The administration on Wednesday strongly denied reports Saudi officials had flagged Tamerlan Tsarnaev as a terror threat.

Two senior House Democrats are pressing President Obama to work with European partners to increase worker safety in Bangladesh, following last week’s collapse of a factory building in that country.

Reps. Sandy Levin (Mich.) and George Miller (Calif.) noted, in a letter to Obama, that European and U.S. retailers buy around two-thirds of the garments produced in Bangladesh.

Because of that, Levin and Miller say, the administration should take the lead in an effort to “adopt a common response leading to a universal standard guaranteeing basic workplace safety and fundamental worker rights” in Bangladesh. That effort should also include the Bangladeshi garment industry, its workers and both local and international labor groups, the lawmakers say.

“This most recent tragedy repeats what has become a serious and disturbing pattern in Bangladesh – labor and workplace laws are flouted and workers’ safety and rights denied in the pursuit of lucrative export opportunities, primarily to Europe and the United States,” wrote Levin and Miller, the top Democrats at the Ways and Means and Education and the Workforce panels, respectively.

“And workers – most of them young women and mothers – are left to pay the terrible consequences with their lives.”

Former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) may join the State Department as a special envoy to the Great Lakes region of Central Africa.

Feingold, a former Senate college of Secretary of State John Kerry, served as chairman of the Subcommittee on African Affairs while a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In an email to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the former Wisconsin lawmaker said he would be open to accepting such a post.

"I would of course welcome the opportunity to work with Secretary Kerry and to serve my country and President," Feingold said.

Obama declined to lay out specific consequences if chemical weapons are used, but said it would be a “game changer.”

The State Department is expected to release its annual Country Report on Terrorism in the latter half of May, missing today's deadline by a few weeks, according to a State Department spokesperson.

The much-anticipated annual report was released much later last year -- in July.

GOP lawmakers say reports that employees are being prevented from testifying validate their call for a select committee on Benghazi.

The impact of natural gas exports on everything from foreign relations to jobs will get a look in the House during a May 7 hearing, The Hill has learned.

The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power will hold the 10 a.m. hearing, committee spokeswoman Charlotte Baker told The Hill. Witnesses for the hearing have not yet been finalized, she said.

The hearing will sharpen the focus on the geopolitical effects of expanding natural gas exports.

The Obama administration should make it easier for Americans to travel to Cuba by ending pre-travel approval, 59 House Democrats wrote Tuesday in a letter to the president.

This month marks the fourth anniversary of Obama's decision to lift all restrictions on family travel and remittances to the island; two years later, Obama allowed all Americans to participate in so-called “people-to-people” visits, educational exchanges carried out by licensed tour operators. Lawmakers now want individuals and groups to be able to travel under a general license: instead of having to get approval before their trip, visitors to Cuba would be able to travel without hassle but may have to produce supporting documentation upon their return that their visit met the letter of the law.

“There are no better ambassadors for democratic ideals than the American people,” Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.), who spearheaded the letter, said in a statement. “By including all forms of permissible travel under a general license, more Americans can engage in the kind of people-to-people diplomacy that can promote democratic change and advance human rights.”

The daughter of Cuban president Raul Castro has once again received a State Department visa to travel throughout the United States after her visit last year outraged Cuban-American members of Congress. Read more...