Homeland & Coast Guard

King will give up the spot under the House Republican Conference’s six-year term-limit rule, according to reports.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday that she sees no security threat in the scandal surrounding former CIA Director David Petraeus.

The California Democrat emphasized that she still wants to know why lawmakers were not told sooner of the FBI investigation that uncovered the extramarital affair that led Petraeus to resign on Friday. But those concerns are less serious, she said, than any surrounding national security threats.

"I don't have any reason to think that there are any national security issues at stake in what has transpired," Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol on Congress's first day back in Washington after a seven-week recess.

"We have to find out who, what, when and why would Congress [not have known]," she added. "But, again, if it doesn't involve national security, the notification requirement doesn't trigger. If it involves poor behavior, yeah, it would have been nice to know before we saw it on TV."
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The number of veterans serving in the House could increase after Tuesday’s election for the first time since 1980, according to a new analysis from the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management.

The analysis, conducted by the Center for Second Service in GW’s School of Political Management, found that vets in Congress could see their ranks rise slightly from the 92 currently serving.

The Center's Seth Lynn found that between 92 and 100 veterans are in races they could win of the 189 veteran candidates who received a party endorsement. Of the veterans running, 82 are incumbents.

A new Senate report blasts post-9/11 fusion centers for providing "irrelevant, useless or inappropriate intelligence reporting" to DHS.

Tampa, Fla. is on virtual lockdown as law enforcement prepares for tens of thousands of protesters, politicians and media.

The three widows and two eldest daughters of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden were sentenced to a jail term of 45 days for living in Pakistan illegally, according to al Jazeera.

They will also be fined around $115 dollars each and will likely be deported from the country within two weeks, having already been detained since American special forces killed bin Laden last May.

"The judge has announced a one-and-a-half-month imprisonment to all the five accused. The punishment was announced today. He has also imposed a fine of 10,000 rupees," Zakarya Ahmad Abd al-Fattah, the Yemeni brother of one of the wives, told the network.

Obama's budget proposes a 52-percent cut in the flight deck officer program, which trains pilots on handling firearms.

Rep. King said American intelligence concerns escalated when Iranian-backed terrorists tried assassinating a Saudi diplomat in the United States.

The House Homeland chairman warned the United States would "re-assess" its position if the protests continued.

The Department of Homeland Security has stepped up its outreach to the Jewish-American community in an attempt to thwart attacks from Hezbollah, secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday.  

Napolitano stressed that she was not aware of any specific or credible plots to attack U.S. groups, but told lawmakers her department is in frequent contact with the FBI and “constantly monitoring” the activity of Hezbollah, a militant group bankrolled by Iran. 

“We share your concern about Hezbollah,” said Napolitano in response to questions at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing.

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