CONGRESS

Stocks dropped on Tuesday on worries about a possible downgrade of the United States' top credit rating and signs of economic weakness even as Congress passed a bill to avoid a debt default.

Gabrielle Giffords returned to the House of Representatives to cast her vote on the historic debt-limit bill in Washington.

U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords reminded Washington and the rest of America and watching world that yes, miracles do happen. Her arrival on the scene to cast a vote for the debt-limit bill came at just the right moment.

Turning a new page in her post-shooting life, U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords attended Congress last night to take part in the voting on the debt deal.

The Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) estimate that the deal deal will cut the deficit by at least $2.1 trillion may not only save the debt deal -- it may save the nation's two, major political parties.

Even though the congressional leaders had all the time in the world to strike a deal on the issue of debt-ceiling raise, they seem to be shamelessly waiting for an 11th hour drama. Technically speaking, Aug. 2 is the end of grace period for extraordinary measures and the U.S. borrowing limit, currently at $14.29 trillion, was reached on May 16 this year. Instead of getting things done Democrats and the Republicans seem to get a kick out of the 'blamestorming game'.

Americans took to the phone lines and the Internet on Friday after President Barack Obama urged them again to call lawmakers and weigh in on a war over raising the U.S. debt limit that has sharply divided Congress.

With four days remaining until the United States hits its debt limit, President Barack Obama on Friday told deeply divided Republicans and Democrats to stop bickering and find a way "out of this mess."

President Barack Obama is deeply involved in trying to win a debt deal and his White House was working flat out, aides said, pushing back against any impression Congress had sidelined the administration.

The U.S. Congress, known for moving painfully slowly, can kick into high gear when it is staring down a deadline important to the entire country -- or when lawmakers are approaching their cherished August recess.

The United States will be "running on fumes" if its debt limit is not raised by August 2, the White House said on Wednesday, as it sought to kill talk that this was not a real deadline to strike a deficit deal.

Executives from rating agencies Standard & Poor's and Moody's Investors Service are scheduled to testify on Wednesday on attempts to reform the credit rating industry and the role it is playing in the U.S. debt ceiling debate.

U.S. Rep. David Wu, D-Ore, will resign following allegations that he had a forced sexual encounter with an 18-year-old woman.

BlackRock's CEO Larry Fink urges President Obama and John Boehner to come to an agreement.

The United States edged closer on Tuesday to a devastating default as President Barack Obama's Democrats and their Republican rivals were deadlocked over competing plans to raise the debt ceiling, one week before a deadline to act.

The Congress faces an August 2 deadline for raising the government's $14.3 trillion limit on borrowing and averting a potentially catastrophic default.

U.S. lawmakers failed to achieve a budget breakthrough and instead worked on rival plans on Sunday in a impasse that heightened prospects for a catastrophic U.S. debt fault.

The world Santa Claus Congress 2011 is being celebrated in Copenhagen

Top House and Senate leaders arrived at the White House on Saturday in a meeting called by President Barack Obama with the aim of advancing a negotiation to avert a federal default.

The FAA partial shutdown resulted in cheaper airline tickets. However, thousands of employees will be laid off starting Friday at midnight.

The U.S. military is prepared to accept servicemembers who are openly gay and lesbian as President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen have certified that such a move won't harm military readiness.