There was so much more they wanted to do. Three years ago, Republicans retook the House with a fire-eating confidence and an ambitious plan to remake the U.S. government. They wanted to cut spending, of course. They wanted to get rid of the health-care law ...

After 2½ years of budget battles, the U.S. federal government is on pace this year to spend $3.455 trillion. That figure is down from 2010 — the year that worries about government spending helped bring on a tea party uprising, a Republican takeover in the ...

It began with a bankruptcy sale in 1933, when a Republican businessman and presidential confidant reinvented himself as a newspaper publisher in the nation's capital. It ended with an announcement that his descendants had sold the newspaper to an Internet wizard who lives in ...

It was one of the strangest personal crusades on Capitol Hill: For years, Sen. Ron Wyden said he was worried that intelligence agencies were violating Americans' privacy. But he couldn't say how. That was a secret. Wyden's outrage, he said, stemmed from top-secret information he had ...

This summer, Marty the Magician got a letter from the U.S. government. It began with six ominous words: "Dear Members of Our Regulated Community . . ." Washington had questions about his rabbit. Again. Marty Hahne, 54, does magic shows for kids in southern Missouri. For ...

When someone crosses John Boehner, he or she can expect a couple of reactions from the House speaker. Sometimes it is a thwack on the back and a disapproving shake of his head, quickly followed by a begrudging smile to indicate that all is ...

When the bombs went off on Boston's Boylston Street, bystanders ran toward the smoke, realizing the dangers but hoping to save lives.

Patricia Brennan received $384,949 from the U.S. government to study duck genitalia. Last month, that made her a national joke. Now, it's made her a little bit of a folk hero. "Genitalia, dear readers, are where the rubber meets the road, evolutionarily," Brennan wrote last ...