Congress is gearing up to tackle an issue that Washington has mostly ignored for nearly five years: What to do with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Both political parties are encountering a surprising problem as they prepare for next year's battle to control the U.S. Senate: Some of their top choices are turning down invitations to run for seats.

The Outlook: The most important indicator from the Fed's meeting this week might be what it does with its often too-rosy growth outlook.

State lawmakers are encouraging elderly residents to use life insurance as a way to pay for long-term care—and lower the Medicaid tab in the process.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that courts should give more scrutiny to pharmaceutical industry patent settlements that can delay the entry of generic drugs.

The Supreme Court agreed to review a legal approach used by U.S. officials and others to challenge housing discrimination, in a case that has implications for labor-secretary nominee Thomas Perez.

Congressional interviews with Internal Revenue Service employees so far have undercut assertions by agency officials and some Democrats that the targeting of conservative groups was solely the work of agents in the Cincinnati office.

The National Security Agency sweeps up data on millions of cellphones and Internet communications, but it has disclosed new details that portray its efforts as tightly controlled and limited in scope.

North Korea called for talks with the U.S. but offered no indication of winding down its nuclear-weapons program.

Ahead of a G-8 summit in Belfast, Obama urged Northern Ireland to preserve its fragile peace agreement, drawing a comparison with America's efforts to overcome racial divisions.

The House is tackling immigration legislation in small slices, in an effort led by Judiciary Committee head Bob Goodlatte, whose panel meets Tuesday to take the chamber's first formal action on the issue.

President Obama arrived in Northern Ireland for a summit that will center on the intensifying showdown over Syria's civil war, amid rising tensions between world powers over the conflict.

The U.S. and Europe increasingly are moving in different directions to modernize air-traffic-control networks and the result threatens to undermine progress on both sides, a Federal Aviation Administration official says.

Rich Matiszik loves Milwaukee though the struggling schools have him weighing a move to avoid private high-school tuition for his two kids. But the 48-year-old fire captain can't leave without quitting his job under a local law in effect since 1938.

Obama isn't defending the war powers he has used so robustly.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating an emergency landing Saturday night by a private jet that was carrying former President George W. Bush.

When he visits Berlin this week, U.S. President Barack Obama won't likely draw the same enthusiasm on the streets that he received during his first visit in 2008, as Germans have become disappointed with his administration's foreign and security policies.

Phone metadata, the information at the center of a debate over a NSA data-collection program, gives police and spies alike one of the most powerful investigative tools ever devised.

With the Senate expected to vote on a far-reaching immigration bill by early July, supporters are stepping up their courtship of the many lawmakers who remain publicly undecided.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has approved keeping Patriot missile-defense batteries and F-16 warplanes in Jordan, officials said, in a move aimed at shoring up support for the kingdom and at deterring Syria.