News

The Interior Department has taken disciplinary action against more than a half dozen workers who accepted lavish gifts, partied and in some cased engaged in sex with employees from the energy companies they regulated.

President-elect Barack Obama plans to nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state after Thanksgiving, a new milestone for the former first lady and a convergence of two political forces who fought hard for the presidency.

The U.S. military says a group of Iraqi soldiers has donated $500 to help California wildfire victims.

With no end in sight to economic bad news, President George W. Bush on Friday ensured that millions of laid-off workers will keep getting their unemployment checks as the year-end holidays approach.

President George W. Bush, struggling to get ahead of a global financial crisis, hopes to win more converts at a summit here for an action plan aimed at showing governments have the will and the means to halt the turmoil.

Gov. Sarah Palin has granted the traditional Thanksgiving pardon to a turkey, but the video that shocks some viewers captured what was happening in the background of her news conference.

Mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are suspending foreclosures for about 16,000 households during the holiday season.

The $25 billion rescue plan for the auto industry, desperately sought by Detroit's beleaguered Big Three, collapsed Thursday as Congress drew the line at one more bailout and Democrats said they wouldn't even consider it until the companies produced a convincing plan for rebuilding their once-mighty industry.

Thousands of contractors, both private Americans and non-Iraqi foreigners working in key roles for the United States in Iraq, will lose immunity and be subject to Iraqi law under new security arrangements, Bush administration officials say.

Pakistan protested to the U.S. ambassador Thursday over a deep cross-border missile strike, and a militant group threatened to target foreigners unless the attacks stop.

Democratic leaders in Congress sidetracked legislation to bail out the auto industry Thursday and demanded the Big Three develop a plan assuring the money would make them economically viable.

Fresh worries about widening unemployment added to investors' list of concerns about the economy Thursday and extended Wall Street's sell-off to a second day. The major indexes each fell more than 1.5 percent, including the Dow Jones industrial average, which lost 110 points.

In a painfully poignant moment reminiscent of the fall of yesteryear's Senate giants, Republican Ted Stevens has spoken and yielded the floor for the last time.

Rep. Henry Waxman — a liberal ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi — has wrested the chairmanship of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee from veteran Rep. John Dingell when the new Congress convenes in January.

It's Washington's favorite parlor game during a presidential transition: trying to figure out who'll land a top spot in the new administration. President-elect Barack Obama is weighing an array of Washington insiders and outsiders, including some Republicans, for Cabinet and other top positions, according to Democratic officials.