
President Obama is under fire for the price of the first family's upcoming weeklong trip to Africa, which could cost taxpayers as much as $100 million at a time of federal budget cuts and furloughs.

Trust us. Would your government — and the private contractors your government hires to do the work — do anything bad? Snooping into the intimate details of the lives of everyone is not nice. Besides, it could be worse, and that's all the proof anyone needs to see that it's not really bad at all.

The State Department on Monday staunchly rejected a news report that claimed high-ranking department officials had quashed several internal investigations into allegations of sexual assault, drug dealing, prostitution solicitation and other criminal activity by American diplomatic personnel overseas in recent years.

The Secret Service on Thursday said a suspicious letter mailed to President Obama was similar to letters suspected of being laced with the deadly poison ricin sent last week to New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his gun control group.

"The Obama administration spent between $2.52 million and $2.77 million for hotel rooms and rental cars during the president's 2012 trip to Mexico for a G-20 summit," proclaims Britain's Daily Mail. "Government travel documents available online show that the State Department contracted with a travel agency to spend between $1,889,383 and $2,078,327 on hotel rooms alone, for the President, the Secret Service, and the rest of the State Department and White House staff and VIPs."

D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said heightened security plans initiated after a pair of blasts near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday afternoon will remain in place until officials are "comfortable" there is no threat against the District.

President Obama denounced the explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon Monday and vowed to find out who is responsible and bring them to justice.

Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, took in $26,400 in 2012 by renting a cottage on the property of their Delaware home to the Secret Service, tax records released by the White House revealed.

D.C. police have arrested a Pennsylvania man after he threatened to blow up a truck bomb near the White House on Wednesday morning, The Associated Press reported.