Government | featured news

The president is the most visible symbol of what voters see as a badly dysfunctional government. Some Democrats say he could have negotiated better. Though he succeeded in staving off a historic default, President Obama emerges from the debt talks in a weakened political position with limited influence over a divided Congress.

Maybe the cash-strapped U.S. government should start selling iPads. According to the latest statement from the U.S. Treasury, the government had an operating cash balance Wednesday of $73.8 billion. That's still a lot of money, but it's less than what Steve Jobs has lying around.

The authoritarian government of Belarus blocked access to popular social networking sites on Sunday in an attempt to prevent opposition protests on a national holiday.

Proposed cuts in state-sponsored pension plans spur hundreds of thousands of teachers, police, immigration workers and others to picket for a day. The walkout could be a sign of further industrial action this summer over deep cuts in British public spending.

The case could turn into the biggest showdown between the government and a major technology company since the Microsoft antitrust trial more than a decade ago.

For the first time, minorities make up a majority of babies in the U.S., part of a sweeping race change and growing age divide between mostly white, older Americans and predominantly minority youths that could reshape government policies....

The government on Friday added formaldehyde, a substance found in plastics and other commonly used products, to a list of known carcinogens and warned that the chemical styrene might cause cancer.

Forty years after the explosive leak of the Pentagon Papers, a secret government study chronicling deception and misadventure in U.S. conduct of the Vietnam War, the report is coming out in its entirety on Monday....

In a healthy recovery, states and localities produce jobs, expand social services and help fuel the nation's economic growth. Then there's the 2011 recovery. The U.S. economy is moving ahead, however fitfully. Yet state and local governments are still stuck in recession. Short of cash, they cut 30,000 jobs in May, the seventh straight month they've shed workers. Rather than add to U.S. economic growth, they're subtracting from it.

The government expects to recover more money than anticipated from the auto bailout as it pulls back financially from the sector, but taxpayers still face billions in potential losses, the White House said.