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Attorney General Eric Holder sent a memo to employees of the Department of Justice Friday, reminding them that soliciting prostitutes is against agency rules and that violation of those rules could lead to suspension or termination. “The solicitation of prostitution threatens the core mission of the Department, not simply because it invites extortion, blackmail, and leaks of sensitive or classified information, but also because it undermines the Department's efforts to eradicate the scourge of human trafficking,” the memo said. The memo was sent weeks after a Justice Department watchdog report alleged several Drug Enforcement Administration agents attended "sex parties" with...

As the majority-black congregation members filed into Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church on Easter Sunday, they passed a line of young people – also majority black – standing on the sidewalk, silently holding banners that said, “Jesus was killed by the state … and so are we.” The #BlackChurch action was intended to “spur our people into taking direct action in the communities they pray for,” said leaders of the Millennium Activists United (MAU), a Ferguson activist group that is led by black women in their 20s. Friendly Temple in North St. Louis was among three black churches that the...

For union organizers in Colombia, the dangers of their trade were intensifying. When workers at the country’s largest independent oil company staged a strike in 2011, the Colombian military rounded them up at gunpoint and threatened violence if they failed to disband, according to human rights organizations. Similar intimidation tactics against the workers, say labor leaders, amounted to an everyday feature of life. For the United States, these were precisely the sorts of discomfiting accounts that were supposed to be prevented in Colombia under a labor agreement that accompanied a recently signed free trade pact liberalizing the exchange of goods...

The Obama administration announced Wednesday that it had opened a gender-neutral bathroom for staff and visitors within the White House complex. The newly designated restroom will be located in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where much of the White House staff works, Politico reported. The restroom is the latest in a series of symbolic steps the president has taken to protect the rights of LGBT individuals, following an executive order that bans discrimination against LGBT employees of companies that contract with the federal government, Politico reported.

Florida’s nearly 40-year-old ban on gay adoption - which hasn’t been enforced for the past five years - is about to be tossed out by the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature. But it’s not going without a fierce debate, including whether the state should adopt a separate law that would let private agencies use religious or moral grounds to turn away gay couples seeking to adopt children. Some Republicans say this “conscience” law is needed to ensure that faith-based organizations handling adoptions will keep offering their services, but other legislators have compared the measure to Indiana’s religious objections law and said it...

Russia is so close that the F-16 fighter pilots can see it on the horizon as they swoop down over a training range in Estonia in the biggest ever show of U.S. air power in the Baltic countries. The four-week drill is part of a string of non-stop exercises by U.S. land, sea and air forces in Europe — from Estonia in the north to Bulgaria in the south — scaled up since last year to reassure nervous NATO allies after Russia's military intervention in Ukraine. U.S. and Russian forces are now essentially back in a Cold War-style standoff, flexing...

The very thin fiction of Obama’s “historic” agreement with Iran is unraveling with amazing speed. It’s notable that the Iranians never felt any urge to play along with Obama, not even for a few hours. They were loudly announcing his spin on the deal was false before the sun set on the day the agreement was announced. And now the Iranians are actively violating the terms of the agreement, which hasn’t even been formally written down or signed yet, according to the Times of Israel: Iran will begin using its latest generation IR-8 centrifuges as soon as its nuclear deal...

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan categorically rejected as a "lie" a Guardian report alleging that Tehran has granted access to its military facilities under the recent framework agreement with the world powers. "No such agreement has been made; principally speaking, visit to military centers is among our redlines and no such visit will be accepted," Gen. Dehqan stressed on Wednesday, rejecting "the report by foreign media outlets, such as the Guardian" as "untruthful allegations". The Iranian defense minister reiterated that the Supreme Leader's guidelines, government's strategy and the negotiating team's resolve have placed the Iranian diplomacy...

WASHINGTON — A 17-year-old transgender youth, Leelah Alcorn, stunned her friends and a vast Internet audience in December when she threw herself in front of a tractor-trailer after writing in an online suicide note that religious therapists had tried to convert her back to being a boy. In response, President Obama this week will call for an end to such psychiatric therapies aimed at “repairing” gay, lesbian and transgender youth, White House officials said. His decision on the sensitive issue is the latest example of his continuing embrace of gay rights. In a statement to be posted on Wednesday evening...

The White House on Wednesday took a shot at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by using a cartoon bomb to defend its nuclear deal with Iran. The bomb diagram attached to a White House tweet looked a lot like a chart used by Netanyahu during a 2012 speech to the United Nations General Assembly urging the U.S. and other world powers to set an ultimatum to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Using a marker, Netanyahu drew a red line near the top of the bomb. “At this late hour there is only one way to peacefully prevent Iran...

…apprehended while illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border into Texas on February 12, 2015. …history as a military trainer, his speaking several languages, including Russian, and his having lived in Crimea, according to one of the leaked documents.

<p>Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) – the first Republican hopeful to put his name forward – has long maintained that only by mobilizing the conservative grassroots can the GOP hope to reclaim the White House in 2016. He has explicitly said that primary-goers looking for a candidate that will toe the party line, and buckle to the whims of the establishment, should look elsewhere. As a result, he has pledged not to fund his campaign with funds obtained from lobbyists or crony capitalists, and therefore must tap into the generosity and support of ordinary Americans to get his campaign off the ground.</p>

BOSTON (AP) -- Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted on all charges Wednesday in the Boston Marathon bombing by a federal jury that now must decide whether the 21-year-old former college student should be executed.

Moshe Ya’alon is Israel’s defense minister. The framework concluded last week on Iran’s nuclear program was doomed to disagreement. Even the “fact sheets” issued by the United States, France and Iran — all parties to the talks — didn’t agree on the facts. Israel has made clear its grave concerns about the framework’s fundamental elements and omissions. The vast nuclear infrastructure to be left in Iran will give it an unacceptably short breakout time to building a bomb. Iran’s long-range ballistic missile program — a threat to Israel as well as the rest of the Middle East, Europe and the...

Washington (CNN)A U.S. military campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities would only take "several days" of bombing, Sen. Tom Cotton said Tuesday.

Rev. Al Sharpton called for national policing legislation akin to the Civil Rights Act this morning at the kickoff his National Action Network’s annual convention, just after the arrest of a white South Carolina police officer for murder in the shooting of an unarmed black man. “There must be national policy and national law on policing,” Mr. Sharpton said. “We can’t go from state to state, we’ve got to have national law to protect people against these continued questions.” Mr. Sharpton’s comments, coming on the heels of multiple instances of police killings of unarmed men of color around the country,...

18:32 Watch PM reply to Obama comments in NPR interview Netanyahu’s Hebrew language response to Obama’s NPR interview from Tuesday. The transcript appears below the clip Israel shares the view that with the expiry of the nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers, Iran’s break-out time for acquiring nuclear bombs will be zero. This will be an inevitable result of the automatic removal of limitations on the nuclear program, which will enable Iran to reach industrial-grade capability in producing nuclear bombs. The alternative to this bad agreement is not a war, the alternative is a good agreement. This can be...

In an appearance on “The Hugh Hewitt Show” Tuesday night, former Vice President Dick Cheney said that President Obama’s actions on the world stage exemplify a president who wants “to take America down.”Cheney also touched on Obama’s comments on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, telling Hewitt that Obama is the only post-World War II president to believe that America doesn’t need “to play a leading role in the world.”The former vice president made the appearance following the announcement of a new book on American foreign policy, co-authored by himself and daughter Liz Cheney, will be released in September. HEWITT: Let...

Federal judge refuses appeal to let deportation halt continue, relying on Obama’s own words President Obama’s new deportation amnesty will remain halted, a federal judge in Texas ruled Tuesday night in an order that also delivered a judicial spanking to the president’s lawyers for misleading the court. Judge Andrew S. Hanen, who first halted the amnesty in February, just two days before it was to take effect, said he’s even more convinced of his decision now, particularly after Mr. Obama earlier this year said he intends for his policies to supersede federal laws. Judge Hanen pointed to Mr. Obama’s comments...

Kremlin could provide cash-strapped Greeks a credit line and discounted energy supplies as Alexis Tsipras meets with Putin Russia could offer debt-ridden Greece controversial loans and discounts on supplies of natural gas in exchange for the country's "assets", according to reports in Moscow. Alexis Tsipras, Greece’s prime minister, is due to arrive in the city on Tuesday and will meet Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, on Wednesday. Athens overtures to Moscow have raised fears the Leftist government is pivoting east in search of alternatives sources of finance as it bids to avoid bankruptcy. Ahead of his visit, Mr Tsipras condemned economic...