WASHINGTON — North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows has a new job in the White House — a promotion that could elevate the status of the Tar Heel State in the eyes of the president and strengthen ties between the Trump administration and conservatives in Congress. President Donald Trump announced Meadows’ appointment in a tweet Friday, saying “I have long known and worked with Mark, and the relationship is a very good one.”

WASHINGTON — North Carolina Rep. Alma Adams grilled a Trump administration official Wednesday over new charges that the Labor Department mismanaged a fund that supports coal miners with lung disease and their families. Lax oversight has left the fund deeply in debt, shifting the financial burden to provide miners and families with benefits to taxpayers, according to a report released Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a government watchdog agency.

WASHINGTON — North Carolina is home to the nation’s most conservative member of the U.S. House, according to a recent ranking of lawmakers’ 2019 legislative records. GOP Rep. Mark Meadows of the 11th district in the western tip of the state earned a perfect score on the conservative-to-liberal scale, which was compiled by GovTrack.us, a nonpartisan organization that tracks government data and statistics.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House passed a resolution Thursday that would overturn a Trump administration rule that critics say guts protections for defrauded student loan borrowers. The resolution expresses congressional disapproval of the so-called borrower defense rule, which was revised by Education Secretary

North Carolina is projected to gain a U.S. House seat in the coming years, recent data show — a change that would increase the state’s influence in national politics and could lead to more money for federally funded projects and services like roads and health care facilities.

WASHINGTON — The GOP-controlled U.S. Senate heads into 2020 with few major legislative victories but a significant one on the judicial front: a dramatic reshaping of the federal bench. Over the past three years, the Senate has confirmed 185 of President Trump’s judicial nominees, more than any of the last five presidents at the same time in their presidencies. That tally includes a raft of nominees approved just before lawmakers left Capitol Hill for the holiday recess. 

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is failing to ensure that all military families have access to safe, quality housing, according to a new government watchdog report. The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) oversees private-sector developers who build, renovate, manage and maintain military housing. 

WASHINGTON — A North Carolina state official urged federal lawmakers on Tuesday to take bold measures to improve the nation’s federal response to natural disasters.