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BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Ah, the tease. By the time the McCain press corps boarded the Straight Talk Boeing 747 we had been worked up in a frenzy worthy of a Hannah

I reported last week that Cass Sunstein, the Harvard Law School professor whose nomination to run the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is in Senate

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (Pic by US Mission Geneva, via Flickr) A federal health agency yesterday denied two states’ requests for waivers of a provision in the health care reform law that requires a profit cap for health insurance companies. Florida is currently waiting for a decision on a similar waiver from the agency. Via The Hill : The Department of Health and Human Services said Indiana and Louisiana do not need an adjustment from the health law’s medical loss ratio

Another oil rig has exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. The New York Times reports that the rig is just east of the Deepwater Horizon rig, which exploded in

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) is set today to unveil legislation overhauling the way the banking industry is regulated. On certain points, the Dodd bill mirrors the

I’ve cooled off on the birther movement after the forged Kenyan birth certificate debacle killed a lot of their enthusiasm. And one fringe benefit of the

Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet on Friday sent a letter to U.S.

GUANTANAMO BAY -- As an addendum to my piece this morning, it’s worth noting an unexpected and unusual attack on the integrity of Omar Khadr’s attorneys and the

U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Jay Bybee shocked a lot of people this week when he told The New York Times that has no real regrets about signing off on the Office

As Congress wraps up business on the eve of a week-long Memorial Day break, an odd thing is happening in the Republican Party: Its once-faithful members are

According to a new study, migration from northern states to the Sun Belt has slowed in the past few years, putting a break on the population growth that has driven the region’s relatively strong economic performance. USA Today reports : Net population gains from Americans moving to Arizona, Nevada and Florida from other states have been largely wiped out, according to migration data from the IRS. “This recession has been a sobering experience for Americans when it comes to migration,” says Kenneth Johnson, demographer at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey Institute who analyzed the data.

President Barack Obama called for immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, in a speech in El Paso , Texas, on Tuesday.

My friend Bettina Inclan passed on a link to this video, and I clicked on it, expecting Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) to rant angrily about Cuba policy,

Controversial Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio will face a Department of Justice lawsuit if he does not cooperate with a civil rights investigation, according to a

John Boehner might be too tan to be effective. Iowa Republican Steve King thinks Obama is at least a Marxist. China’s economy is bigger than

This new Rasmussen Reports poll is going to encourage Republicans who are already running on a 2010 promise to cancel whatever stimulus spending they

“Hey, hey, ho, ho our racist governor has got to go!” chanted demonstrators Monday night outside the grand opening of the new headquarters for Houston tea

In an optimistic fashion section profile of Detroit the New York Times reports that the city “seems like a giant candy store for young college graduates wanting to be their own bosses.” Recent census figures show that Detroit’s overall population shrank by 25 percent in the last 10 years. But another figure tells a different and more intriguing story: During the same time period, downtown Detroit experienced a 59 percent increase in the number of college-educated residents under the age of 35, nearly 30 percent more than two-thirds of the nation’s 51 largest cities. These days the word “movement” is often heard to describe the influx of socially aware hipsters and artists now roaming the streets of Detroit.

In mid-June, Iraq’s oil minister, Husain Shahristani, announced that he would grant no-bid development contracts for Iraq’s oil fields to Western oil

Mortgage Insider tallies up the carnage among subprime lenders since the foreclosure crisis began -- and it’s grim: The list of major subprime lenders for 2006

The massive protests at the White House in opposition to the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline continued on Tuesday with 60 people, including actress Margot Kidder, being arrested and taken to jail. The Huffington Post did a video report from the site of the protests, including an interview with protest organizer Bill McKibben.