The Obama administration will propose a deep cut in funding for nuclear nonproliferation programs at the Energy Department largely so it can boost the department’s spending to modernize its stockpile of nuclear weapons, according to officials familiar with the proposed 2014 federal budget to be unveiled Wednesday.... Read more»
A 6-year-old boy was shot in the head by another boy, aged four, in New Jersey on Monday evening. The wounded Toms River boy, who was shot by a 4-year-old neighbor wielding a .22-caliber rifle, is in a stable condition, the Star-Ledger reported.... Read more»
President Obama is taking a five-percent pay cut, to show solidarity with federal workers affected by government sequestration. Vice President Biden is not.... Read more»
Gil Kerlikowske, head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, also said border security has received a boost from more personnel, better technology and increased communication among local, state and federal agencies – and their counterparts in Mexico.... Read more»
After peaking in September, applications for deferred action have dropped off dramatically. Immigration attorneys think most eligible undocumented immigrants are in a wait-and-see mode amid the federal immigration reform debate.... Read more»
Advocacy around immigration reform continues to gain momentum, with bipartisan groups in Congress and President Barack Obama pushing to fix our nation’s immigration system and provide a road map to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in our country.... Read more»
The Line: 40 percent of guns are purchased without a background check. The Party: Democratic gun-control advocates. How solid is that figure?... Read more»
How the gun lobby has debilitated federal action on firearms and what President Obama can do about it.... Read more»
Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas E Perez is popular with labor and Hispanic groups, but will face tough questions over accusations his department was rife with political infighting.... Read more»
Despite new pardons announced earlier this month, the Obama administration has still granted clemency more rarely than any president in recent history. Indeed, the day before the pardons were announced, a Department of Justice spokesman said, Obama had denied 314 other applicants.... Read more»
Analysis: As Karzai insinuates Washington-Taliban collusion, fault lines deepen in an already troubled relationship.... Read more»
For a president who is reluctant to play the role of world policeman, drones look like an easy option, a simple way to show a war-weary public that he is “doing something” to defend America. They may also be the cheap option. But like the sanctions program that is supposed to force Iran to give up its presumed nuclear weapons program, some experts have grave doubts that the drone program can achieve its objective of deterring terrorist acts.... Read more»
An ad from a fiscally conservative group makes a true but misleading claim that the sequester only amounts to “a 3 percent cut in federal spending.” A majority of federal spending is exempt from the sequester cuts, so the parts that are not will be cut much more deeply than …... Read more»1
Tribal leaders were hailing President Barack Obama’s declaration of a natural disaster on the Navajo Nation, the first under a new law that lets Native American governments appeal directly to the federal government for emergency assistance.... Read more»
What little we know about the evidence needed to justify a drone strike on unidentified people. While President Obama and administration officials have framed the drone program as targeting particular members of al-Qaeda, attacks against unknown militants reportedly may account for the majority of strikes.... Read more»
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