US News

Congressional Republicans said Monday that they would back down from their demands that a payroll tax holiday be paid for with spending reductions on other programs, instead offering to extend the tax cut while continuing to haggle over the extension of unemployment insurance and a measure to prevent doctors from losing money on the Medicare ... (more)

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio watches as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Va.

Peter Orszag and other fiscal hawks, eat your heart out: the Obama Administration's pivot to deficit reduction is well and truly done - until after the election, at least.

James "Whitey" Bulger, the reputed Boston mobster and former FBI informant who was captured last year after 16 years on the run, will face trial Nov.

From a distance, the thing dominates the horizon of the hangar-like Cleveland Works facility; as you get nearer, catching glimpses through forests of girders and around cliffs of firebrick, it begins to dominate the air above.

It is tempting to think of online dating as a sophisticated way to address the ancient and fundamental problem of sorting humans into pairs, except that the problem isn't very old.

The diamond invention—the creation of the idea that diamonds are rare and valuable, and are essential signs of esteem—is a relatively recent development in the history of the diamond trade. Until the late nineteenth century, diamonds were found only in a few riverbeds in India and in the jungles of Brazil, and the entire world production of gem diamonds amounted to a few pounds a year.

President's Day celebrates Abraham Lincoln, right? Nope. There is no 'President's Day.' It's actually legally known only as 'Washington's Birthday,' leaving Old Abe out the cold.

Some of former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy's personal papers, including notes from her televised White House tour 50 years ago, are now public for the first time.

Samantha Crawford, an 18-year-old high-school senior, doesn't like to use the word "ghetto" to describe her neighborhood in the center of Memphis, Tennessee, but she can't think of a better one. In Binghampton, people drink and hang out. They are transient, moving from apartment to apartment and job to job. Many don't work at all. Samantha speculates that few have finished college, or even high school.

Long popular among the poor, the Great Recession has been a boon to dollar stores, bringing in a whole new wave of customers.

Country music singer Mel Tillis holds up his 2011 National Medal of the Arts after it was presented to him by President Barack Obama, Monday, Feb., 13, 2012, in the East Room of the White House in Washington.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was robbed last week by an intruder armed with a machete while Breyer was vacationing on the Caribbean island of Nevis, court officials said Monday.

Gov. Chris Gregoire handed gay rights advocates a major victory, singing into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage in Washington state, making it the seventh in the nation to allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

New Jersey lawmakers gave their blessing to legalizing gay marriage for the first time Monday as the state Senate passed a bill that would allow nuptials for same-sex couples, despite Gov.

The defense for a man whose conviction in nine arson deaths was overturned over unreliable jailhouse snitches has its own newly found cellblock informant for a possible second trial, creating a snitch vs.

New polls show Rick Santorum has taken the lead in Michigan, a state once considered a lock for Mitt Romney.

President Barack Obama wants community colleges and businesses to work together to train 2 million workers in high-growth industries, and on Monday will request $8 billion to create a fund to encourage the effort.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney greets a supporter at an election caucus in Portland, Maine, Saturday, Feb.