Sales of existing homes plummeted 27.2 percent to a 15-year low last month despite record-low mortgage rates, shocking markets and heightening worries that housing's steep slide will drag the rest of the economy back into recession.
The top House Republican said Tuesday it's "time to put grown-ups in charge" as he called on President Obama to fire his whole economic team, but the White House shot back that Republicans haven't offered any better solutions to lead the country out of its slump.
Billionaire Rick Scott rocked Florida's political establishment, overcoming state Attorney General Bill McCollum in the Republican primary for governor, as another GOP insider was ousted by an insurgent challenger for a spot on the November ballot.
The Obama administration will appeal a ruling by a federal judge that temporarily blocks federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, the Justice Department confirmed on Tuesday.
Poor Al Gore. As if an im- pending divorce and allegations of sexual misconduct from an Oregon masseuse weren't bad enough (he has since been cleared of wrongdoing), the apparent collapse of "cap-and-trade" legislation in the U.S. Senate has driven the former vice president to despair.
Saying Washington is hampered by "endless spending sprees, entangled tax structures and bureaucracy run amok," the top House Republican on Tuesday demanded President Obama fire his entire economic team and immediately submit a plan to cut spending to pre-stimulus 2008 levels.
The Obama administration's expansion of stem cell research has suffered a significant setback with a judge's ruling that blocks important work on treating life-threatening conditions, say private groups pushing for scientific breakthroughs in medicine.
Need an X-ray or stitches? Online, via text message or flashing on a billboard, some emergency rooms are advertising how long the dreaded wait for care will be, with estimates updated every few minutes.
The White House says federally funded stem cell research should continue and is exploring how to respond to a judge's order halting it.
