A top surrogate for President Obama insisted Friday that the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act was not a tax — despite the fact that the Supreme Court narrowly preserved the law on those grounds.

In what's probably the worst sex assault scandal in the U.S. military in the last 20 years, Air force officials have determined that 31 women have been identified as victims of sexual misconduct and assault at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, where 12 male boot-camp instructors are under investigation for allegedly raping, assaulting, harassing, and having sex with female recruits. "Gen. Edward Rice, commander of the Air Education and Training Command, told Pentagon reporters that a dozen male instructors were under investigation, and that nine of them were from the same unit — the 331st Training Squadron," according to The Associated Press. The San Antonio Express News' Tracy Idell Hamilton notes that Rice said all 31 women were still part of the Air Force.

President Obama headed to Colorado Springs, Co., Friday to survey the damage from a wildfire that has destroyed an estimated 346 homes and left at least one person dead.

House Republicans on Thursday followed through with their plans to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress—but not before dozens of Democrats stormed out of the chamber in protest.

The Supreme Court has ruled. Health care reform lives. The decision was actually three separate rulings, with the justices taking different positions on different parts of the law. But it means that the Affordable Care Act can take effect, unless lawmakers decide to repeal it, as Mitt Romey and congressional Republicans have vowed to do.

Republicans still have only one thing in mind when it comes to President Barack Obama’s health care law: full repeal.

An explosive wildfire has forced the evacuation of nearly 32,000 residents in and near Colorado Springs, Co., as the inferno jumped containment lines and entered the northwest part of the city on Tuesday.

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a constitutional challenge to a central provision of Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law, clearing the path for similar legislation to take effect in other states and potentially angering Latinos in a way that could give President Barack Obama an added boost from Hispanic voters in November.

Places, everyone: a Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, is expected this week, possibly as soon as late Monday morning.

The Justice Department on Thursday filed a lawsuit against two polygamous Utah-Arizona border towns, claiming that local leaders have neglected the rights of residents who don't belong to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a religious sect run by convicted child molester Warren Jeffs.