The elementary school daughters of a soldier paralyzed in Afghanistan were punished for wearing t-shirts that bore the logo of an organization that provides homes for severely wounded veterans, according to their mother. However, the Texas school district said it has absolutely nothing to do with the logo — and everything to do with the dress code.

The girls, in first grade and fourth grade at Masters Elementary School, were wearing t-shirts provided by “Homes For Our Troops.” Their mother, Josie Perez-Gorda, said they had recently received word that the organization might be offering the family assistance in building a home that would be safe for her husband.

Army Spc. Justin Perez-Gorda was injured by a road-side bomb in Afghanistan, she told San Antonio television station KENS.

“These guys are fighting for our country and they should be able to wear something that honors their parents, especially if they are wounded,” Perez-Gorda told the television station...

WASHINGTON – The House has passed a $662 billion defense bill after the White House dropped a veto threat over provisions on handling terrorist suspects.

The vote Wednesday evening was 283-136.

Countering conventional wisdom that President Obama's foreign policy successes bolster the president's credentials ahead of the 2012 election, Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that the Republican presidential candidates must be more forceful in challenging his decisions.

"To the Republican Party: national security matters, step up on it. ... We've got a jobs problem. We've got a national security problem that is growing by the day," Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News Sunday."

Graham credited the president with killing Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden and supporting the overthrow (and death) of Libya's Muammar Qaddafi, but, by Graham's account, the president has failed by allowing Tehran to get a leg up in Iraq and get that much closer to nuclear weapons.

Obama has thrown Israel "under the bus," Graham said; he has blown his policy on the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and has made a politically expedient decision to remove U.S.

The high-stakes negotiations over the country’s long-term debt problems kicked into another gear Monday as President Obama met separately with the Senate’s two top leaders in hopes of jump-starting a deal.

As the meetings unfolded, the White House dismissed criticisms that the president has been slow to get personally involved.

Press secretary Jay Carney said it was “nuts” to think that everyday Americans care whether Mr. Obama is deeply involved in each and every meeting with congressional leaders, especially as he was making up his mind about the scope of a troop withdrawal in Afghanistan...

President Obama is putting the finishing touches on his proposal for beginning to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan, not two years after he surged 30,000 troops into the country in a bid to arrest the advances of the insurgency.

The president is expected to outline his plan Wednesday night. Despite several reports on the size of the initial withdrawal Obama is expected to announce, White House officials say the president has not made a final decision.

"When the president makes a decision, we'll then announce it," one White House official told Fox News. "The reporting today is all over the map, and we're not playing whack-a-mole with the various scenarios"...

Osama bin Laden’s death Sunday in a million-dollar mansion in Pakistan at the hands of U.S. special operations forces punctured the mythology of a revolutionary leader sacrificing creature comforts for the good of jihad, American officials said Monday as the world digested the demise of its most notorious terrorist leader.

President Obama said bin Laden’s death was “a good day for America,” and his top counterterrorism adviser said the U.S. will seek to exploit intelligence found in the compound to try to roll up the rest of the al Qaeda terrorist network, which has affiliates in Pakistan, Yemen and North Africa.

The White House said bin Laden was buried at sea in keeping with Islamic law, but that action also denies him a grave site that could become a rallying point for supporters.

President Obama plans to name CIA Director Leon Panetta as the next secretary of defense, Fox News confirms. As part of a broad reshuffling of his defense and intelligence teams, the president is also expected to pick Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in charge in Afghanistan, to take Panetta's place at the helm of the CIA.

The changes are part of a series of top nominations expected to be announced as early as Wednesday.

Officials say Obama is expected to announce that Lt. Gen. John Allen would replace Petraeus as Afghanistan commander, and that diplomat Ryan Crocker will be the next U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan. A senior defense official also told Fox News the president will "almost certainly" tap Gen. James Cartwright to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Cartwright is currently vice chairman...

The WikiLeaks debacle, corruption in Afghanistan and Obama administration regulation are all on the agenda as Rep. Darrell Issa prepares to take the helm of the top House committee tasked with watch-dogging Washington.

Fox News has obtained a tentative outline of the hearings Issa plans to hold when he takes over the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The California Republican's game plan is being closely watched as Democrats worry about the lengths to which he'll go to pull back the curtain on the alleged missteps of the past two years.

Issa has tried to tamp down concerns about his agenda, but does not deny he'll be in a state of "constant battle" with the White House. He said in an interview Sunday that he views the administration as one of the "most corrupt" in modern times...

UNITED NATIONS | The U.S. delegation has walked out of the U.N. speech of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after he said some in the world have speculated that Americans were actually behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks, staged in an attempt to assure Israel's survival.

He did not explain the logic of that statement that was made as he attacked the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...

Americans are growing more pessimistic about the economy and the war in Afghanistan, and are losing faith that Democrats have better solutions than Republicans, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

Underpinning the gloom: Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the economy has yet to hit bottom, a sharply higher percentage than the 53 percent who felt that way in January.

The sour national mood appears all-encompassing and is dragging down ratings for the GOP too, suggesting voters above all are disenchanted with the political establishment in Washington. Just 24 percent express positive feelings about the Republican Party, a new low in the 21-year history of the Journal's survey. Democrats are only slightly more popular, but also near an all-time low...