White House

The election of François Hollande as president of France sent shock waves through markets in Asia and Europe on Monday and prompted German Chancellor Angela Merkel to lay down red lines about Europe's future. In his victory speech Sunday night, Hollande signaled a possible end to the sharp budget cuts that have become a European article of faith in response to economic and budget crises across the continent. "Austerity can no longer be something that is inevitable," Hollande said after defeating President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Ever heard of a State of the Union speech in September?Um, not usually. That is, except for tonight. The president called for the session?and Republicans couldn't figure out a way out of it, so they're attending, reluctantly. No Democrat-sits-with-a-GOP-buddy system this time; some Republicans have even threatened to boycott.To hear the White House folks explain it, the president called for the session because of the timeliness of the matter at hand?job creation. "There's a great sense of urgency and the president needs to talk to the American people," a senior White House adviser tells me predictably enough.

A trove of never-before-seen letters by Osama bin Laden portray the terrorist leader as an irritated boss chiding his underlings for mistakes yet sure that they could pull off elaborate attacks against the United States. U.S. Navy SEALs took the correspondence after they killed bin Laden in a raid on his Pakistan compound in May 2011. On Thursday, the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, released 17 letters totaling 175 pages, with more documents to be made public later.

The White House released copies of President Barack Obama's original long-form birth certificate Wednesday, seeking to put an end to persistent rumors that he was not born in the United States. The certificate states, as Obama's advisers have repeatedly said, that the president was born at Honolulu's Kapiolani Hospital on August 4, 1961. Doubters insist Obama was born overseas -- possibly in his father's home country of Kenya -- and may be constitutionally ineligible to serve as president.

Here is the transcript of Sen. Barack Obama's remarks after he won the Democratic presidential primary in South Carolina. Thank you, South Carolina. Thank you to the rock of my life, Michelle Obama. Thank you to Malia and Sasha Obama, who haven't seen their daddy in a week. Thank you to Pete Skidmore for his outstanding service to our country and being such a great supporter of this campaign. Watch a thankful Obama after his primary win Over two weeks ago, we saw the people of Iowa proclaim that our time for change has come.

Cinco de Mayo -- the unofficial U.S. holiday long believed to have been imported, with celebratory beer, from Mexico -- isn't a Mexican holiday at all but rather an American one created by Latinos in the West during the Civil War, according to new research by a California professor. Conventional thinking has held that the holiday -- now a commercial juggernaut -- may have grown out of the mass migrations from the bloody Mexican Revolution of the 1910s or even during Chicano Power activism of the 1960s, University of California at Los Angeles Professor David Hayes-Bautista said.

President Bush made a landing aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln Thursday, arriving in the co-pilot's seat of a Navy S-3B Viking after making two fly-bys of the carrier. It was the first time a sitting president has arrived on the deck of an aircraft carrier by plane. The jet made what is known as a "tailhook" landing, with the plane, traveling about 150 mph, hooking onto the last of four steel wires across the flight deck and coming to a complete stop in less than 400 feet. The exterior of the four-seat Navy S-3B Viking was marked with "Navy 1" in the back and "George W. Bush Commander-in-Chief" just below the cockpit window.

For the past eight years, the White House recognized the National Day of Prayer with a service in the East Room, but this year, President Obama decided against holding a public ceremony. "Prayer is something that the president does everyday," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday, noting that Obama will sign a proclamation to recognize the day, as many administrations in the past have done. Asked if Obama thought his predecessor's ceremonies were politicized, Gibbs said, "No, I'm not going to get into that again.

A man who volunteered as a suicide bomber for a terrorist group intent on blowing up a U.S.-bound plane was working instead as an intelligence agent for Saudi Arabia, The New York Times reported Tuesday, citing American and foreign officials. The double agent departed Yemen, traveled through the United Arab Emirates and gave the bomb and information about al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to the CIA, Saudi intelligence and other foreign intelligence agencies, the newspaper said.

President Obama introduced a health care plan that he says will bridge the gap between the House and Senate bills passed last year. His proposal is similar to the Senate bill, with a few nods to the House plan. Here are some of the highlights of his plan, according to the White House. Basics The president says his health care proposal will help more than 31 million uninsured Americans get coverage. Obama says his plan includes the largest middle-class tax cut for health care in history.

Senate Republicans will block Democrats from taking up a White House-backed bill to cap rates on some student loans unless Democrats allow a vote on a GOP alternative, the second-ranking Senate Republican said Monday. Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl predicted such a confrontation could lead to an ultimate compromise on the legislation before rates are set to double in July, something lawmakers from both parties and the White House want to prevent. "We'll defeat cloture," Kyl said, using the legislative parlance for a key procedural vote scheduled for Tuesday that requires 60 votes to succeed.

The White House has ignored a deadline to provide answers to a senior Senate Republican about the Secret Service prostitution scandal, an aide to Sen. Charles Grassley said Friday. Grassley wants details about an internal administration investigation into any possible role that White House advance staff members may have had in the incident. The Secret Service has been rocked by allegations of transgressions by its agents, including reported heavy drinking and consorting with prostitutes this month before President Barack Obama arrived in Cartagena, Colombia, for the Summit of the Americas.

The White House said Friday that President Barack Obama would veto a Republican measure passed by the House to extend lower interest rates on federal student loans because it takes money from a health care fund that benefits women. A White House statement said Obama's senior advisers would recommend a veto if the House measure, which passed 215-195 on a largely party-line vote, were to win Senate approval and reach the president's desk. "Women, in particular, will benefit from this prevention fund, which would provide for hundreds of thousands of screenings for breast and cervical cancer," the White House statement said.

The ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee has asked the U.S. Secret Service about the potential involvement of White House staff in the prostitution scandal in Colombia. Sen. Chuck Grassley questioned Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan and Acting Inspector General Charles Edwards in letter Friday about whether they are investigating the possibility that the White House Communications Agency and the White House Office of Advance may be involved in the controversy.

The U.S. government's drug strategy should focus more on treating addiction and less on imposing harsh prison sentences, the White House said Tuesday. "Outdated policies like the mass incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders are relics of the past that ignore the need for a balanced public health and safety approach to our drug problem," Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said in a statement. The office's annual report to Congress suggests a "new national approach" that includes criminal justice system reforms aimed at stopping "the revolving door of drug use, crime, incarceration, and rearrest," officials said in a statement.

The White House defended the Secret Service and its director Tuesday amid an embarrassing investigation into whether several agents brought prostitutes back to their hotel in Colombia ahead of a presidential visit. Eleven Secret Service members have been implicated in the investigation, which began Thursday after one of the women complained that she hadn't been paid. In addition, as many as 10 U.S. military personnel from all branches of the armed forces are being questioned about potential involvement in any misconduct, two military officials told CNN. The Americans were in Cartagena to prepare for President Barack Obama's weekend visit to the Summit of the Americas, and Obama has said he expects a "rigorous" investigation.

President Obama on Thursday made clear his view on the membership of women at the Augusta National Golf Club: They should be admitted. The issue of the membership of the club that hosts most prestigious golf tournament is being scrutinized because the top executive at IBM, Ginni Rometty, is a woman. IBM's sponsorship of the Masters tournament guarantees club membership for its officers, but the club does not allow women to join. The White House weighed in Thursday. "The president's answer is yes, he believes women should be admitted," White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters at a briefing.

President Barack Obama signed legislation on Wednesday aimed at restoring Americans' faith in the nation's public institutions at a time they rank at record lows in opinion polls. The act bans insider trading by members of Congress and many executive branch employees. In a ceremony at the White House, the president referred to the need to address public skepticism about an uneven system. "The powerful shouldn't get to create one set of rules for themselves and another set of rules for everybody else," Obama said.

The Obama administration turned over 432 pages of e-mail communications and other documents Friday to congressional Republicans investigating the collapse of the solar energy firm Solyndra, the White House said. The hard-copy and electronic documents include e-mail communications from the offices of the president and vice president, the White House said in a letter to Reps. Fred Upton of Michigan and Cliff Stearns of Florida. "These documents, like the over 187,000 pages previously provided by Executive Branch agencies, demonstrate what we have said throughout the course of this investigation: decisions on the Solyndra loan guarantee were made on the merits by the Department of Energy," wrote Kathryn H. Ruemmler and Cynthia C. Hogan, counsels to the president and vice president, respectively.

President Barack Obama plans to host his Ghanaian counterpart at the White House on Thursday, nearly three years after he visited the West African nation. Obama visited Ghana in July 2009, where he met President John Evans Atta Mills and addressed the nation's parliament. Mills' visit gives Obama a chance to reciprocate the hospitality he and the first lady got during their Ghana trip, according to the White House. "The two leaders will have the opportunity to discuss our shared objectives in advancing development, as well as the commercial and economic ties between our two countries," the White House said in a statement.