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With the shock and horror from Newtown giving way to anger and calls for action, President Barack Obama will announce his first concrete steps Wednesday in addressing the raging debate about gun policy. Obama is expected to announce that Vice President Joe Biden will lead an inter-agency process to develop policy in the wake of the Connecticut elementary school massacre. White House aides say Obama won't announce major policy decisions Wednesday, but will outline his administration's path forward. "These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change," Obama told a packed auditorium at Newtown High School on Sunday.

Republicans need to "have a discussion on guns" in the wake of last week's grade-school massacre in Newtown, Conn., Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told his conference Tuesday. Speaking to his troops at a closed-door meeting in the Capitol, Boehner was mindful of conservatives' traditional opposition to new gun restrictions, emphasizing that Republicans wouldn't do "anything knee-jerk," according to a lawmaker in the room. But the Speaker also said he wants to "de-politicize" the issue of gun violence, which has been thrust dreadfully into the national spotlight following the murder of 26 people — 20 of them young school children —...

WASHINGTON — An independent inquiry into the attack on the United States diplomatic mission in Libya that killed four Americans on Sept. 11 sharply criticizes the State Department for a lack of seasoned security personnel and relying on untested local militias to safeguard the compound, Congressional and State Department officials said Tuesday night. The investigation into the attacks on the diplomatic mission and C.I.A. annex that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others also faulted State Department officials in Washington for ignoring requests from officials at the American Embassy in Tripoli for more guards and safety upgrades to the...

John Bolton, former U.N. ambassador under President George W. Bush, suggested Monday night that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fabricated a "diplomatic illness" in order to dodge scheduled testimony this week on the Sept. 11 anniversary attack in Benghazi, Libya. Speaking on Fox News, Bolton claimed "every foreign service officer in every foreign ministry in the world" is familiar with coming up with such "diplomatic illnesses" when they "don't want to go to a meeting or a conference, or an event." "And this is a diplomatic illness to beat the band," Bolton said of recent news that Clinton had fainted...

Another weapon from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agency's controversial Operation Fast and Furious was recently recovered at a Mexican crime scene, CBS News has learned. Congressional investigators say the crime scene was likely where a recent shootout took place between reported Sinaloa drug cartel members and the Mexican military, in which Sinaloa beauty queen Maria Susana Flores Gamez and four others were killed. According to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the Justice Department did not notify Congress of the Fast and Furious firearm recovery in November, even though Grassley has requested an accounting of weapons that...

The White House rejected a House GOP proposal Tuesday to extend the Bush tax cuts for those making up to $1 million, saying it doesn't go far enough and wouldn't pass the Senate anyway.

The 79-year-old Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has died on Tuesday after suffering a stroke. He had been suffering from ill health and had received medical treatment overseas several times in recent years.

Columbia, S.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), who is leaving the Senate in early January to lead the Heritage Foundation, made the following statement regarding the announcement by Governor Nikki Haley (R-South Carolina) that Rep. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) would serve as his replacement. ___________________________ “Governor Haley has made a great choice for South Carolina and the nation,” said Senator DeMint. “Tim Scott is a principled leader and will make an outstanding senator for the people of the South Carolina and an important voice for conservatives across the nation. I’ve known Tim for years and am confident...

Clinton gets accountability report on Benghazi attacksBy Andrew Quinn Mon Dec 17, 2012 3:18pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday received an official review of the September attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, setting the stage for testimony on an incident that prompted a political furor and sharp questions about security at U.S. diplomatic facilities overseas. **SNIP** The committee has been meeting in private and State Department officials have declined to discuss almost all specifics of the Benghazi attack pending its reports. The findings are expected to cover questions on whether enough...

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<p>All at once, a “fiscal cliff” deal seems to be coming together. Speaker John Boehner’s latest offer doesn’t go quite far enough for the White House to agree, but it goes far enough that many think they can see the agreement taking shape.</p>

NBC is unable to reach its Middle East bureau chief Richard Engel, who was also reporting from inside Syria.

Welcome, my friends, to the least surprising political news of the week. Nikki Haley will appoint Rep. Tim Scott to replace Senator Jim DeMint in the US Senate, making Scott the upper chamber's only African-American member, and give him a boost in the 2014 special election for the rest of DeMint's term: Multiple media sources are reporting that South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will indeed name Rep. Tim Scott to be the next senator from South Carolina.Scott will serve for two years, and then presumably run in a special election in 2014. If reelected, he would serve an additional two...

<p>Columbia, S.C. – South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is expected to name Rep. Tim Scott as the replacement for outgoing Sen. Jim DeMint, Fox News has learned.</p> <p>Haley is slated to announce her decision at noon on Monday at the Statehouse. Scott was elected to Congress in the 2010 Republican wave. Haley's selection would make him the first black U.S. senator from South Carolina.</p>

House Speaker John A. Boehner has offered to push any fight over the federal debt limit off for a year, a major concession that would deprive Republicans of leverage in the budget battle but is breathing new life into stalled talks over the year-end “fiscal cliff.” The offer came Friday, according to people in both parties familiar with the talks, as part of the latest effort by Boehner (R-Ohio) to strike a deal with President Obama to replace more than $500 billion in painful deficit-reduction measures set to take effect in January. With the national debt already bumping up against...

HONG KONG — The state news agency in China, the official voice of the government, has called for the United States to quickly adopt stricter gun controls in the aftermath of the shooting rampage in Connecticut that left 28 people dead, including 20 schoolchildren. According to the state medical examiner who was overseeing autopsies of the children, all of them had been hit multiple times. At least one child had been shot 11 times. All of the children were in the first grade. “Their blood and tears demand no delay for U.S. gun control,” said the news agency, Xinhua, which...

The Liberal Democrat Party was poised to return to power in Japan on Sunday, with exit polls projecting a sweeping victory in the general election. Exit polls from CNN affiliate NHK show that the Liberal Democrat Party, or LDP -- led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe -- won the majority of votes in the country's lower house election. The projected results, which indicate the party captured at least 275 of 480 house seats, would give the party another stab at power three years after it was unceremoniously dumped for the Democrat Party of Japan, or DPJ.

The Talk Shows December 16th, 2012 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.; Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Gov. Dannel Malloy, D-Conn.; Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Malloy; Connecticut state police Lt. Paul Vance; Sens. Chuck U. Schumer, D-N.Y., and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.THIS WEEK (ABC): Malloy; Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.; Reps. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Donna Edwards, D-Md.; Mayor Pedro Segarra of Hartford, Conn.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Live coverage of...

President Barack Obama will travel to Newtown, Conn., on Sunday to meet with families of those killed in the shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School and thank emergency workers who responded to the tragedy, the White House said Saturday. "The President will also speak at an interfaith vigil for families of the victims as well as families" at 7 p.m., press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement. On Friday, an emotional Obama vowed to "take meaningful action, regardless of the politics," to prevent future tragedies like the shooting massacre, which killed 26 people at the school, 20 of...

President Barack Obama has chosen Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts to be the next secretary of state, a source has told Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed. His replacement as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will be Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the Sneed source said.