WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration said Friday it is prepared to confront ships believed to be carrying contraband materials to North Korea but will not try to forcibly board them, in accordance with new U.N. sanctions.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress sent legislation to the White House Friday granting the federal government unprecedented authority to regulate and restrict cigarettes, the single largest cause of preventable death.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is taking a half-step toward taming U.S. executive pay. Some lawmakers prefer a fuller stride.

Nearly three months after American International Group bonuses provoked an angry reaction in Congress, the Obama administration is ready to issue broad new principles on how to compensate top financial sector executives.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration plans to use a combination of new technology and old-fashioned police work to crack down on the extensive drug trade along the U.S.-Mexican border.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration plans to use a combination of new technology and old-fashioned police work to crack down on the extensive drug trade along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Text of President Barack Obama’s speech at Cairo University in Egypt.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama named a Republican congressman Tuesday to be the next secretary of the Army, bringing another member of the opposition into his administration.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Expanding his drive to open government, President Barack Obama is ordering two studies of whether the government is classifying too much information and using too many different ways to keep it from public view.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The battle is on between conservative and liberal interest groups to define little-known federal judge Sonia Sotomayor before senators — away from the capital on a weeklong break — return to weigh in on the fate of the woman who would be the Supreme Court’s first Hispanic.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama granted the Pentagon new power to rein in wasteful defense spending Friday, a change he said was long overdue.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is backing President Barack Obama’s efforts to ramp up the war in Afghanistan, granting his request for $91.3 billion for military and diplomatic operations there and in Iraq.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s request for continuing military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan easily cleared a procedural test Thursday on its way toward a final vote later in the day.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Illegal immigrants won’t be entitled to medical insurance under the health legislation Congress is working on, a leading lawmaker said Thursday.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama pledged “great vigilance” in confronting the swine flu outbreak Wednesday night as it spread coast to coast across the U.S. The outbreak hit 11 states and closed schools amid confirmation of the first U.S. death - a Mexican toddler who visited Texas with his family - and the confinement of dozens of Marines after one came down with the disease in California.