Coburn urges parties to return convention funds

Sen. Tom Coburn on Thursday urged both national parties to voluntarily return millions of taxpayer dollars they received to fund their nominating conventions, saying Democrats and the GOP should show leadership in reducing the federal deficit. Read more...

Romney draws close to Obama in fundraising

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s fundraising is going so well that people are literally trying to tuck checks into his pocket on the campaign trail. Read more...

Customs not playing hide-and-seek with carry-on contraband

It’s dinnertime at Washington Dulles International Airport, and Officer Steve Whittaker has found himself surrounded by a feast at the international-arrivals checkpoint — a pungent meal he has no plans to enjoy. Read more...

Defense contractors prepare for drastic job cuts, plant closures

Defense contractors are already preparing for the layoffs and plant closures that will occur if Congress fails to reach a deal on the federal deficit this year, triggering $600 billion in automatic Pentagon spending cuts. Read more...

Obama campaign going after veterans' votes

Democrats lost the veterans' vote by big margins in the last two presidential elections, but Obama campaign officials said Thursday they intend to reverse that trend by arguing that Mitt Romney would cut veterans’ benefits. Read more...

GSA official skipped training to lounge at posh resort

The Chateau on the Lake in Branson, Mo., bills itself as a resort getaway with poolside attendants, a luxury spa and mountaintop tennis courts overlooking the clear waters of Table Rock Lake. For one General Services Administration official, the luxury apparently proved such a delight that the official stayed at the hotel, but failed to attend any of the government training sessions that were the purpose of the 2009 trip. Read more...

Lawmakers press State Dept. on Iranian dissidents

Lawmakers have pressed a top State Department official on whether the Obama administration believes that a group of Iranian dissidents in an Iraqi camp has given up their weapons. Read more...

A YouTube video uploaded on Monday afternoon apparently shows a schoolteacher from the Rowan-Salisbury school district in North Carolina informing a student that failing to be respectful of President Obama is a criminal offense. Read more...

The women I know who are struggling in this economy couldn’t be further from the fictional character of Julia, presented in Mr. Obama’s Web ad, "The Life of Julia." Read more...

A lesbian couple who claimed they were victims of a hate crime have been arrested after police determined they staged the incidents. Read more...

An anchor on China’s state-run TV network has accidentally declared the Philippines a part of China, in an embarrassing gaffe as tensions between the two nations run high. Read more...

Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer who was the only person ever convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, died at home in Tripoli Sunday, nearly three years after he was released from a Scottish prison to the outrage of the relatives of the attack's 270 victims. Read more...

Desmond Hatchett, a father of 30 kids, is pleading with the state of Tennessee to help him pay for child support.  Read more...

So the lunatic theory that Barack Obama doesn’t meet the minimum eligibility requirements to be president of the United States was first advanced by Barack Obama’s official representative. After all, if your first book is an exploration of racial identity and has the working title “Journeys in Black and White,” being born in Hawaii doesn’t really help.  Read more...

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People passed a resolution on Saturday endorsing same-sex marriage as a civil right and opposing any efforts “to codify discrimination or hatred into the law.” The move could bolster support for the president with black Democratic voters who remain skeptical of same-sex marriage. Read more...

Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng, who has fought against China's one child and forced abortion policy, has finally arrived in the United States. Read more...

The Pentagon’s annual report on China’s military for 2012 was cut to half the size of earlier reports and key weapons developments were omitted in an apparent bid to mitigate Beijing’s objections to the annual assessment of the communist government’s military buildup. Read more...

A band of out-of-state “domestic terrorists” was accused Saturday of planning to attack President Barack Obama’s campaign headquarters and Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s home — and firebomb police stations and squad cars — declaring that after the NATO Summit “the city will never be the same,” police and prosecutors said. Read more...

The Obama campaign itself has decided to comment on the Breitbart News' exclusive surrounding a 1991 booklet published by President Obama's literary agency that falsely claimed the president was born in Kenya. There's no mistaking the fact that there's a legitimate narrative surrounding Obama that involves the way in which both he and those around him engage in myth-making. Read more...

Sen. Mike Lee, a Tea Party favorite, was forced to sell his Utah “dream home” in a short sale and now lives with his wife and three children in a rental, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. Read more...

Valerie Trierweiler pushed the frontiers of US diplomatic protocol on Friday as she took her first steps as France’s new — and unmarried — first lady ahead of the G-8 and NATO summits. American media have been puzzled about how to describe the female half of the first unmarried occupants of the Elysees Palace, with CNN favoring “girlfriend” and others opting for “spouse,” “partner” or “companion.” Read more...

Voter opinion is almost equally divided on whether Mitt Romney’s business experience helps the presumed Republican presidential nominee, according to a Hill poll. Read more...

The author who turned Georgetown University into a horror scene in "The Exorcist" plans to sue the school in church court, charging that his alma mater has strayed so far from church doctrine that it should no longer call itself Catholic. Read more...

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney returned to his economic message on Friday, highlighting a "bridge to nowhere" rebuilt by stimulus money and warning the U.S. economy could suffer a fiscal crisis like California's if he is not elected in November. Read more...

The Obama administration is asking a presidential commission to help decide an ethical quandary: Should the anthrax vaccine and other treatments being stockpiled in case of a bioterror attack be tested on children?  Read more...

The credibility of Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren took another hit as Boston radio talk show host Howie Carr released evidence that appears to confirm she plagiarized at least three of the five recipes she submitted to the 1984 "Pow Wow Chow" cookbook edited by her cousin Candy Rowsey. Read more...

Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist on Friday compared a Democratic proposal to penalize Americans who renounce their citizenship to evade taxes to policies employed by the Nazis and communists. The legislation, introduced by Sens. Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey, was nicknamed the Berlin Wall Bill by the Times247 staff. Read more...

Americans are still asking themselves, “where’s the recovery?” The latest reports suggest the answer is nowhere in sight, as the present “recovery” is looking an awful lot like a recession. Read more...

The arrival of summer in the nation’s capital is always heralded by humidity and resulting citywide lethargy. Unfortunately for small-business owners perspiring over what taxes they’ll owe Uncle Sam for the year, this season is no different. Growth-killing tax rates are slated to spike within months if Congress doesn’t act, but no relief is on the horizon. Read more...

The Obama campaign has been in damage-control mode since the president decided to acknowledge his support for same-sex marriage. As the NewYorkTimes reported, “About two hours after declaring his support for same-sex marriage last week, President Obama gathered eight or so African-American ministers on a conference call to explain himself.” Read more...

The news of J.P. Morgan Chase’s recent trading loss has raised the cry of “I told you so” from proponents of the almost 2-year-old Dodd-Frank Act. They say the law’s Volcker rule would have prevented such a loss and that without more regulation, financial institutions will continue to make poor investment decisions. Read more...

He’s back. And this time, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright threatens to engulf President Obama in a major scandal — one that could doom his re-election. Edward Klein in his recent biography of Mr. Obama, “The Amateur,” interviewed Mr. Wright about the president’s past. Read more...

A promotional booklet produced in 1991 by Barack Obama's literary agency listed the future president as "born in Kenya" until 2007. An Associated Press article called Obama a “Kenyan-born US Senate hopeful" in 2004. With all of the questions surfacing now — more than three years into Obama's first term as president — one thing is certain: Media failed the American people.  Read more...