WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump's pick to be the nation's drug czar withdrew from consideration Tuesday after news reports focused attention on his role in weakening the government's power to combat the nation's opioid epidemic.

Trump sent a message on Twitter Tuesday morning announcing that Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.) had withdrawn his name ...Read more

CHICAGO -- The death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia forced the remaining eight members of the nation's highest court to work harder toward compromise, Justice Elena Kagan said Monday during a speech at the Chicago-Kent College of Law.

In an hourlong appearance before law students and high-profile lawyers including Illinois ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Mark Sanford is facing what is arguably his first competitive re-election campaign since returning to Congress in mid-2013 -- and both his Republican and Democratic challengers raised more money than the South Carolina lawmaker this summer.

Sanford, however, holds a major cash advantage in the latest round of fundraising ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Ivanka Trump should cut ties with a World Bank fund focusing on women's empowerment, an initiative the U.S. president's daughter has championed, because her clothing brand may benefit from her involvement, Sen. Ben Cardin said in a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, wrote that Trump, who ...Read more

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba -- The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to consider a pretrial challenge to the war court brought by death penalty defendant Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the former CIA captive accused of orchestrating al-Qaida's 2000 USS Cole bombing.

It was the second rejection of a Guantanamo captive's appeal to the high court ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The Democratic senator from a state ravaged by opioid abuse wants President Donald Trump to pull back the nomination of Rep. Tom Marino to be the nation's drug czar.

Citing reporting from The Washington Post, West Virginia's Joe Manchin III said in a letter to Trump that he had concerns that Marino, a Republican from Pennsylvania,...Read more

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump on Monday praised his administration's response to the wildfires that have killed more than 40 people and displaced tens of thousands of people.

"We have FEMA there. We have military there. We have first responders there," he said. "It's a tragic situation. We are working very closely from the ...Read more

Few people were surprised last week when the Trump administration issued a rule to make it easier for some religious employers to opt out of offering no-cost prescription birth control to their female employees under the Affordable Care Act.

But a separate regulation issued at the same time raised eyebrows. It creates a new exemption from the ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump said Monday he can understand why his former top adviser Steve Bannon called for "a season of war" on the GOP establishment.

"I'm not going to blame myself. I'll be honest, they are not getting the job done," Trump told reporters in the White House before a scheduled lunch with Senate Majority Leader Mitch ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court said Monday it has agreed to hear an urgent Justice Department appeal and decide whether emails that are stored overseas can be obtained by government investigators armed with a search warrant.

Microsoft Corp. has defied federal authorities since 2013 by refusing to comply with court orders to turn over emails ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump spent early Monday morning slamming congressional Democrats for not supporting a proposed tax overhaul and then sent a personal message to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer over the Iran deal.

"Dem Senator Schumer hated the Iran deal made by President Obama, but now that I am involved, he is OK with it," ...Read more

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- House Speaker Paul Ryan said Congress will continue to provide aid to Puerto Rico to help the island recover and rebuild from a hurricane destroyed the power grid and mangled houses and infrastructure.

Ryan, after completing a tour of Puerto Rico on Friday, said the Trump administration will submit a proposal to ...Read more