White House

Kanye for 2020? White House welcomes rapper's political bid

The White House says it is anticipating the rapper's potential bid for president.

West claimed he would run for president while accepting the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards Sunday.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest says of the announcement that he looks "forward to seeing what slogan he chooses to embroider on his campaign hat." Earnest was traveling aboard Air Force One with the president to Alaska.

White House renames Mount McKinley as Denali on eve of trip

By renaming the peak Denali, an Athabascan word meaning "the high one," Obama waded into a sensitive and decades-old conflict between residents of Alaska and Ohio. Alaskans have informally called the mountain Denali for years, but the federal government recognizes its name invoking the 25th president, William McKinley, who was born in Ohio and assassinated early in his second term.

First openly transgender official hired at White House

The White House announced Raffi Freedman-Gurspan's appointment on Tuesday. Freedman-Gurspan is an outreach and recruitment director for presidential personnel in the Office of Personnel. Transgender advocates say she is the first openly transgender official to serve in the White House.

Freedman-Gurspan previously was a policy adviser for the National Center for Transgender Equality's racial and economic justice initiative.

White House staffer charged with firing police officer's gun

Prince George's County Police say officers were called to an Upper Marlboro, Maryland, home early Friday for a reported shooting.

Authorities say 37-year-old Barvetta Singletary had argued with the Capitol officer. Police say Singletary grabbed the officer's service weapon from a bag and fired one round, which hit the floor.

VIDEO: White House condemns West Bank attack

Press Secretary Josh Earnest Friday said the US extended "profound condolences" to the family and extended prayers for those injured in the attack to make a full recovery.

Witnesses and the Israeli military said that under cover of darkness, the attackers broke the windows of the family's home in Duma, a small village near the West Bank city of Nablus.

White House says Mullah Omar death reports are credible

Afghanistan's main intelligence agency announced Mullah Omar's death earlier Wednesday and said he'd been dead for more than two years.

White House spokesman Eric Schultz isn't commenting on the time frame, but he says the U.S. intelligence community is looking into the circumstances around Mullah Omar's death.

The Latest: Obama briefed on deadly movie theater shooting

Obama was briefed aboard Air Force One on Thursday by Lisa Monaco, his homeland security adviser, while on his way to Africa for a two-nation visit.

Obama asked his team to keep him updated on the investigation and the status of those wounded in the shooting.

He also offered his thoughts and prayers to the community of Lafayette, Louisiana, where the movie theater is located, and to the families of those who were killed.