National News

AP - Tropical Storm Bonnie left crews working to plug the Gulf oil gusher a little memento that is expected to push their work back about a day.

A tea party success story in search of a statewide triumph, Kentucky Republican senatorial candidate Rand Paul volunteers that he's spent two decades "popping off" about one issue or another.

President Barack Obama is going after Senate Republicans who have stymied his proposal to create a $30 billion fund to help unfreeze lending for credit-starved small businesses.

Rep. Charlie Rangel is getting sympathy from some fellow Democrats but scant support from others as he faces trial on several ethics charges.

A House investigative panel has decided to charge Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California with ethics violations, raising the possibility of a second high-profile trial with political implications for Democrats this fall.

Regulators on Friday shut banks in Florida, Georgia, Oregon and Washington, lifting to 108 the number of U.S. banks to fail this year as the industry has struggled to cope with mounting loan defaults and recession.

Volunteers and government officials scrambled on Friday to save geese and other wildlife damaged by an oil spill in a southern Michigan river as the Canadian company that owns the ruptured pipeline said the crude had been contained.

The fight over Arizona's immigration law showed no signs of letting up Friday as the federal judge who blunted its force faced threats and the Republican governor who signed it considered changes to address any faults.

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan saw the first crack Friday in a so-far solid base of Democratic support for her virtually certain confirmation next week, when centrist Sen.

Former Vice President Al Gore won't be prosecuted over allegations by a masseuse that he groped and assaulted her in his Portland hotel room in 2006, the county prosecutor said Friday.

A congresswoman wants the Supreme Court to reopen its iconic front entrance to the public.

BP's incoming CEO said Friday that it's time for a "scaleback" of the massive effort to clean up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but stressed the commitment to make things right is the same as ever.

You may have heard that Ron Bowes, a security researcher, snagged the information of 100 million Facebook users, and not by hacking either, but simply by accessing their publicly available data using a Web crawler.

The Obama administration, unable to push a broad immigration overhaul through Congress, is considering ways it could go around lawmakers to allow undocumented immigrants to stay in the United States, according to an agency memo.

BP gas station owners across the country are divided over whether the oil giant stained by its handling of the Gulf spill should rebrand U.S. outlets as Amoco or another name as part of efforts to repair the company's badly damaged reputation.

An Illinois man faces human smuggling charges after allegedly placing an ad in a Polish language newspaper offering to help illegal immigrants get New Mexico driver's licenses.

Former President Bill Clinton made a long-anticipated appearance in the upstate New York village where his daughter is getting married tomorrow, drawing crowds of onlookers Friday afternoon as preparations continued largely out of sight for the grand and secretive occasion.

Actor Andy Griffith has a new role: pitching President Barack Obama's health care law to seniors in a cable television ad paid for by Medicare.

The worst U.S. recession since the 1930s was even deeper than previously estimated, reflecting bigger slumps in consumer spending and housing, according to revised figures.

The world's largest economy shrank 4.1 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007 to the second quarter of 2009, compared with the 3.7 percent drop previously on the books, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Household spending fell 1.2 percent in 2009, twice as much as previously projected and the biggest decline since 1942.

A national panel has issued the announcement today that Leslie Scott's hailstone is the largest one ever measured in the United States, falling in Vivian, South Dakota on July 23rd of 2010.