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MOSCOW — Edward Snowden, the fugitive former U.S. security contractor, left the transit zone at Moscow’s international airport Thursday after Russian authorities granted him temporary asylum.

“With 100% of precincts reporting, the Hanford-area grower holds a nearly 6,000 vote lead over Kern County Supervisor Leticia Perez in the contentious 16th State Senate race,” 23 ABC News in Bakersfield just reported. The California Secretary of State is reporting Vidak has 54 percent of the vote, with a total of 39,085 votes. Perez has 46 percent of the vote, with a total of 33,252 votes. Kern County and Fresno County were where the majority of the provisional ballots appeared in the special election. In yesterday’s election, Kern County reported 48.1 percent for Vidak, and 58.9 percent for Perez....

The United States Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and Proposition 8 on Wednesday, in two significant wins for supporters of same-sex marriages. Neither ruling established a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage, but they invalidated one federal law that defined marriage as only a union between a man and a woman, and a California referendum that barred same-sex marriages in that state. Justice Anthony Kennedy said in a 5-4 decision in United States v. Windsor that the federal law known as DOMA deprived the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Constitution. “DOMA’s...

In a 7-2 vote, the court said the voter registration provision of the 2004 state law, known as Proposition 200, was trumped by a federal law, the 1993 National Voter Registration Act. The state law was strongly opposed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (Maldef) and Indian tribes. They said it deterred legal voters who did not have the required paperwork from registering to vote.

Arizona may not require documentary proof of citizenship from prospective voters, the Supreme Court ruled in a 7-to-2 decision on Monday. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, No. 12-71, said a federal law requiring states to “accept and use” a federal form displaced an Arizona law. The federal law, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, allows voters to register using a federal form that asks, “Are you a citizen of the United States?” Prospective voters must check a box for yes or no, and they must sign the form, swearing...

<p>Sarah Murnaghan, the 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl dying of cystic fibrosis, is receiving her long-awaited lung transplant.</p> <p>According to a Facebook post from Sarah’s mother, Janet, the family received word this morning of new lungs that had been made available, and Sarah is currently in surgery. The operation could take anywhere from six to 12 hours.</p>

Not only did former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta leak the name of the Navy SEAL group responsible for the killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011, but the release of the Pentagon Inspector General’s (IG) report revealing the incident, which was ready in July 2012, was delayed until now. In the spring of 2012, GOP members accused Barack Obama’s administration of leaking national security secrets to help Obama get reelected, but the administration denied it. At a CIA awards ceremony on June 24, 2011, Panetta named the SEAL group and its commander. Among those present were 1300 military and...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama's top national security adviser Tom Donilon is resigning and will be replaced by Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. who has been a lightning rod for Republican criticism over faulty explanations for the attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya. Donilon has been a key foreign policy adviser to President Barack Obama. But the 58-year-old had been expected to depart sometime this year, with Rice seen as the likely candidate to replace him. Her selection is sure to anger congressional Republicans, who have accused the administration of inconsistency and a cover-up...

Lois Lerner, the IRS official who headed the tax-exempt division when the targeting of tea-party groups took place, plans to invoke her Fifth Amendment right to refuse to answer questions before Congress on Wednesday. But Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House oversight committee where Lerner was to appear, has issued a subpoena to Lerner anyway. The subpoena was delivered after the committee received the letter from Lerner's attorney, a committee aide said. Her attorney, William Taylor, said in a letter obtained by National Journal, that Lerner had "not committed any crime or made any misrepresentation" but that...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police cannot bring drug-sniffing police dogs onto a suspect's property to look for evidence without first getting a warrant for a search, a decision which may limit how investigators use dogs' sensitive noses to search out drugs, explosives and other items hidden from human sight, sound and smell.

Gee, how many meat inspectors will be laid off to pay for this? How many air traffic controllers? How many kids will go hungry? Nancy A. Youssef of the McClatchy Newspapers writes: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry promised Sunday to give Egypt $190 million to help the government pay its bills, but said more money would require that Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi move quickly to resolve the country's differences with the International Monetary Fund, reform its security services and take steps to provide equal rights for women and religious minorities.

Washington - The senior Homeland Security Department official in charge of arresting and deporting illegal immigrants announced his resignation the same day the agency said that hundreds of people facing deportation had been released from immigration jails due to looming budget cuts, according to a resignation letter obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press. The government said he had told his bosses weeks ago that he planned to retire. Gary Mead, executive associate director over enforcement and removal operations at Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, disclosed his departure

Citing advanced years and infirmity, but showing characteristic tough-mindedness and unpredictability, Pope Benedict XVI shocked Roman Catholics on Monday by saying that he would resign on Feb. 28, becoming the first pope to do so in six centuries. Speaking in Latin to a small gathering of cardinals at the Vatican on Monday morning, Benedict said that after examining his conscience “before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise” of leading the world’s one billion Roman Catholics. The statement, soon translated into seven languages, ricocheted...

I'm sure the Obama administration wishes questions about the Benghazi attack and subsequent murder of our ambassador and 3 others would just go away. They successfully stonewalled the issue until after the election and then some ill-timed health issues afflicting Secretary Clinton prevented her from testifying last year. But today, the House and Senate foreign affairs committees will each get their shot at question Mrs. Clinton about what happened, why the investigation has been botched, and why the perpetrators are still at large thumbing their nose at the US government. From THE HILL: ________________________ Republicans have been clamoring for her...

In the wake of a deplorable decision by the Journal News to publish the names and addresses of law-abiding citizens with gun permits,  a home in White Plains, NY was targeted by burglars attempting to steal the gunsIf a New York victim of gun violence is to be allowed the right to sue a gun manufacturers and distributor, for argument's sake, wouldn't it seem that the victim of the White Plains crime would have a strong case for suing the Journal News? After all, in both cases, criminal third parties took the product provided by the businesses at issue and...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - College students from across North Carolina will arrive in Charlotte by the busload. Same with members of predominantly black churches in neighbouring South Carolina. Their goal: help fill a 74,000-seat outdoor stadium to capacity when President Barack Obama accepts the Democratic nomination Thursday night. Anything short of a full house on the final night of the Democratic Party's national convention will be instant fodder for Republicans eager to use empty seats as symbols of waning voter enthusiasm for Obama. Democrats have been fretting for months over whether the president can draw a capacity crowd at Bank of...

NEW YORK (AP) — "The Protester" has been named Time's "Person of the Year" for 2011.

Cuccinelli Seeking Supreme Court Review of Va. Health Care LawsuitUpdated: 11:56 AM Feb 3, 2011 Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli announced Thursday that the Commonwealth will file a petition to ask the United States Supreme Court to take Virginia's health care lawsuit now, as opposed to waiting for the case to first be decided by the court of appeals. The Petition for Certiorari Before Judgment in the United States Supreme Court in the case of Commonwealth v. Sebelius will be filed pursuant to Rule 11 of the Rules of the United States Supreme Court. **SNIP** Normally, appeals of decisions of...

It was the latest in a rash of shootings of police officers in recent days and the second time that police were shot in Florida while serving arrest warrants. Two police officers, a man and a woman, were shot and killed last week in Miami, Fla., while serving an arrest warrant on a man wanted for murder. An officer in Lincoln City, Ore., was critically wounded late Sunday night when he pulled over a car for speeding. A manhunt is underway after a brief highway chase disabled the suspect's car. The driver ran into a wooded area and remains at...

A Baltimore man was arrested Tuesday for plotting to blow up a military recruitment center, authorities said. The man was caught in a sting operation and was plotting to blow up an Armed Forces recruiting station in Catonsville with what he believed to be a vehicle bomb, the U.S. Attorney's Office for Maryland said in a statement. "There was no actual danger to the public as the explosives were inert and the suspect had been carefully monitored by law enforcement for months," the statement said. There was no evidence the plot was linked to recent shootings at military installations in...