Trying to signal a good-faith commitment to the ongoing "fiscal cliff" debt negotiations, some prominent Republicans increasingly are indicating a willingness to walk away from Grover Norquist's influential "no new taxes" pledge, saying that even if they signed it, they no longer feel bound by it.
The talks between President Obama and congressional Republicans to avoid looming tax hikes and steep spending cuts regressed Monday to the same old sticking point — raising taxes on wealthier Americans.
With congressional opposition softening, U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice could find her name in contention as early as this week to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state. It's a step that may signal greater U.S. willingness to intervene in world crises during President Obama's second term.
After an election campaign that featured jobs as a central issue, some of the nation's businesses have responded to President Obama's victory with a series of layoff announcements related to a variety of factors including the New Year's "fiscal cliff."
"Unlike 2008, President Obama goes into the debates with a record. But it's a record he'd rather not talk about," says Republican National Committee communications director Sean Spicer.
Two Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are questioning whether the State Department ignored warnings from U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens in Libya before Islamic extremists killed him on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The Federal Reserve took aggressive action Thursday to try to reinvigorate the economy and generate more jobs, announcing a major program of purchasing $40 billion a month in mortgage bonds that it hopes will drive down interest rates to record lows and spur faster growth.
House Republicans questioned the head of the Internal Revenue Service on the agency's decision to apply the health care law's tax credits in states that decide not to carry out a key provision of the statute.
A bipartisan group of senators are expressing new urgency about resolving a looming clash over the nation's debt this fall in the face of a European crisis they fear could threaten a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis, which caught members of Congress flat-footed.
