As Election Day nears in Massachusetts, the race between Gabriel Gomez and Representative Edward J. Markey for the Senate seat vacated by John Kerry has focused on lesser issues.    

Several Moore, Okla., residents, whose lives were somehow connected by Monday’s tornado and its aftermath, shared their experiences of enduring the storm.    

For millions of people below the poverty line, no assistance for health insurance will be available in states that have refused to expand Medicaid.    

The recent attacks seem to be aimed at sabotage rather than stealing information, United States officials say.    

A vote by Senator Frank R. Lautenberg for a failed control gun bill gained him allies for the first credible bill in years to revamp the nation’s outmoded chemical safety law.    

Republicans are locked in a growing dispute over future budget negotiations, splitting along generational and ideological lines on the party’s approach to dealing with the federal debt.    

The Boy Scouts of America voted to allow openly gay youths as members, while continuing its policy of excluding openly gay adult leaders.    

The ruling handed down by a federal judge is peppered with stinging criticism of the policies and practices of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, saying the sheriff relied on racial profiling and illegal detentions.    

Despite President Obama’s conciliatory gesture of a review of Justice Department investigations involving journalists, some reporters say that chill has already set in.    

The collapse on Interstate 5 came as politicians had been wrestling over the millions needed to replace another aging bridge over the Columbia River.    

Taking America off “perpetual war footing,” as the president proposes to do, will not be a simple task.    

Lt. Phillip Wise of the Bethany Police Department followed the tornado so he could pull survivors from the wreckage in Oklahoma.    

At least seven people have reported complications after being injected with a potentially contaminated medication made in a pharmacy in Tennessee, federal and state health officials said.    

The campaign to succeed Representative Jo Bonner began on Friday, a day after he said he would resign in August.    

The first of 350 additional Marine guards at high-risk embassies and consulates around the world later this year will cost about $1.6 million each.    

Eduardo Arellano Felix, 56, the last of four brothers accused of operating a Mexican drug cartel, pleaded guilty on Friday in San Diego.    

The guilty verdict stands for Jodi Arias, who was convicted of first-degree murder in the killing of a former boyfriend, and prosecutors say they will retry the penalty phase.    

Howard J. Phillips, the founder of the Conservative Caucus, who born Jewish and turned ardently Christian, was not alone in his converts’ zeal.    

The lawyer for George Zimmerman, the defendant in the Trayvon Martin case, released evidence that appeared intended to undercut the prosecution.    

A survivor of the bridge collapse north of Seattle describes plunging into the icy waters and holding onto his wife until help arrived.