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Washington (CNN) — Desiree Rogers, the White House social secretary, plans to step down, the Obama administration announced Friday.

Her office came under scrutiny after a couple who lacked an invitation were allowed into President Obama’s first state dinner.

“We are enormously grateful to Desiree Rogers for the terrific job she’s done as the White House social secretary,” the president and first lady said in a statement released Friday.

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OLYMPIA, Washington – Washington is one of four states where measures to legalize and regulate marijuana have been introduced, and about two dozen other states are considering bills ranging from medical marijuana to decriminalizing possession of small amounts of the herb.

“In terms of state legislatures, this is far and away the most active year that we’ve ever seen,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance, which supports reforming marijuana laws.

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Washington (CNN) — The Obama administration invoked the state secrets privilege on Friday in a lawsuit pertaining to government eavesdropping intended to intercept terrorist communications, and one privacy advocacy group called the decision “incredibly disappointing.”

Attorney General Eric Holder issued a statement saying the government was making the move “to protect against a disclosure of highly sensitive, classified information that would irrevocably harm the national security of this country.”

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WASHINGTON – Newly released documents show the FBI interviewed a naked, chained terror suspect back in 2002 as the bureau struggled with the CIA over how to treat high-value prisoners.

Details of the interrogation were contained in documents released late Friday as part of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, and Judicial Watch.

As the CIA began to use harsh interrogation techniques against captured terror suspects, the FBI became wary of the legality of the methods, which ranged from forced nudity to waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning. As a result, FBI agents were ordered not to participate in such harsh interrogations.

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The House of Representatives on July 29 unanimously passed a resolution urging Obama to grant a pardon; the Senate passed a similar measure by a voice vote on June 24.

The push for a rare posthumous pardon has been spearheaded for years by Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, and Rep. Peter King, R-New York, two of Congress’ top boxing enthusiasts.

“It is our hope that you will be eager to agree to right this wrong and erase an act of racism that sent an American citizen to prison,” they wrote Friday in a letter to Obama.

Johnson, the first African-American to win the heavyweight title, was convicted for violating the Mann Act, which outlawed the transportation of women across state lines for “immoral” purposes.

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It’s extremely unlikely, but the Obama administration is taking its first steps along a path that could lead in that direction, with the investigation of Central Intelligence Agency interrogators involved in the war on terror.

“You don’t know where these things are going to end up,” former CIA agent Peter Brookes told me. “They could go to very high levels in the government.”

The probe will focus on whether interrogators exceeded their instructions and broke the law when, for example, they choked a prisoner until he lost consciousness or threatened another one with a gun and a power drill.

There is no obvious enthusiasm in the Obama administration for second-guessing the CIA’s efforts after September 11, 2001 to keep America safe.

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Under a 2004 Massachusetts law, a special election must be held 145 to 160 days after a Senate seat becomes vacant. The winner of that election would serve the remainder of a senator’s unexpired term.

Kennedy, a Democratic senator who has represented Massachusetts for nearly 47 years, was re-elected in November 2006. His six-year term ends in January 2013.

In a letter to Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and other state leaders, Kennedy said he supports the current law, “[b]ut I also believe it is vital for this Commonwealth to have two voices speaking for the needs of its citizens and two votes in the Senate during the approximately five months between a vacancy and an election.”

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WASHINGTON – Congress has taken its first step toward an energy revolution, with the prospect of profound change for every household, business, industry and farm in the decades ahead.

It was late Friday when the House passed legislation that would, for the first time, require limits on pollution blamed for global warming — mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. Now the Senate has the chance to change the way Americans produce and use energy.

What would the country look like a decade from now if the House-passed bill — or, more likely, a water-down version — were to become the law of the land?

“It will open the door to a clean energy economy and a better future for America,” President Barack Obama said Saturday.

But what does that mean to the average person?

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A convicted terrorist can sue a former Bush administration lawyer for drafting the legal theories that led to his alleged torture, ruled a federal judge who said he was trying to balance a clash between war and the defense of personal freedoms.

The order by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White of San Francisco is the first time a government lawyer has been held potentially liable for the abuse of detainees.

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FROM CNN’s Jack Cafferty:

President Obama says some terror suspects from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility will be sent to U.S. prisons.

Despite opposition from Congress, the president is moving forward with his plan to close Gitmo by next January. He insists that he won’t authorize freeing any detainees who would endanger the American people, but says some of these suspects will be tried in U.S. courts and held in super-maximum security U.S. prisons. The president says other detainees could be tried by military commissions and sent to other countries.

Congress has dealt President Obama a big blow by blocking funds to close Gitmo until he comes up with a detailed plan on what to do with the 240 detainees held there. Majority Whip Senator Dick Durbin is one of the few who voted against blocking the 80 million dollars. He says the U.S. can safely house these terror suspects just like we are already housing 348 convicted terrorists in U.S. prisons.