tuesday that are the first in a series of recall elections targeting nine Wisconsin state senators for their positions on Republican Gov. Scott Walker's divisive union rights restrictions.
Ya know, for a party of fiscal responsibility, they sure don't care now much money they waste on bullshit, do they..
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) took to the floor of the Senate on Monday afternoon to defend comments he made last week about the poor needing to "share some of the responsibility" for shrinking the national debt.
Breaking out an image of the character Thurston Howell III from Gilligan's Island, Hatch said those with incomes of over $200,000 shouldn't be lumped in with "Warren Buffet or Gilligan's Island's resident millionaire."
British newspapers pounced Thursday on new reports of clandestine phone hacking by the News of the World tabloid, reportedly including the voice mails of relatives of fallen soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and one newspaper said the police planned to make arrests soon.
Is there such a thing as a tea party Democrat? The answer, it seems, is yes. Polls show the group exists, but determining its impact is difficult. What role the group could play in the 2012 elections is even murkier, except as a rallying cry for Republicans who say the movement is a bigger tent than it appears.
~snip
In announcing her 2012 presidential bid this month, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) described the tea party this way: "It's made up of disaffected Democrats. It's made up of independents. It's made up of people who have never been political a day in their life."
`snip
The Winston Group, a GOP polling firm, last year showed that 13 percent of tea partyers were Democrats; Gallup put the number at 15 percent.
On the lower end, the number was 9 percent in a TargetPoint poll and just 4 percent in a CNN-Opinion Research poll.
