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Articles by Stephen Dinan

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, has battled the Obama White House and previous administrations, begging them to punish China, which the senator said has manipulated the value of the yuan to help bolster its exports. (Associated Press)

Obama trade deal complicated by Senate’s China currency manipulation crackdown

Brushing aside President Obama's objections, the Senate voted overwhelming Thursday to push back against China and other countries deemed guilty of depressing their own currencies to win a trade advantage versus the U.S., potentially complicating the White House's push for fast-track trade negotiating powers.

May 14, 2015
Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson speak during the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund's Annual Candlelight Vigil, Wednesday, May 13, 2015 in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Jeh Johnson honors heroic DHS employees

From the TSA agent who helped distract the attacker at the New Orleans airport to a Federal Protective Service inspector who grabbed a woman trying to jump off the Woodrow Wilson Bridge just outside Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson recognized a dozen department employees Thursday for valor.

May 14, 2015
House Speaker John Boehner, Ohio Republican, pauses during a news conference on Capitol in Washington on March 19, 2015. (Associated Press) **FILE**

John Boehner: Blaming GOP for Amtrak crash is ‘stupid’

Accusations that Republicans are responsible for this week's deadly Amtrak train crash because of funding fights are "stupid," House Speaker John A. Boehner said Thursday, bristling at a question about the matter during his weekly press conference.

May 14, 2015
Alexis Marroquin (center, with white T-shirt) was granted a stay to remain in the U.S. while his uncle was sent back to El Salvador. Immigration advocate Ralph Isenberg (back right), who is not an attorney, is taking on the family's crusade to reunite. (Joe De la Fuente)

Immigration enforcement system dysfunction tears apart family

In the end, their flights almost overlapped: The 11-year-old boy on his way to the U.S., granted a one-year parole to escape violence in his home of El Salvador, arrived in Dallas just a week after his uncle, Elvin Marroquin Diaz, whose testimony helped earn the boy his parole, was deported back to El Salvador.

May 13, 2015
Homeland Security Department Inspector General John Roth. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

ICE releasing some illegals without knowing criminal history

The Homeland Security Department can't yet say how many illegal immigrants it's releasing under President Obama's prosecutorial discretion policies, and sometimes agents cut loose illegal immigrants without ever knowing their full criminal history, the department's inspector general said in a new report Wednesday.

May 13, 2015
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Wisconsin Republican. (Associated Press)

NSA phone snooping rejected by House; Patriot Act rewrite approved

Democrats and Republicans in the House linked arms Wednesday and voted to cancel the NSA's phone-snooping program and end all bulk data collection, approving a rewrite of the Patriot Act just weeks before the law's key provisions are due to expire.

May 13, 2015
United States Attorney Sally Yates (Associated Press) **FILE**

Sally Quillian Yates wins confirmation as deputy attorney general

The Senate confirmed Sally Quillian Yates on Wednesday to be deputy attorney general, giving her overwhelming support to fill the No. 2 spot at the Justice Department just weeks after her boss, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, struggled to make it through her own confirmation.

May 13, 2015
The new agreement paves the way for passage of the deal through the Senate, but President Obama's own troops in the House said their opposition is intensifying, and they blamed the president for mishandling the politics of his top second-term priority. (Associated Press)

Obama trade bill revived after bipartisan deal sets new votes

Senate leaders reached a deal Wednesday to revive trade legislation that Democrats had appeared to have scuttled just a day earlier, breathing new life into the centerpiece of President Obama's economic agenda -- though House Democrats vowed a tougher fight still awaits.

May 13, 2015
A voter can be seen in a voting booth Saturday, Aug. 9, 2014 in Honolulu.  Despite the rains and winds from Tropical Storm Iselle that pounded the state Friday, Hawaii will hold primary elections today.  (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)

Hispanics supportive of Democratic agenda open to vote for GOP

Hispanic voters like expansive federal spending, want to see an increase in the minimum wage, say the deficit should be solved by raising taxes and view tackling global warming as a major issue -- but nearly half say they're still open to voting for a Republican in next year's elections, according to Latino activists and pollsters.

May 12, 2015
President Barack Obama speaks at the Catholic-Evangelical Leadership Summit on Overcoming Poverty at Georgetown University in Washington, Tuesday, May 12, 2015. The president said that "it's a mistake" to think efforts to stamp out poverty have failed and the government is powerless to address it.  (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Obama after trade deal defeat: This is personal for me

Minutes after his former Democratic colleagues in the Senate filibustered his trade deal, President Obama sent a message to supporters declaring the fight was "personal for me" and pleading with liberals to rally around him.

May 12, 2015
President Obama is pressing for fast-track powers now so that he can finalize an Asian trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, that he's negotiating with 11 other countries. A European trade deal could also be on the horizon. (Associated Press)

Democrats filibuster Obama’s trade bill

Senate Democrats filibustered Tuesday to stop the first major free trade deal vote in years, administering an embarrassing setback to President Obama, who had pleaded with his own party to back him on his top domestic priority for his final years in office.

May 12, 2015
A feared uptick in the number of illegal border-crossers coming into the U.S. from Mexico has so far failed to materialize, thanks largely to campaigns to refute the myth of "permisos" granting crossers a free pass to remain in the United States. (Associated Press)

Illegal immigrant children border crossings down 58 percent from 2014 surge

The renewed flood of illegal immigration children anticipated this year hasn't materialized, as children are crossing at far lower rates than last year and even lower than 2013, according to new Border Patrol statistics that suggest some of the things the Obama administration did are helping.

May 11, 2015
A federal judge has reopened an open-records case trying to pry loose some of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's emails as Judge Reggie B. Walton agreed to a joint request by the State Department and Judicial Watch. (Associated Press)

Hillary Clinton email case reopened by federal judge

A federal judge has reopened an open-records case trying to pry loose some of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's emails, marking the first time a court has taken action on the email scandal.

May 10, 2015
President Barack Obama's new $4 trillion budget plan is distributed by Senate Budget Committee staffer Eric Chalmers as it arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington, early Monday, Feb. 02, 2015. The fiscal blueprint for the budget year that begins Oct. 1, seeks to raise taxes on wealthier Americans and corporations and use the extra income to lift the fortunes of families who have felt squeezed during tough economic times. Republicans, who now hold the power in Congress, are accusing the president of seeking to revert to tax-and-spend policies that will harm the economy while failing to do anything about soaring spending on government benefit programs. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Feds set tax haul record: $472B in one month

The federal government set a record tax haul in April, taking in nearly a half-trillion dollars in one month alone, according to Congressional Budget Office statistics released Thursday.

May 7, 2015