
Five years after failed levees and a slow federal response wrought disaster here, people in this once-drowned city and across the Gulf Coast remembered the catastrophic floods of Hurricane Katrina with candlelight vigils, parades and a visit from the president.
President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama meet with Maude Smith and her grandson David Robichaux, 9, in Smith's home Sunday.
Continue reading Obama: New Orleans Will Be Rebuilt.
A prestigious North Carolina private college cannot have police officers
with the power to arrest suspects and enforce state law because the
school is a religious institution, the state Court of Appeals ruled
Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker said Thursday
that California officials could begin issuing licenses to gay men and
lesbians beginning Wednesday, in an order flowing from his decision last
week striking down a state ban on same-sex marriages.
Summoned
back from summer break, the House on Tuesday pushed through an
emergency $26 billion jobs bill that Democrats said would save 300,000
teachers, police and others from election-year layoffs. President Barack
Obama immediately signed it into law.


That seems to be one of the core political questions in the wake of the overturning of Proposition 8. How can the president continue opposing gay marriage while supporting the decision to strike down Prop 8, on the grounds that it's "discriminatory," as the White House said in a statement last night?
Her confirmation assured, Elena Kagan is on the brink of becoming the fourth woman ever to serve as a Supreme Court justice.
How faithy will Sarah Palin's next book be? Pretty faithy, according to three details in today's 


Shirley Sherrod says she was called while she was driving by an Agriculture Department superior and asked to pull over and "text" a resignation in a hurry because she was going to be featured "on Glenn Beck tonight."

Lawsuits over gay marriage have escalated on the nation's two coasts, energizing advocates on both sides and bringing the legal battle over same-sex marriage closer to the U.S. Supreme Court.
President Obama entered the Independence Day holiday weekend with a renewed call for comprehensive immigration reform. Speaking at American University, he said that "fixing our broken immigration system is not only a political issue, not just an economic issue, but a moral imperative as well." It was a view echoed by evangelical leaders, both right and left.


Without saying how she would rule on any specific church-state case, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan said Wednesday that governments should have some freedom "to make religious accommodations" in matters involving the Constitution's Establishment Clause.
