Christopher Ward, 41, admitted to issuing unauthorized checks and wire transfers from the National Republican Congressional Committee and other political committees between March 2001 and December 2007, the Justice Department said.
In addition to working for the NRCC accounting department, Ward ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama Administration is likely to stay focused on toughening regulatory oversight of the U.S. offshore oil industry and may push back lifting a ban on deepwater drilling after the latest accident in the Gulf of Mexico, analysts said on Thursday.
The fire on a Mariner ...
The Miami Herald said the man held, a former science professor at Texas Tech University identified as Thomas Butler, had been convicted in 2003 on federal charges related to shipping vials of plague bacteria.
His history may have raised red flags. But an FBI spokesman, who said he was unable to ...
By Susan Heavey and Lisa Richwine
SILVER SPRING, Maryland (Reuters) - It wasn't what you would call a casual get-together.
"I am in no sense writing off legislation over time. And I'm quite sure the president isn't," U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern told a news conference during two days of talks in Geneva among about 45 nations reviewing climate finance.
He said Washington would rely on a combination of ...
The study published on Friday in the journal "Health Affairs" recommended policy reforms and broader efforts to get uninsured children into government medical programs, including the use of income tax data for automatic enrollment.
An estimated 7.3 million children were uninsured on an ...
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - An oil and gas platform operated by Mariner Energy burst into flames in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, but the crew of 13 escaped and there were no signs of an oil spill, the Coast Guard said.
The accident brought unwelcome attention to the offshore drilling industry as it ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - One upside of the worst U.S. economic slump since the Great Depression is that with fewer motorists on the road, the nation's highways are less congested and in better shape, a study said on Thursday.
The condition of urban interstate highways and rural primary roads both ...
The trial centered on a 2001 accident involving Brian Cole, who at the time had been a prospect for the New York Mets, the family's attorney Tab Turner said.
Turner said that after the jury returned its verdict, Ford reached a settlement with the family. He declined to disclose the amount.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will roll out more regulations on greenhouse gases and other pollution to help fight climate change, but they will not be as strong as action by Congress, a senior administration official said.
The agency "has a huge role to play ...
Harvard students enrolled in Warren's contracts class were informed that a different professor will be teaching the class instead, according to a report in The Washington Post, which obtained a copy of an email to the students.
"Professor Warren regrets that she will not be able to teach you ...
The bomb squad had been called to investigate a black Mercedes Benz and 10 blocks of Park Avenue were briefly closed to traffic and pedestrians, a police spokeswoman said.
"It's nothing," she said. It was unknown why the vehicle was considered suspicious.
WASHINGTON/PHOENIX (Reuters) - The Justice Department on Thursday sued an Arizona sheriff for refusing to cooperate with its investigation into allegations he and his police force discriminate against Hispanics in his program to crack down on illegal immigrants.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio ...
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned on Thursday an air strike by NATO-led forces which he said killed 10 election campaign workers, although U.S. officials maintained it was aimed at an Islamist leader.
Civilian casualties caused by foreign forces hunting militants have ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Thursday dismissed the case against a former U.N. employee accused of biting a U.N. security guard after complaining of nepotism at the world body.
Nicola Baroncini, 36, was charged with third-degree assault in the June 2009 incident.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Companies are cutting healthcare costs further amid a continuing sour economy, scaling back benefits and shifting a greater share of the expense to employees.
The findings, published on Thursday, come as the congressional campaign heats up over the nation's stagnant economic ...
All 13 crew were accounted for and the platform continued to burn 90 miles south of the Louisiana coast, CNN reported.
(Reporting by Erwin Seba)
Helicopters were an hour away from the site of the possible explosion, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Prentice Danner.
(Reporting by Erwin Seba)
SILVER SPRING, Maryland (Reuters) - Police shot and killed a man who took three people hostage, waving a gun and apparently fitted out with explosives, in the headquarters of the Discovery Channel near Washington Wednesday.
Officers who had been watching the hostage drama on a building security ...
The Federal Communications Commission has been prodding phone, cable and Internet companies for months to find consensus on the thorny issue of net neutrality -- a debate over whether high-speed Internet providers should be allowed to give preferential treatment to content providers who pay for ...
Mehsud, believed to be hiding in the tribal areas of Pakistan and head of the group known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, was charged with conspiracy to kill Americans overseas and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction.
On December 30, a Jordanian doctor who had gained the trust of the CIA ...
"While monthly filings are volatile, consumer bankruptcies are still the highest they have been since Congress overhauled the bankruptcy law in 2005," ABI Executive Director Samuel Gerdano said in the report.
A total of 127,028 consumer bankruptcies were filed in August, according to the ...
HOUSTON (Reuters) - BP Plc expects to remove a failed blowout preventer atop its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well by Saturday or Sunday and later plug the leak for good, the top U.S. official overseeing the spill response said on Wednesday.
"We believe in the next 24 to 36 hours, we will ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City Muslims declared themselves just as American as opponents of an Islamic cultural center and mosque near the World Trade Center on Wednesday in a bid to seize control of a debate they appear to be losing.
Leaders of some 55 New York mosques and Islamic ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The future of an 80-acre New York apartment complex will be at stake on Thursday as a judge considers whether a venture led by a prominent hedge fund investor may conduct a foreclosure auction.
William Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management LP and Boston-based Winthrop ...
Hornbeck Offshore Services Inc and other drilling companies sued the administration on June 7 after it first ordered a halt to deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico following BP Plc's well rupture that killed 11 workers and caused the world's worst offshore oil spill.
As a result of ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With another win in a Senate Republican primary, this time in Alaska, the conservative Tea Party movement showed it is more than a political fad and has the staying power to be a significant force in November's elections.
Polls show Tea Party favorites leading or running ...
The groups expressed their concern in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Trade Representative Ron Kirk, who were urged last week by the Chamber of Commerce, a leading U.S. business group, to press Congress for a generous package of U.S. textile tariff cuts to help Pakistan ...
DUBAI (Reuters) - A heated U.S. debate over a planned Islamic center near New York's World Trade Center site is seen by Middle East media, scholars and citizens as more of a domestic American issue rather than an attack on their faith.
Kuwait-born Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Muslim cleric leading ...
The CEOs of the 50 U.S. companies that laid off the most workers between November 2008 and April 2010 were paid $12 million on average in 2009, or 42 percent more than the average across the Standard & Poor's 500, according to a study by the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington think ...
DETROIT (Reuters) - U.S. safety regulators have opened a preliminary investigation into claims that Hyundai Motor Co's Sonata sedan may have steering problems, government officials said on Tuesday.
The investigation comes as Hyundai moved to increase production of the Sonata, its best-selling car ...
Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, 52, pleaded guilty in 2002 to attempted murder and conspiracy to murder a federal official.
Salim was sentenced in 2004 to 32 years in prison, but the case was sent back to U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts for resentencing after an appeals court ruled the judge had failed to ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Commerce Department decided on Tuesday not to investigate whether China subsidizes exports to the United States by undervaluing its currency, prompting renewed calls for Congress to act on the issue.
"It's clear that China games the system by manipulating its ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Pat Toomey has opened a 10-point lead over Democrat Joe Sestak among likely voters in a Senate race in Pennsylvania dominated by economic worries, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday.
Toomey, a conservative former congressman, leads Sestak, a ...
Kexue (John) Huang, 45, formerly a research scientist at Dow AgroSciences LLC in Carmel, Indiana, was charged in a 17-count indictment with economic espionage intended to benefit China's government and transportation of stolen property.
Huang worked from 2003 to early 2008 at Dow, helping the ...
Texas is expected to have to slash spending in its next two-year budget because its deficit is estimated at as high as $18 billion. The Republican governor said his proposal would increase how much money can be devoted to the classroom.
Furthermore, "These shared services create the economies ...
In a statement issued after the bill's signing, Paterson said that studies found that as many as 15 percent of the state's construction workers are paid off-the-books or wrongly treated as independent contractors.
This "terrible practice" deprives the cash-poor state of badly needed tax ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Temporarily extending tax cuts for the rich opens the door to permanent tax cuts and that is something the United States cannot afford, an economic advisor to President Barack Obama said on Tuesday.
Jason Furman, deputy assistant to the president for economic policy, said a ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he hoped to pick up Republican votes for a pared-down energy bill after the midterm congressional elections.
"Maybe after the elections we can get some more Republicans to help us on these issues," Reid, a Democrat, told ...
A Manhattan judge adjourned Caroline Giuliani's case with the expectation that the case will be dismissed and sealed following the completion of community service, prosecutors said.
Giuliani, 21, was arrested on August 4 for attempting to pilfer $100 worth of cosmetics from a Sephora store in ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. health officials are set to rule on whether a faster-growing, genetically engineered fish is safe to eat in a decision that could deliver the first altered animal food to consumers' dinner plates.
The fish, made by Aqua Bounty Technologies Inc, is manipulated to grow ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York voters contradicted themselves over a planned Islamic cultural center near the World Trade Center site, with majorities saying both that Muslims have the right to build one but that they should be forced to move it, a poll issued on Tuesday finds.
Fifty-four percent ...
The Boeing 737 aircraft, owned by American Airlines -- a unit of AMR Corp -- careened off the runway and broke into three parts on December 22 after landing in rainy weather at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston.
Quoting people familiar with the details, the Journal said National ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - It was out with the old and in with the new at the Primetime Emmy awards on Sunday, with a slew of first-timers and new shows shaking up the U.S. television industry's highest honors.
Period advertising drama "Mad Men" and actor Bryan Cranston who plays a teacher ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Civil liberties groups sued the Obama administration on Monday over a program they said illegally tries to kill U.S. citizens believed to be militants living abroad, like the anti-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Two Iowa egg farms linked to a salmonella outbreak that has sickened thousands failed to follow their own safety plans, allowing rodents and other animals into poultry houses, U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspectors found.
The latest details come days after the FDA ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Gasoline misers like the Toyota Prius would get an 'A-' while muscle cars -- including the Ferrari 612 -- would get a 'D' under a labeling program proposed by Obama administration, which wants to convince consumers to buy vehicles that use less energy.
The U.S. Environmental ...
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Vice President Joe Biden flew into Iraq on Monday to assure Iraqis the United States is not abandoning them as it stops combat operations, a milestone in the 7-1/2 year war the Obama administration is trying to end.
Biden will hold talks with Iraqi leaders amid a political ...
DUBAI/NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. debate over plans for an Islamic center near New York's World Trade Center site has been politicized ahead of the congressional election, the Muslim cleric heading the project and other city imams say.
Kuwait-born Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is touring Gulf Arab ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Streamlining export restrictions on defense goods and high-technology products will help create manufacturing jobs while boosting national security, President Barack Obama said on Monday.
"While there is still more work to be done, taken together, these reforms will ...
"My economic team is hard at work in identifying additional measures that could make a difference in both promoting growth and hiring in the short term and increasing our economy's competitiveness in the long term," he said in a statement at the White House.
"We are in a weather hold right now," Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, noting seas were 6 to 6 feet high at the site of the Macondo well.
He said bad weather is expected to last two to three days. The blowout preventer retrieval had been slated for Tuesday or Wednesday.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Elizabeth Warren is folksy and plain-spoken and favors cardigans over Washington power suits. Many on Wall Street view her as their worst nightmare but she is a hero to liberal activists and consumer groups.
This autumn, Warren, a contender to become the top U.S. consumer ...
Unlike most audits, which examine controls, savings and other issues, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said the MTA will undergo a forensic audit to identify "evidence of fraud and wrongdoing that may constitute criminal offenses, resulting in referrals to law enforcement."
The MTA, the ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Switzerland's Roger Federer and Belgian Kim Clijsters are among five former champions in action on a busy opening day at the U.S. Open on Monday.
The pair will be joined by Americans Venus Williams and Andy Roddick in playing their opening matches on the Arthur Ashe center ...
Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst since the Taliban were overthrown by U.S.-backed forces in late 2001, with soaring casualty rates among foreign and Afghan troops as well as among civilians who are caught up in the conflict.
Foreign military casualties have reached record levels this year, ...
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Earl, now the second major hurricane of the 2010 Atlantic season, was packing top sustained winds of 120 miles per hour.
Any hurricane with sustained winds between 111 and 130 mph is considered major and gets a Category 3 rating on the Saffir-Simpson scale ...
The probe also blamed BP engineers for misreading pressure data which indicated a blowout was imminent, the news agency said.
BP could not be reached for comment by Reuters.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A public opinion poll showing Americans are increasingly convinced, wrongly, that he is Muslim does not trouble him, President Barack Obama said on Sunday.
"It's not something that I can, I think, spend all my time worrying about it," Obama said in an interview ...
Clooney was presented with the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award at the Primetime Emmy Awards for his work to raise awareness of the crisis in Darfur, and fund-raising efforts for causes ranging from Hurricane Katrina to the Haiti earthquake and the victims of the September 11 2001 attacks on New York ...
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - President Barack Obama pledged on Sunday to finish restoring the Gulf Coast area hit by Hurricane Katrina, five years after the storm ravaged the region and hurt the credibility of his Republican predecessor.
Obama visited New Orleans -- the city hardest hit by the disaster ...
