WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama, his gun control legislation falling to defeat, lashed out at the U.S. Congress in unusually tough terms on Wednesday as he came to grips with the loss of a key priority after spending months fighting for it.

“There were no coherent arguments as to why we wouldn’t do this. It came down to politics,” Obama said after the Senate failed to muster enough votes to expand background checks for firearms purchases.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama vowed on Monday that the United States will find out who carried out explosions in Boston and will hold them accountable, and a White House official said the twin blasts are being treated as an “act of terror.”

“We still do not know who did this or why, and people shouldn’t jump to conclusions before we have all the facts,” Obama said in a televised statement. “But make no mistake, we will get to the bottom of this, and we will find out who did this, we’ll find out why they did this.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s re-election campaign said on Tuesday it has asked the FBI to investigate how a campaign strategy meeting was recorded in which ways to attack a potential rival, actress Ashley Judd, were reportedly discussed.

The magazine, Mother Jones, said it had obtained a recording of the meeting and that McConnell and his aides discussed criticizing Judd “for her past struggles with depression and her religious views.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Hillary Clinton, already the front-runner in the minds of many Democrats for the 2016 U.S. presidential election, is writing a memoir about world affairs and her time as secretary of state that will likely fuel more speculation about her political future.

The presidential prospects of Clinton, the wife of former President Bill Clinton, are a subject of feverish speculation in Washington and elsewhere as Democrats look to see over the horizon past President Barack Obama.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will launch a fund-raising drive for the 2014 mid-term elections on Wednesday with addresses to deep-pocketed donors in California, hoping the Democratic Party can defy the odds and gain congressional seats in the polls.

The party in power in the White House usually loses seats in election years in which the presidency is not up for grabs. This means Democrats have their work cut out for them in trying to win a majority in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and add to their majority in the Senate.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With U.S. business and labor now in agreement, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators has resolved all major issues in a pending deal to overhaul the U.S. immigration system and aims to unveil it after Congress reconvenes in the second week of April, key lawmakers said on Sunday.

The lawmakers said that while there was no final deal yet, they hope and even expect there to be one soon after the measure is put into legislative language so all eight senators in the bipartisan group can review it.

WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) – With U.S. business and
labor now in agreement, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators has
resolved all major issues in a pending deal to overhaul the U.S.
immigration system and aims to unveil it after Congress
reconvenes in the second week of April, key lawmakers said on
Sunday.

The lawmakers said that while there was no final deal yet,
they hope and even expect there to be one soon after the measure
is put into legislative language so all eight senators in the
bipartisan group can review it.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Prospects for a law to create a pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants brightened on Saturday after major business and labor groups reached an agreement on a guest-worker program, a source familiar with the deal said.

The agreement was reached on Friday night in a conference call between the head of the Chamber of Commerce, Tom Donohue, and the president of the AFL-CIO labor organization, Richard Trumka, with New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer acting as the mediator, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Prospects for a U.S. law to create a pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants brightened on Saturday after major business and labour groups reached an agreement on a guest-worker program, a source familiar with the deal said.

The agreement was reached on Friday night in a conference call between the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Tom Donohue, and the president of the AFL-CIO labour organization, Richard Trumka, with New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer acting as the mediator, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Prospects for a broad U.S. immigration overhaul brightened on Saturday after major U.S. business and labour groups reached an agreement on a guest-worker program, a source familiar with the deal said.

The agreement was reached on Friday night in a conference call between the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Tom Donohue, and the president of the AFL-CIO labour organization, Richard Trumka, with New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer acting as the mediator, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.