US Politics News

The House voted by an overwhelming margin Thursday night to pass a two-year budget agreement, the first time in years of strident fiscal fights that a spending plan passed with a majority of votes from both parties.

A breakthrough budget deal that avoids a government shutdown in January and blunts automatic spending cuts easily won passage in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday, setting the stage for nearly two years of fiscal peace in Congress.

Eric Justin Toth is escorted after a presentation to the media at police the headquarters building in Managua, Nicaragua, on April 22, 2013.

A group of 10 U.S. Senators introduced a bipartisan bill on Thursday to eliminate the corn ethanol mandate, arguing that current law raises the cost of food and animal feed and damages the environment.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has told Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that she is improperly interfering with a Congressional investigation.

"I'm real disappointed in the [budget] deal. The GAO says we've got $200 billion in wasteful, duplicate spending every year.

The Senate began an around-the-clock talkathon Wednesday over some of President Barack Obama's nominees as embittered and outnumbered Republicans refused to let the Senate take a break given new, Democratic-driven curbs on the GOP's power.

New sign-up numbers Wednesday showed progress for President Barack Obama's health care law, but not enough to guarantee that Americans who want and need coverage by Jan. 1 will be able to get it.

George H.W. Bush has joined Twitter and in his first tweet the former U.S. president said he wished he could have attended the memorial service for Nelson Mandela in South Africa.

Ryan Loskarn, a longtime aide to GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, was arrested by postal inspectors on child pornography charges.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday were falling in line behind a two-year budget deal negotiated behind closed doors, indicating that this normally rambunctious group of lawmakers is not spoiling for a year-end fiscal fight.

Law enforcement agents are searching the home of a top aide to Republican Senator Lamar Alexander in connection with child pornography allegations, the Tennessee lawmaker said in a statement on Wednesday.

"For pulling the papacy out of the palace and into the streets, for committing the world's largest church to confronting its deepest needs, and for balancing judgment with mercy, Pope Francis is Time's 2013 Person of the Year," Time said in its announcement.

"All I did was follow the law. The law says that if you have committee staff, leadership staff, they stay where they are.

Sen. Chuck Schumer will buck the White House and back more sanctions on Iran despite a pending deal to curb its nuclear program, sources said Tuesday.

In this June 7 file photo, Shannon Guess Richardson is placed into a Titus County, Texas, Sheriff's car after an initial appearance at the federal building Texarkana, Texas.

Remember when Bill Clinton was twice elected President as a "New Democrat" who wanted to get along with people in the private economy? Nowadays even writing in favor of ideas that Mr. Clinton supported can get you branded a heretic and banished from impolite liberal society.

After more than seven months of delays , a special election for North Carolina's 12th District will begin in earnest now that the Senate confirmed Rep. Melvin Watt, D-N.C., to lead the Federal Housing Finance Agency on Tuesday.

The lead sponsor of an ambitious proposal to overhaul how the Pentagon handles allegations of sexual assault and rape says she's pushing to hold a vote on the plan before the end of the year.

Welcome to Wonkbook, Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas's morning policy news primer. Send comments, criticism, or ideas to Wonkbook at Gmail dot com.