Washington Bureau

Two prominent governors, California's Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pennsylvania's Ed Rendell, sent a private memo to President Barack Obama saying he needs to assert more political leadership instead of leaving it...

U.S. spending on the Iraq War will surpass the amount spent on the Vietnam War by the end of the year, making Iraq the second most expensive military conflict in...

President Barack Obama, walking a fine line between optimism and caution, said Friday that there were "glimmers of hope" for the economy but warned that substantial, potentially difficult government action...

The FBI, brought in to help negotiate with the Somali pirates, is no stranger to overseas hostage crises. Since 1990, the FBI's Crisis Negotiation Unit has worked on more than...

Global warming could sock Illinois right in the Corn Belt -- to the tune of $243 million a year, a national environmental group estimated in a report released Thursday. The...

CIA Director Leon Panetta said Thursday that he has banned the agency's use of contract employees to interrogate prisoners or provide security at detention facilities, ending a practice that had...

In an economic round table with homeowners, President Barack Obama said Thursday that the government's efforts to drive down interest rates have fueled a surge in mortgage refinancing -- putting...

Atty. Gen. Eric Holder on Wednesday replaced the Justice Department's top ethics watchdog, one day after a federal judge criticized the agency for moving too slowly in probing alleged government...

As he ordered a highly unusual criminal probe of the lawyers who prosecuted former Sen. Ted Stevens, a federal judge delivered a blistering rebuke Tuesday of the Justice Department's actions...

When Americans learned last week that unemployment had reached its highest level in a quarter-century, President Barack Obama was midway through a star turn in Europe. And next week, with...