Attorney General Eric Holder failed to tell the Senate about seven legal briefs he signed when lawmakers considered his nomination to his current job, according to a letter released on Friday.
Two of the briefs involved appeals to the Supreme Court for Jose Padilla, who sought release from a military prison in South Carolina where he was being held after then-President George W. Bush designated him an “enemy combatant.”
Padilla was held in a military brig for three years before his case was moved to a criminal court in Miami, where he was convicted on charges of offering his services to militants.
The House of Representatives Budget Committee on Monday will consider a reconciliation bill that Democrats hope clears the way for final congressional approval of an overhaul of U.S. healthcare, House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer said on Friday.
Representative Jim Clyburn, a member of the House Democratic leadership, said he hopes a vote by the full chamber could be held on the measure within the next 10 days.
U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday she was confident of satisfying Democratic concerns about a Senate-approved healthcare bill and passing the measure.
Pelosi made the comment at her weekly news conference — just hours after one lawmaker said a dozen House Democrats opposed to abortion were willing to kill the legislation unless it satisfies their demand for language barring federal funding of the procedure.
Their threat to kill healthcare reform came a day after President Barack Obama launched a final push to pass the overhaul, a top domestic priority, and urged Democrats in Congress to vote on the bill this month, even without Republican support.
On vote of 315-97, the House of Representatives approved the bill, a day after it cleared the Senate. It now heads to President Barack Obama to sign into law.
The Obama administration wanted to extend the measure because of provisions it says are important in tracking suspected terrorists, including roving wiretaps to track multiple communications devices. But some lawmakers wanted additional privacy measures to protect against abuses.
With the Patriot Act provisions set to expire on Sunday, lawmakers agreed to extend them for a year, and effectively put off a showdown on efforts to bolster safeguards.
Democrat Charles Rangel, the top tax writer in the U.S. Congress, was admonished on Thursday by a congressional ethics committee for taking corporate-funded trips to the Caribbean, a finding he said defied “common sense.”
The House of Representatives ethics committee concluded that Rangel broke the chamber’s gift rules in taking the trips but it did not immediately release its report. Rangel called a news conference after news accounts disclosed the findings.
Quoting from his copy of the report, Rangel said it found he did not know the trips in 2007 and 2008 were underwritten by corporations, but that two of his staffers did.
China’s military warned the United States on Thursday to “speak and act cautiously” to avoid reigniting tensions between the two powers, denying the People’s Liberation Army played a part in Internet hacking.
Huang Xueping, spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Defense, said his government would not reverse its decision to suspend “bilateral military plans” with Washington after it said in late January that it would sell $6.4 billion of arms to Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own.
In January, the giant Internet search company Google Inc threatened to pull back from China after complaining of censorship and hacking attacks on it and other companies.
Russia will not support “crippling” sanctions against Iran, including any that may be slapped on the Islamic Republic’s banking or energy sectors, a senior Russian diplomat said Wednesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Moscow last week to press the Kremlin to back tougher sanctions against Iran over its suspected nuclear weapons project.
This week, Netanyahu called for an immediate embargo on Iran’s energy sector.
President Barack Obama launched a vigorous defense of his economic agenda Wednesday, rejecting critics who call his policies “socialism” and insisting he aims to boost U.S. competitiveness abroad.
Speaking to the Business Roundtable, which groups some of the country’s top chief executives, Obama called for support of his administration’s efforts to overhaul financial regulation and create jobs.
Obama’s remarks were set against a backdrop of unease in the business community about his economic and budget policies as well as his legislative drive for healthcare, energy and financial regulatory reform.
“Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, I am an ardent believer in the free market,” Obama said in prepared remarks.
President Barack Obama is expected to publish his healthcare plan as early as Sunday or Monday, combining features of the two Democratic bills passed by the Senate and House of Representatives, congressional aides and healthcare advocates said on Friday.
The administration’s bill will aim to jump-start the stalled healthcare overhaul and comes just days ahead of a planned televised White House summit with congressional Republicans, who are calling on Democrats to scrap the bills and start over with a far less sweeping proposal.
Democrats are struggling to push healthcare legislation over the finish line in the face of sagging public support and solid Republican opposition bolstered by recent election victories in Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey.
President Barack Obama said on Wednesday a $787 billion stimulus program helped the United States avoid dipping into an economic depression.
Obama launched a sweeping effort to convince skeptical Americans that the stimulus has been beneficial, saying it had created or saved 2 million jobs and attacking Republican critics who doubt its effectiveness.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission unveiled a plan on Tuesday that would require Internet providers to offer minimum home connection speeds by 2020, a proposal that some telecommunications companies panned as unrealistic.
The FCC wants service providers to offer home Internet data transmission speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps) to 100 million homes by a decade from now, Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said.
Industry estimates generally put average U.S. Internet speeds at below 4 Mbps.
The proposal is part of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan, due next month. It comes a week after Google Inc rattled Internet service providers with its plan to build a super-fast Internet network.
U.S. Senator Evan Bayh, a popular Democrat seen as having a good shot at a third term, said Monday he won’t run again because of the kind of bitter politicking that has put President Barack Obama’s whole agenda in jeopardy.
Bayh of Indiana said that “narrow ideology” was ruling lawmakers’ decisions, thwarting useful work at a time when a bipartisan approach was urgently needed, and sapping his desire to remain in Congress.
Bayh’s surprise decision underscored the Obama’s and Democrats’ problems in the often gridlocked Congress as well as the party’s difficulty heading into November’s election.
The agency said in a statement the test took place at 8:44 p.m. PST (11:44 p.m. EST) on Thursday /0444 GMT on Friday) at Point Mugu’s Naval Air Warfare Center-Weapons Division Sea Range off Ventura in central California.
“The Missile Defense Agency demonstrated the potential use of directed energy to defend against ballistic missiles when the Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB) successfully destroyed a boosting ballistic missile” the agency said.
The high-powered Airborne Laser system is being developed by Boeing Co., (BA.N) the prime contractor, and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has expressed some skepticism behind closed doors about the broad bank limits proposed on Thursday by his boss, President Barack Obama, according to financial industry sources.
The sources, speaking anonymously because Geithner has not spoken publicly about his reservations, said the Treasury chief is concerned the proposed limits on big banks’ trading and size could impact U.S. firms’ global competitiveness.
He also has concerns that limits on proprietary trading do not necessarily get at the root of the problems and excesses that fueled the recent financial meltdown, the sources said.
Russia will start up the reactor at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant this year, the chief of Russia’s state nuclear corporation told reporters on Thursday.
“2010 is the year of Bushehr,” Rosatom chief Sergei Kiriyenko told reporters after a cabinet meeting in Moscow.
“There is absolutely no doubt that it will be built this year. Everything is going according to schedule,” he said.
