NGTON (AP) -- House Democrats on Tuesday pushed through a $26 billion jobs bill to protect 300,000 teachers and other nonfederal government workers from election-year layoffs.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday that tough economic times require that he shutter a major command that employs some 5,000 people around Norfolk, Va., and begin to eliminate other jobs throughout the military.

NEW YORK — Stock market retreated Tuesday as investors grew more cautious before the Federal Reserve's policy meeting and after reports that showed economic growth slowing in the U.S. and China.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune has uncovered evidence that police officers physically attacked two city residents and a working photojournalist on Sept. 1, 2005, three days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall.

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – U. S. Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) are apparently seeking to downplay public allegations of racism as they seek to make the facts of their cases heard before the Office of Congressional Ethics.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department and BP announced Monday that they have finished negotiations to implement a $20 billion fund for victims of the Gulf oil spill and that BP has made a $3 billion initial deposit.

LEIDSCHENDAM, Netherlands – Naomi Campbell told Mia Farrow that she received a "huge diamond" from the former president of Liberia, the actress said from the witness stand Monday, contradicting the model's testimony that she didn't know the value of the gift from accused war criminal Charles Taylor.

They called it "Team Kilpatrick," a small army of family and friends dedicated to keeping a Detroit congresswoman and her brash, rising star son in office.
As election cycles rolled around, team members donned their trademark green and yellow jackets and poured into Detroit's neighborhoods to knock on doors, pass out literature and get people to the polls.
Until now, it always worked. But the formidable machine that helped keep Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick in Congress and put her son, Kwame, in the Detroit mayor's office may have finally ground to a halt with Ms. Kilpatrick's defeat this week in her bid for an eighth term in the Democratic primary.

Police in Michigan are looking for a man believed to be responsible for the stabbing deaths of five men and the wounding of eight others since May.

These were supposed to be heady days for African-Americans in Congress, with President Barack Obama occupying the White House and a half-dozen blacks holding powerful committee chairmanships and leadership jobs.
But the past two weeks have brought nothing but trouble for members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Two of Congress' most senior African-Americans, Democratic Reps. Charles Rangel of New York and Maxine Waters of California, are fighting to save their reputations and quite possibly their jobs over ethics allegations.