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President Barack Obama unveiled his proposed Fiscal Year 2014 budget plan Wednesday in the White House Rose Garden, offering a combination of new spending initiatives and tax increases aimed at creating jobs and reducing future budget deficits. In his remarks, Obama called his plan “a fiscally responsible blueprint for middle-class jobs and growth.”

A bipartisan pair of senators introduced a compromise proposal to expand background checks on Wednesday, an agreement which could form the basis for major gun control legislation to pass through Congress.

The federal government could save tens of billions of dollars each year by trimming duplicative programs including catfish inspections by three separate agencies and 159 contracting organizations that provide foreign-language support for the Defense Department, according to a report from Congress's auditing agency.

The leading Senate negotiations on gun control legislation favor expanding background checks, but the effort would as of now fall short of the universal approach backed by President Barack Obama and many Democrats, CNN has learned.

Beyonce and Jay-Z’s paparazzi-trailed trip to Havana has prompted questions from two members of Congress. Thousands of Americans every year get around the U.S. embargo on tourism to Cuba with waivers for academic, religious or research work — or by sneaking in through a third country.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham on Sunday became the first prominent Republican to publicly praise, however lukewarmly, the budget proposal the White House outlined last week. Graham said that while he believes President Barack Obama's plan is overall bad for the economy, "there are nuggets of his budget that I think are optimistic," and that could set the stage for a broad bargain to put the nation's finances on a stronger footing. He was speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press" program.

Carnival, the world's largest cruise operator, has rejected a request from a powerful U.S. senator that it reimburse the U.S. government for the costs it incurs for rescuing the company's ships when they become disabled.

From the Appalachian trail to the campaign trail, former Governor Mark Sanford is back on the grid. After defeating Curtis Bostic in the GOP primary runoff on Tuesday, 57% to 43%, Sanford should be the favorite to win the vacated congressional seat in South Carolina first district. The district has become heavily Republican.

Former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford vowed Wednesday to define Democratic rival Elizabeth Colbert Busch, saying the only thing voters know is that she's the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert. "She's not held office," Sanford said in an MSNBC interview. "Stephen Colbert's a very popular, you know, well-regarded comedian but at the end of the day he's not on the ticket."

As proponents increasingly turn to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to campaign in key states, the National Rifle Assn. welcomes the challenge from a man they see as an overstepping 'nanny in chief.' The fate of gun control proposals in Congress this year may depend on who is more potent: Michael R. Bloomberg the billionaire or Michael R. Bloomberg the boogeyman.