The government doled out as much as $1.4 billion in bogus assistance to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, getting hoodwinked to pay for season football tickets, a tropical vacation and even a divorce lawyer, congressional investigators have found. ...

A lack of coordination among utility companies is one of the reasons why thousands of Mississippi families are still waiting for trailers more than four months after Hurricane Katrina destroyed their homes, a federal official told a congressional subcommittee Saturday. ...

Edie Lutnick can't watch images of Hurricane Katrina's devastation for very long. The memories it evokes are too painful. ...

ATLANTA — Hundreds of firefighters who volunteered to help rescue victims of Hurricane Katrina have instead been playing cards, taking classes on FEMA's history and lounging at an Atlanta airport hotel for days while they await orders. ...

Just last year the Associated Press predicted all of the failures that have became part of the Katrina tragedy - but the story was about another hurricane, Hurricane Ivan. ...

IF YOU ever doubted the importance of the Supreme Court, consider the fuss about Kelo v New London. The five-to-four ruling by the court on June 23rd, apparently giving the government the power to bulldoze homes on flimsy grounds, has set off fiery protests across the country. ...

Texas has become the fourth state to have a non-white majority population, the U.S. Census Bureau said Thursday, a trend driven by a surging number of Hispanics moving to the state. ...

U.S. law enforcement never received information on Sept. 11 ringleader Mohamed Atta (search) and his possible connections to Al Qaeda, even though that information was known more than a year before the attacks that left approximately 3,000 people dead, Rep. Curt Weldon (search) said Tuesday. ...

An unusual alliance of House lawmakers introduced a bill Wednesday to try to curb the impact of a Supreme Court ruling last month that allows local governments to take private property for other private uses they deem to be in the best interest of the public at large. ...

The publicly funded William Paterson University in New Jersey reprimanded Jihad Daniel for discrimination and sexual harassment. The 63-year-old Daniel, who is both an employee and a student at the university, is now at the center of a free speech controversy. ...

The video game industry's decision to give an adults-only rating to the best-selling "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" because of explicit sexual content could signal the start of a crackdown on raunchy games. ...

As she was leaving for summer school Monday morning, the day after she had finished ''Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," 14-year-old Chelsey Bowman of Newton asked her mother, ''Will you be here when I get home at 1 o'clock? I don't want to be alone." ...

Global warming is a hot issue in Congress right now, but not just because of pressure from the usual suspects in the radical eco-activist movement. Instead, a few businesses are leading the charge — which happens to be calculated to fill their coffers at the public's expense. ...

Senator John McCain, the maverick Arizona Republican, says it isn't true that Washington is torn by partisanship. No, McCain says, Republicans and Democrats are united on one issue: Throwing away taxpayers' money. "Fiscal irresponsibility is the one thing that unites Democrats and Republicans," says McCain, "And, for that, we should all be ashamed." ...

The federal government does a lot of dumb things. Perhaps the dumbest was Congress’ decision to have the federal government redesign household appliances. In recent months, consumers have been enraged by water-stingy toilets and shower heads. Yet this is only the beginning. Having redesigned the bathroom, with auspicious results, the federal government is moving on to the rest of the family home. ...