This is Veep Week. That, in reality, is about all that anyone outside Sen. Barack Obama's inner, inner circle knows -- that sometime before next week the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee will announce his running mate. Beyond that, the political world is in a zone of fevered speculation.

A senior aide to Vice President Cheney is the leading contender to become a top official at the Energy Department, according to several current and former administration officials, a promotion that would put one of the administration's most ardent opponents of environmental regulation in charge of...

ALBUQUERQUE, Aug. 18 -- Sen. Barack Obama returned to the presidential campaign trail on Monday after a week-long Hawaiian vacation and tried to assure anxious Democrats that he is ready to fight back against Republican character attacks that grew sharper in his absence.

Sen. Barack Obama has detailed a comprehensive space plan that includes $2 billion in new funding to reinvigorate NASA and a promise to make space exploration and science a significantly higher priority if he is elected president.

With the resignation today of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, the country's fledgling democratic government now must assume the full burden of fixing the economy and waging a more effective counterterrorism campaign or risk instability in a key U.S. ally, according to U.S. officials and Sou...

MCCAIN: Thank you all very much. National Commander George Lisicki, thank you for the kind introduction. Ladies Auxiliary President Virginia Carmen, Incoming National Commander Glen Gardner, Incoming Ladies Auxiliary President Dixie Hild, Adjutant General Gunner Kent, Executive Director Bob Walla...

The Senate ethics committee's ruling in the Keating Five case, once awaited as a landmark in Congress's efforts to clean house, turns out to have raised as many questions as it answered.

In jockeying for position in the election-year conflict over military aid to the Nicaraguan contras, the Senate may have found the best vantage point: a safe foxhole.

The Bush administration yesterday condemned Nicaragua's renunciation of the cease-fire with the contra rebels as "an affront to the hemisphere," but it sought to avoid possible pressure from Republican conservatives to seek renewed military aid for the contras.

With a conversation here and an amendment there, Senate Democrats have narrowed the gap separating them from five Republicans whose votes are needed to pass President Clinton's embattled bill to overhaul Congress's loophole-ridden campaign finance laws.

The Senate Select Committee on Ethics yesterday found "substantial credible evidence" of ethics violations by Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) but concluded that four other senators broke no specific rules in their dealings with savings and loan executive Charles H. Keating Jr.

Three Republican senators unveiled a campaign finance bill yesterday that would prohibit political action committee contributions in Senate races and curb the advantage of millionaire candidates.

President Johnson's decision to name Adm. John S. McCain Jr. to be his top Pacific commander ended three weeks of Navy fear that this biggest tri-service post might go to a non-sailor for the first time.

DENVER -- When Colorado voters were deciding whether to require that 10 percent of the state's electricity come from renewable fuels, the state's largest utility fought the proposal, warning that any shift from coal and natural gas would be costly, uncertain and unwise.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- When Dan Maffei tells how he decided to run for office, the former congressional press secretary recounts a casual conversation he had in 2005 with a reporter, who pointed out that New York's 25th District was the only seat in the country where Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) won in...

ATLANTA "I still plan someday to do a book on Bob Barr's laws of the universe," says Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate for president. The rules of Bob Barr's universe are many and fascinating. Several have to do with his libertarian principles, like "No matter how much power government has, it ...

Federal prosecutors have sent target letters to six Blackwater Worldwide security guards involved in a September shooting that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead, indicating a high likelihood the Justice Department will seek to indict at least some of the men, according to three sources close to the case.

LAKE FOREST, Calif., Aug. 16 -- Barack Obama and John McCain made their first joint appearance of the general election Saturday night, breaking away from the debates over national security and the economy that have dominated the campaign in recent weeks to court evangelical voters at an Orange...

Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows:

Despite leaving the country for more than a week, Sen. Barack Obama raised more than $51 million in July, keeping him in line to collect more than half a billion dollars for his 2008 presidential bid.

Sen. Barack Obama's upcoming acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention will further cement Aug. 28 as one of the most significant dates in the American civil rights movement.

CRAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 16 -- President Bush issued the latest in a series of stern warnings to Moscow on Saturday with little immediate effect, as Russian leaders failed to follow through on a new agreement to withdraw troops from Georgia.

Barack Obama, until recently a little-known state senator from Chicago's South Side, rode a remarkable wave to victory. He swamped a field of six established candidates in the Democratic primary and overwhelmed a Republican conservative, Alan Keyes, imported from Maryland, to become the only Afri...

WHEN PRESIDENT Bush went before the National Urban League conference two weeks ago, after blowing off the NAACP convention, he told the largely African American audience: "I know, I know, I know. Listen, the Republican Party has got a lot of work to do. I understand that." The truth of the statem...

Liberal critics have skewered Illinois Republican Alan Keyes for taking on Democratic megastar Barack Obama in the race for the state's open Senate seat.

-- The Rev. Rick Warren is so prominent and respected that just being seen with him is a boon for any presidential candidate. For Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, their appearances at a forum Saturday night at Warren's evangelical California megachurch bring risks along with rewa...

The Justice Department has proposed a new domestic spying measure that would make it easier for state and local police to collect intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years.

It used to be that political campaigns would be satisfied if they managed to settle on an eye-catching font for their T-shirts and trucker caps. The merchandise wasn't so much designed as it was stamped out like a pile of red, white and blue bunting. Political paraphernalia was mostly about the...

ANCHORAGE -- On the summer morning he would deliver himself to federal marshals to begin a 3 1/2 -year sentence for accepting an oil company's bribes, former state lawmaker Vic Kohring (R) parked along the side of Alaska's busiest highway. While his mother waited in the car, Kohring posted a...

Republican Sen. John McCain posted the best fundraising month of his presidential campaign in July, bringing in $27 million, but his supporters are bracing for the near-certainty that he will be operating at a severe financial disadvantage in the two-month stretch between the end of the party...

With the rest of the political universe buzzing about a controversial new book on Sen. Barack Obama, one person is staying quiet: Sen. John McCain.

After weeks of maneuvering aimed at producing a display of unity when Democrats gather in Denver later this month, Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign announced yesterday that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will be formally nominated and her name included in a roll-call vote at the Democratic...

DULUTH, Ga. -- Jonathan Merritt is a Baptist preacher's son with a pristine evangelical lineage. It was his dad, the Rev. James Merritt, who reportedly brought President Bush to tears in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks when he called the president "God's man for this hour." The Rev. Jerry...

Russian behavior in Georgia has "called into question the entire premise" of relations between Washington and Moscow, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday, even as the Bush administration appeared willing to let Russia take its time removing its forces from disputed areas inside the...

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick rode another legal roller coaster yesterday as he was granted permission by one judge to travel to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, only to have another rescind the privilege hours later. The judge in the morning removed Kilpatrick's electronic tether. The...

The Center for Responsive Politics has found that the bona fide war hero is garnering far less financial support from the troops than the Harvard-trained lawyer.

Rep. John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat known for delivering federal money to defense contractors in his district, is now going to bat for a constituent's company that was convicted last year of illegally exporting components of military equipment.

RICHMOND, Aug. 14 -- A top strategist for Sen. John McCain's campaign said Thursday that the presidential contest in Virginia will "undoubtedly be close" this fall and acknowledged that the state should no longer be considered a Republican stronghold.

Democratic Party leaders announced yesterday that former Virginia governor Mark R. Warner will deliver the keynote address at their national convention in Denver this month, positioning him prominently in a week-long lineup that seeks to pay homage to the party of the past while ushering in a new...

In two autobiographies and dozens of speeches, Barack Obama has weaved the narrative that defines his campaign: An introspective boy gradually comes to terms with his mixed-race heritage and emerges with an "unprejudiced" worldview. He enters politics because of his "love of country" and succeeds by...

LAS VEGAS -- The scandal-plagued Republican governor is so politically toxic that few of his party's prominent candidates will be seen with him. The GOP's most powerful state senator survived a tough primary after 36 years of never even facing a credible opponent. And the party may quickly be losing...

Cindy McCain was rushed to the hospital Wednesday afternoon after a supporter shook her hand too hard, re-injuring a wrist that was broken and operated on many years ago, her husband's campaign said.

President Bush today warned Russia to honor a cease-fire agreement in its conflict with Georgia, saying that reports of ongoing military actions by Moscow "raise serious questions about its intentions" and threaten its standing in the world.

HANOI, Vietnam, April 26 -- John McCain made his peace with the Vietnam War long ago, but today--walking the dark, suffocating halls of the prison where he was once held--he was not ready to forgive the Vietnamese captors who tormented his American comrades.

BUSH: Good morning. I've just met with my national security team to discuss the crisis in Georgia. I've spoken with President Saakashvili of Georgia and President Sarkozy of France this morning. The United States strongly supports France's efforts, as president of the European Union, to broker an...

Job applicants who were rejected by the Justice Department because of improper political considerations will be urged to apply for open positions, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey told an audience yesterday.

Sen. John McCain's top foreign policy adviser prepped his boss for an April 17 phone call with the president of Georgia and then helped the presumptive Republican presidential nominee prepare a strong statement of support for the fledgling republic.

Aides to Republican Sen. John McCain were scrambling last Thursday morning even as his plane was descending into Des Moines. Russia had escalated its aggression in the bordering Republic of Georgia, they told reporters, and McCain wanted to seize the moment.

With his opponents conceding yesterday's's primary, Republican Secretary of State Mike Coffman looked set to succeed Rep. Tom Tancredo, the five-term Colorado congressman whose forceful opposition to illegal immigration vaulted him to national prominence.

YORK, Pa., Aug. 12 -- The bay door opened under a giant American flag, John McCain's dark-blue Straight Talk Express bus rolled into the exhibition hall to the inevitable (in Pennsylvania, at least) strains of "Rocky," and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee emerged with not one but two...

Robert W. Ney -- the former congressman now officially known as federal prisoner No. 28882-016 -- will complete his sentence Friday, less than two years after pleading guilty to corruption charges stemming from the investigation of now-imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff's dealings with Congress.

The Bush administration yesterday proposed a regulatory overhaul of the Endangered Species Act to allow federal agencies to decide whether protected species would be imperiled by agency projects, eliminating the independent scientific reviews that have been required for more than three decades.

President Bush said yesterday that Russia's military attacks in Georgia may be designed to unseat the pro-U.S. government there, a move he warned would represent a "dramatic and brutal escalation" of a conflict that American officials have begun to describe as a return to Cold War-style aggression.

LANCASTER, Pa. -- When Gene Rutherford, 65, tries to make sense of the meteoric rise of Barack Obama, and the rampant enthusiasm for him among younger Americans, he thinks of the local mall, where as director of operations he often deals with teenagers.

ERIE, Pa. -- Sen. John McCain began a two-day Pennsylvania swing Monday, accompanied by Tom Ridge, but there were conflicting signs about how serious a vice presidential contender the former governor and onetime homeland security secretary might be.

MCCAIN: Americans wishing to spend August vacationing with their families or watching the Olympics may wonder why their newspapers and television screens are filled with images of war in the small country of Georgia. Concerns about what occurs there might seem distant and unrelated to the many ot...

In the five-year struggle to finish the war in Iraq, military leaders and their troops have said a particular weapon is among the most effective in their arsenal:

TALLAHASSEE -- Herbert Pompey had gone through rehab, stayed sober, held a job, married and started a landscaping business in the two years since he walked out of Taylor Correctional Institution. But what Pompey hadn't done -- and what he assumed a string of felony drug and DUI convictions would ...

The Department of Homeland Security swept aside evaluations by government experts and named Mississippi -- home to powerful U.S. lawmakers with sway over the agency -- as a potential location for a $451 million national laboratory to study some of the world's most virulent biological threats, acc...

Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows:

The opening round of the general-election campaign between Barack Obama and John McCain has produced memorable images, negative ads, snarling e-mails and pointed exchanges over war, the economy and energy. What it has not done is begin to resolve questions among voters that both candidates must...

Democrats settled yesterday on a party platform that includes concessions to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, while at the same time showing the clear imprint of Sen. Barack Obama on the party.

A new national poll shows broad public support for government action in the face of $4-a-gallon gas and other energy concerns, giving Republicans a rare opening to go on the offensive against congressional Democrats and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

For Nikki Tinker, Tennessee's 9th Congressional District hung as sweetly as a plum in the state's Democratic primary. It has a black majority, is full of churchgoing African American women like herself, and includes the hallowed ground where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a...

On the campaign trail, Sen. Barack Obama bashes President Bush for "reckless" economic policies that are "mortgaging our children's future on a mountain of debt." But the Democratic presidential candidate has adopted a key component of Bush's fiscal policy: A novel bookkeeping method that guarantees...

Statement by Robert Gordon, attorney for Rielle Hunter:

Since the credit crisis erupted a year ago, the Bush administration has presided over one of the broadest expansions of the government into private lending in U.S. history, risking public money to prop up financial firms both large and small.

Former presidential candidate John Edwards admitted yesterday that he had an extramarital affair with a filmmaker working for his campaign and repeatedly lied about it, but he denied that he fathered her 5-month-old baby.

With Barack Obama stepping off the playing field for a week-long Hawaiian vacation, John McCain's campaign released three new attack ads yesterday, signaling that the senator from Arizona would use the void to continue pummeling the character of his rival for the White House.

MoveOn.org and an arm of the independent political group Public Campaign Action Fund want the Justice Department to investigate whether bundlers for John McCain's presidential campaign are using "straw" donations -- those made in the name of someone else to evade contribution limits.

The National Park Service yesterday proposed rules that would expand the space for the public and protesters along Pennsylvania Avenue during inaugurations.

Chapel Hill, North Carolina In 2006, I made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs. I recognized my mistake and I told my wife that I had a liaison with another woman, and I asked for her forgiveness. Although I was honest i...

MCCAIN: It's time to get America's economy moving again. Companies like Merillat and families across Ohio face challenges in their businesses and around the kitchen table. And obviously, energy prices are too high. We're losing jobs. Our housing market is on the decline. And the cost of everythin...

MCCAIN: I need your help. I need your support. And we can win in November if we can carry Ohio and Lima. And I need you. And I'm asking for your support. (APPLAUSE)

(JOINED IN PROGRESS) MCCAIN: ... prize-winning boar: Freight Train. 1,253 pounds. And it's a great -- a great experience.

OBAMA: We meet at a moment when this country is facing a set of challenges unlike any we've ever known. Right now, our brave men and women in uniform are fighting two different wars while terrorists plot their next attack. Our changing climate is putting our planet in peril and our security at ri...

With the clock running out on preparations for the Democratic convention, advisers to Sen. Barack Obama are scrambling to reach a compromise with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to appease her supporters and find roles for her and her husband.

Revelations about anthrax scientist Bruce E. Ivins's mental instability have exposed what congressional leaders and security experts call startling gaps in how the federal government safeguards its most dangerous biological materials, even as the number of bioscience laboratories has grown rapidl...

White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers yesterday asked a federal judge to delay an order to cooperate with Congress while they appeal the ruling.

WILMINGTON, Ohio, Aug. 7 -- Sen. John McCain promised Thursday to call for a congressional hearing and Justice Department review into the potential loss of some 8,000 jobs in this Ohio town as his presidential campaign once again faced uncomfortable questions about its ties to Washington lobbyists.

MEMPHIS, Aug 7 -- A racially charged Democratic primary campaign ended Thursday with an incumbent congressman trouncing the opponent who ran an ad linking him to the Ku Klux Klan.

Government officials asserted yesterday that a troubled bioweapons scientist acted alone to perpetrate a terrorism scheme that killed five people, a case that centered on a near-perfect match of anthrax spores in his custody and a record of his late-night laboratory work just before the toxic let...

Barack Obama released a television advertisement yesterday that questions John McCain's claims to be a "maverick," and he charged in a campaign appearance that the Republican displays independence only when it suits him politically.

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Aug. 6 -- A military jury on Wednesday found a former driver for Osama bin Laden guilty of supporting terrorism but not of conspiring in terrorist attacks, handing the Bush administration a partial victory in the first U.S. war crimes trial in a half a century.

With rumors flying about whether Hillary Rodham Clinton will seek to include her name in a roll-call vote of delegates at the Democratic convention, the Clinton and Obama campaign teams issued a rare joint statement on Wednesday night confirming that they are "working together" to come up with a...

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 6 -- Dozens of mayors and police chiefs Wednesday called on the federal government to focus on fighting crime in cities, saying that the efforts that had driven down urban crime had dissipated since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that they were seeing a consequent rise in crime...

As his troops forsake their August recess this week to raise Cain over gas prices, their No. 1 campaign issue, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) has been home tending to his golf game and his fundraising.

The bundle of $2,300 and $4,600 checks that poured into Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign on March 12 came from an unlikely group of California donors: a mechanic from D&D Auto Repair in Whittier, the manager of Taco Bell stores in Riverside, the owners of a liquor store in Colton.

Paris for President? Well, check out her energy policy. Yep, you read that right. In a two-minute online video posted last night on the comedy site FunnyorDie.com, Paris Hilton announced her candidacy -- thanks to Sen. John McCain's "Celeb" ad comparing Sen. Barack Obama to Paris and Britney Sp...

Barack Obama's national Muslim outreach coordinator has resigned amid a controversy of over his connections to a man who the Justice Department named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the racketeering trial last year of several alleged Hamas fund-raisers.

The bundle of $2,300 and $4,600 checks that poured into Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign on March 12 came from an unlikely group of California donors: a mechanic from D&D Auto Repair in Whittier, the manager of Rite Aid Pharmacy No. 5727, the 30-something owners of the Twilight Hookah Lou...

The FBI today will begin to unveil how it exploited the rapidly advancing science of genetics to link a single bioweapons researcher to samples taken from the victims of the 2001 anthrax attacks and to powder from the letters that killed them.

BEREA, Ohio, Aug. 5 -- Barack Obama and John McCain used an ongoing debate over energy policy to tack back to core themes of their campaigns Tuesday, with Obama blasting his rival for the presidency as a clone of the current administration and the Republican seeking to revive his reputation as so...

Iraq's oil income will more than double this year, even as Baghdad continues to spend only a small percentage of its own money on reconstruction and services while it banks billions in surplus funds, according to projections by U.S. government auditors.

SEOUL, Aug. 6 -- As President Bush rode a motorcade out of Seoul air base on Tuesday night, he was greeted by hundreds of people waving South Korean and American flags and signs announcing "Friends Forever." But in downtown parts of the capital, anti-Bush protests drew thousands of marchers, and...

Rep. Barney Frank (Mass.), one of Sen. Hillary Clinton's (N.Y.) most prominent House supporters during the Democratic presidential primary, says the previously tense relationship between her backers and those of Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) is gradually improving and that he expects his fellow Cli...

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE, Aug. 4 -- Three days before he is set to arrive in Beijing for the Olympics, President Bush offered a mixed assessment of China's role in the world, praising its efforts to curb the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran, expressing disappointment about its recent move to...