Chuck Hagel

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is stepping down from President Barack Obama's Cabinet, senior administration officials said Monday, following a tenure in which he has struggled to break through the White House's insular foreign policy team.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says the military's failure to maintain its focus on the nation's nuclear forces led them to be mismanaged and to "slowly back down the hill." He vowed to invest in and bolster the force, saying there is no problem on this issue the Pentagon can't fix.

SINGAPORE (AP) -- The U.S. "will not look the other way" when China and others try to restrict navigation or ignore international rules and standards, Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel said Saturday at an international security conference. He said China's territorial claims in the South China Sea are destabilizing the region and that Beijing's failure to resolve such disputes threatens East Asi

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in an interview broadcast Friday that the focus of an investigation into alleged delayed treatments and deaths in the Veterans Administration's health care system should be to "fix the problem" rather than fire VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.

The Senate has voted to confirm Chuck Hagel to be the nation's next defense secretary.

President Barack Obama's pick to be defense secretary is unsuited to head the Pentagon, but Republican senators should stop stalling the nomination and allow a vote on Chuck Hagel, a leading opponent said Sunday.

Republican Sen. John McCain is tangling with Chuck Hagel over his past statements about the Iraq war. The Arizona Republican says that his dissatisfaction Hagel's answers could affect whether he votes for or against the former Republican senator who is President Barack Obama's choice for secretary of defense.