Javier Saavedra slumped his burly frame into a worn, plaid couch in the cramped basement room he shares with his girlfriend and their 2-year-old daughter, his expression darkening as he ticked off all the wrong turns that had gotten them stuck below the economy's ground floor.

BAGHDAD -- Even as the U.S. military scrambles to support a troop surge in Afghanistan, it is donating passenger vehicles, generators and other equipment worth tens of millions of dollars to the Iraqi government.

Long before a pair of gate-crashers penetrated a White House state dinner, the Secret Service had detailed for its internal use a lengthy list of security breaches dating to the Carter administration -- including significant failures in the agency's protection of the president.

At Founding Farmers restaurant, the cedar-smoked salmon is advertised as "sustainable." On its November menu, the green-certified restaurant boasted of partnerships with six small farms and dairies. "The difference between institutional/corporate farming vs. family farming affects everyone: our...

When he finishes testifying on Capitol Hill this week, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, will return to Kabul to implement a war strategy that is largely unchanged after a three-month-long White House review of the conflict.

Open seats -- those being abandoned by a lawmaker who is retiring or seeking higher office -- are perennially the most likely to switch parties, as they represent the closest thing to a fair fight that you get in Congress.

-- A Dec. 6 Page One article about the debate within the Obama administration about strategy in Afghanistan misstated the location of President Obama's Oct. 30 meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The meeting was at the White House, not the Pentagon.

President Obama made a rare Sunday visit to the Capitol to urge a fractious Democratic caucus to pull together to pass landmark health-care legislation.

The Supreme Court this week will consider whether to apply the brakes to what critics have called a vague and limitless law that has proved essential to federal prosecutors going after corrupt politicians and greedy corporate executives.

The Obama administration's opening bid in the climate talks beginning Monday in Copenhagen is not impressing some key constituencies.

NEW YORK -- Some children get severely obese because they lack particular chunks of DNA, which kicks their hunger into overdrive, researchers report.

Everything about the shipyard here is colossal -- the 4,000-man workforce, the billions sunk into it in capital costs, the half-finished 10-story-high production platforms.

BAGHDAD -- In a last-minute compromise reached under heavy U.S. pressure, Iraqi lawmakers on Sunday approved a law on seat distribution for the upcoming parliamentary election.

BOLIVIA President Evo Morales easily won reelection Sunday, according to unofficial results, getting an overwhelming mandate for further revolutionary change on behalf of Bolivia's long-suppressed indigenous majority.

New contract solicitations by the U.S. military for private guards at forward operating bases in Afghanistan require that at least half of those hired be Afghans who come from nearby towns or villages.

When it comes to the bowling business, it has been the new, nightclub-style alleys in the area that have gotten most of the media attention in recent years. Newer area clubs such as Bethesda Strike, Gallery Place's Lucky Strike, and Rockville's 300 aim for a hipper crowd with large-screen televis...

My favorite issue of Forbes magazine is the annual special edition listing the 400 richest people in the United States. I can't wait for it. I pore over each mini-biography that describes where the billionaires came from, how they got their start, where they got their big breaks, where they hit...

After I graduated college, the tech industry was booming and there were many jobs, so I entered into the world of information technology.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and President Obama are likely to stay in the forefront of economic news this week.

The Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. and Giant Food chains both removed College Inn No MSG Chicken Broth from their stores this weekend, following a nationwide voluntary recall by the product's maker, Del Monte Foods, because of mislabeling.

MONDAY Understanding India. A seminar on how life and work in India are guided by religion. 6 to 9 p.m., University of California Washington Center, 1608 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Sponsor: India-US World Affairs Institute. Cost: Member, $25; nonmember, $35; student, $15. Contact: 301-651-2818. Web site:...

NJVC of Vienna named Tom Sofo , former vice president and general counsel at Apptis Holdings, general counsel; Kevin Gustin , former principal engineer in the office of the chief technology officer, chief information officer.

-- Thomson Financial

These firms recently filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court's local clerk of court offices.

P resident Obama and his family did the traditional lighting of the White House Christmas tree Wednesday on the Ellipse. That same day he continued the more recent, lower-key tradition, begun by Bill Clinton and followed by George W. Bush , of approving a waiver every six months to legislation that...

Several wine producers in California's Napa Valley tipped their glasses to Washington over the weekend after government officials ended the six-year "Battle of Calistoga."

Jacquelyn Williams-Bridgers, managing director, international affairs and trade, Government Accountability Office