As Obama vacations in Hawaii, wounded Boehner fires back

Two days after members of his own party rejected House Speaker John Boehner's "Plan B" proposal to avert the "fiscal cliff," the Ohio Republican took to the Internet to defend the GOP and slam President Obama's approach to the budget negotiations.

Yet another Senate race on the horizon in Mass.

Massachusetts voters weary from one of the nation's costliest and most divisive U.S. Senate races are all but certain to find themselves thrown back into another tumultuous election now that President Barack Obama has nominated Sen. John Kerry for secretary of state.

Egyptians vote on Islamist-backed constitution

Egyptians voted on Saturday in the second and final phase of a referendum on an Islamist-backed constitution that has polarized the nation, with little indication that the result of the vote will end the political crisis in which the country is mired.

Obama announces new wave of proposed regulations

After taking criticism for missing an October deadline, the Obama administration Friday released its list of proposed government-wide regulations that it plans to consider in the next year.

Inhofe: Benghazi cover-up bigger than Watergate, Iran-Contra

One day after Senate Republicans held a press conference to question this week's State Department report on the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in Libya that left four Americans dead, Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe said the scandal is bigger than Watergate and Iran-Contra.

Mexico frees ex-Marine jailed for bringing in gun

A Marine veteran jailed for months in Mexico after trying to carry a family heirloom shotgun across the border has been freed, U.S. officials and his lawyer said late Friday.

Obama administration sets deportation record

The Obama administration deported a record 409,849 illegal immigrants in the last fiscal year, with the majority of them convicted criminals, according to statistics released Friday.

Defiant NRA calls for officers with guns in 'every school in the country'

The executive vice president of the National Rifle Association on Friday called for Congress to pass legislation and funding that would placed armed officers in every school in the country, indicating the group will go its own route in addressing the national furor over gun violence in schools in the wake of last week's shooting rampage at a Connecticut elementary school.

Yet another Senate race on the horizon in Mass.

New details emerge a week after Newtown, Conn., school massacre

New details about Adam Lanza emerged Friday, as the nation paused to mark one week since he slaughtered 20 first-graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

GOP senators hit Benghazi report on Cabinet officials' actions

Republican senators said Friday that the State Department's investigative report on the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, does not address questions about the role of Cabinet officials in responding to the assault that night and mischaracterizing it afterwards.

Obama nominates Kerry for secretary of state

President Obama on Friday nominated Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts to be secretary of state, succeeding Hillary Rodham Clinton and filling the first key post of the president's second-term national security team.

EPA offers details of its controversial fracking study

The public and the energy industry got their first glimpse Friday of a long-awaited study on the possible correlation between water pollution and fracking, but Obama administration officials said the full results and definitive findings of their study won't be released until 2014.

Marines' new alcohol policy strictest in U.S. military

The Marine Corps' new on-duty standard for drinking alcohol is so strict that less than one drink at lunch would trigger a "positive" and get a warrior in hot water.

Army rolls out brass to defend anti-IED software

The Army presented two two-star generals and three intelligence specialists Thursday to defend its $2.5 billion battlefield intelligence processor, which has failed operational tests and has been criticized by soldiers as being too slow to analyze the enemy and help find buried bombs in Afghanistan.

Commentary

MCCAIN, GRAHAM, AND AYOTTE: Critical questions still unanswered on Benghazi

With U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's withdrawal from consideration for the position of secretary of state, some have assumed that Congress will now be less insistent on a full accounting of the facts surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi that resulted in the murder of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

GORDON: Obama must take Hollywood to task on gun violence

In the national soul-searching following yet another mass shooting -- the latest in a bloody string claiming hundreds of killed and wounded innocent victims since Columbine in 1999 -- the shouts for stricter gun control started even before the first funerals were held in Newtown, Conn.

MOHLER: 'Holiday tree' can't change meaning

Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee recently incited a controversy in his state over an unlikely issue -- what to call the large decorated evergreen tree in the Statehouse. Mr. Chafee insists that the blue spruce is a "holiday tree," suggesting that calling the official tree a "Christmas tree" would be akin to requiring schoolchildren to pray.

EDITORIAL: A Christmas message

Christmas is a time for giving, and as we reach out to family and friends, I hope we'll also open our hearts to those who are lonely and in need, citizens less fortunate than ourselves, brave soldiers working to preserve peace from the tip of Alaska to the shores of Lebanon, to the DMZ in Korea, families maintaining a constant vigil for their missing in action, and millions forbidden the freedom to worship a God who so loved the world that He gave us the birth of the Christ Child so that we might learn to love each other.