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When a Philippine government ship evaded a Chinese blockade in disputed waters of the South China Sea last month, a U.S. Navy plane swooped in to witness the dramatic encounter. The flyover was a vivid illustration of the expanding significance of one of Asia's most strategic regions and underscored a message that senior U.S. officials say President Barack Obama will make in Asia next week: The "pivot" of U.S. military and diplomatic assets toward the Asia-Pacific region is real. Washington's Asian allies, however, appear unconvinced.

Partisan bickering over immigration reform legislation intensified on Wednesday as President Barack Obama and House of Representatives Republicans accused each other of standing in the way of progress one year after bipartisan Senate legislation was introduced. "I urge House Republicans to listen to the will of the American people and bring immigration reform to the House floor for a vote," Obama said. Obama has warned that a failure by Congress to pass legislation could prompt him to look for ways to use his executive powers to make some limited advances on U.S. immigration policy.

Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to use a purge of senior officials suspected of corruption to put his own men and reform-minded bureaucrats into key positions across the Communist Party, the government and the military, sources said. Xi hopes that removing corrupt officials and those resisting change will allow him to consolidate his grip on power and implement difficult economic, judicial and military reforms that he believes are vital to perpetuate one-party rule, said the sources, who have ties to the leadership.

DETROIT (AP) — Pressure was building Wednesday for Michigan lawmakers to commit $350 million to Detroit pensions, a day after the city reached tentative agreements with pension funds and a retiree group to reduce payouts. Retired police officers and firefighters would see smaller cost-of-living payments but no cut in pension benefits. Retirees and city employees who qualify for a pension will get a ballot in a few weeks.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on Wednesday said he had a phone call with President Barack Obama on the topic of immigration reform. It didn’t sound like it was a particularly friendly conversation. Cantor issued a statement saying, in part: The President called me hours after he issued a partisan statement which attacked me and my fellow House Republicans and which indicated no sincere desire to work together. After five years, President Obama still has not learned how to effectively work with Congress to get things done. You do not attack the very people you hope to engage in a...

Nothing is going right for Hangzhou at this moment. Walmart will be closing its Zhaohui store in that city on April 23 as a part of its overall plan to dump marginal locations—about 9% of the total—in China. Thanks to the world’s largest retailer, another large block of space in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, will go on the market at a time when there is generally too much supply. The problem is especially pronounced in the city’s premium office market. Hangzhou’s Grade A office buildings at the end of 2013 had, according to Jones Lang LaSalle, an average...

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on Tuesday signed into a law a bill allowing state health authorities to conduct surprise inspections of abortion clinics without first obtaining a warrant, handing another victory to abortion foes. The Republican-backed bill, which gained final legislative approval from the state Senate last week, removes a provision from state law requiring a judge to approve any spot inspections conducted at the nine clinics in Arizona licensed to perform abortions. No other medical facilities in the state require such a warrant for unannounced inspections.

For all the noise about the State Department's final environmental review of the Keystone XL Pipeline being a "blow" to pipeline opponents, the report contains more than enough information for Secretary of State John Kerry -- a respected environmental champion -- to conclude that the pipeline is not in the national interest. Although you have to dig a bit, the report recognizes the dangers associated with the tar sands fuel that the pipeline would transport. Kerry's obligation is to determine what is in the national interest. For all its flaws, the report acknowledges that the tar sands that would get...

Texas Senator Ted Cruz is having some fun on this fine tax day by exposing the double standard between people who work at the IRS and taxpayers who must comply with the rules and regulations of the agency. IMAGE BELOW:

WASHINGTON — Former Army Sgt. Kyle J. White will be awarded the Medal of Honor on May 13, 2014, the White House announced late Tuesday afternoon. White will receive the nation's highest military award for his actions during a dismounted movement in mountainous terrain in Aranas, Afghanistan, on November 9, 2007. He was then serving as a Platoon Radio Telephone Operator assigned to C Company, 2nd Battalion (Airborne), 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade. White, who now works as an investment analyst in Charlotte, N.C., will be the seventh living recipient to be awarded the Medal of Honor for actions...

--snip-- BANGKOK (AP) - A survey released Tuesday -- the first comprehensive one of its kind - says that only 10 killers of 908 environmental activists slain around the world over the past decade have been convicted. The report by the London-based Global Witness, a group that seeks to shed light on the links between environmental exploitation and human rights abuses, says murders of those protecting land rights and the environment have soared dramatically.

U.S. military assets in the Black Sea are on high alert amid reports Ukraine troops traded gunfire Tuesday with pro-Russian militants. A journalist with Associated Press reported intense gunfire at an airport in eastern Ukraine after the government sent in army troops to retake control from militiamen loyal to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The group Tea Party Patriots filed suit on this Tax Day against the Internal Revenue Service for documents about the agency’s infamous targeting of conservative groups last year. The group hopes the documents will shed more light on why conservative and tea party groups were singled out for extra scrutiny by the IRS while applying for non-profit status ahead of the 2012 election. Tea Party Patriots also wants to learn more about the specific roles of former IRS official Lois Lerner and other Obama administration officials in developing these regulations that led to the special targeting, officials said Tuesday during...

By midnight on April 15, roughly 140 million Americans will have filed their federal income tax returns and breathed a sigh of relief. Politicians from both parties, however, will spend most of the day criticizing our current tax system. --snip-- Creating a new tax regime based on the ability to pay had significant consequences. Not only did it provide sorely needed revenue while addressing growing inequality, it also fostered greater social solidarity and bolstered faith in government — a lesson lost on many lawmakers today. Reformers believed progressive taxes could be used to reconfigure the relationship between citizens and the...

International efforts to combat global warming are so broken that it's come to this: hoovering massive amounts of carbon dioxide out of the sky. A body of scientists convened under the auspices of the United Nations is giving more weight to the idea that vacuuming vast stores of CO2 from the skies and burying it in the ground may be necessary to limit the temperature rise to the internationally agreed safe level of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels. The plan's not quite like a giant thermostat for the whole globe, but the metaphor's not completely off either.

Senate Democrats have been desperately trying to move the national conversation away from Obamacare to just about anything else before the midterm elections — “paycheck fairness,” the minimum wage, even the Koch brothers. But President Obama’s choice of Sylvia Burwell to replace Kathleen Sebelius as secretary of Health and Human Services thrusts Obamacare right back into the national spotlight — and with it Obama’s false promise that “if you like your health-care plan, you can keep your health-care plan.” Burwell should not be confirmed until she explains how OMB allowed the president of the United States to lie — repeatedly...

A Bay Area federal judge says the Obama administration can keep secret a memo spelling out the legal rationale for a 2011 drone attack in Yemen that killed a U.S. citizen and alleged terrorist mastermind. The ruling dismissed a suit by the First Amendment Coalition, an open-government advocacy group in San Rafael. The organization sued after a September 2011 drone strike in Yemen that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Muslim cleric whom authorities suspected of organizing an attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner in 2009. Another U.S. citizen was also killed in the drone attack, and Awlaki's U.S.-born, 16-year-old...

New York Rep. Steve Israel said Sunday a significant part of the Republican Party is “animated by racism,” marking the third time in recent days that a leading Democrat has appeared to make race an issue and draw a sharp response from Republicans. Israel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, whose major role is the get his House members re-elected, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that not all of his Republican colleagues are racist. “Not all of them, of course not,” he said. “But to a significant extent, the Republican base does have elements that are animated by...

Thirteen-year-old Fadel Hasan has memorized the entire roster of his favorite football team, the Minnesota Vikings. He usually has an opinion about draft picks and trades that he doesn’t hesitate to share, his dad says. Now, the youngster is using his memorization skills to learn and recite every word of the Qur’an, the Muslim holy book. He is one of a dozen Muslim boys who have left conventional junior and senior high schools for a period of time to attend the intensive Qur’an school Darul Arqam Center For Excellence in Blaine. The parents who founded the Qur’an school say it...

CHICAGO - Mayor Rahm Emanuel is inviting young immigrants in the United States illegally to apply for internships, volunteer positions and summer jobs. Emanuel's office announced Friday that the so-called dreamers are welcome to apply for nearly 23,000 positions. Online: http://www.cityofchicago.org/newamericans