Spartan Echo

  WASHINGTON (AP) — The man who led the Internal Revenue Service when it was giving extra scrutiny to tea party and other conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status told Congress on Tuesday, May 21, that he knew little about what was happening while he was still commissioner. Douglas Shulman, who vacated his position last November when [...]

  WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress easily approved legislation Friday, April 26, ending furloughs of air traffic controllers that have delayed hundreds of flights daily, infuriating travelers and causing political headaches for lawmakers. The House approved the measure on a 361-41 vote, a day after the Senate swiftly agreed to the bill. The vote came as lawmakers [...]

  LONDON (AP) — Angelina Jolie brought her celebrity wattage to London on Thursday, April 15, to back an urgent cause: fighting sexual violence in military conflicts. The Hollywood star joined British Foreign Secretary William Hague in announcing $36 million in additional funding from G-8 nations to go toward a series of measures for preventing sexual [...]

  WASHINGTON (AP) — The immigration overhaul pending before Congress is picking up more high-profile support as Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, bankrolls a new documentary to promote the effort, directed by Academy Award-winner Davis Guggenheim. Guggenheim directed Al Gore’s film on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” and 2010′s “Waiting for Superman,” [...]

  LONDON (AP) — The BBC came up with an awkward compromise Friday,April 12, over “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead,” a song that is zooming up the music charts in a posthumous protest against Margaret Thatcher. The online campaign to drive the “Wizard of Oz” song to the No. 1 spot on the U.K. singles [...]

  WASHINGTON (AP) — Yikes! It seems “The Daily Show” and diplomacy don’t mix. That’s the lesson the U.S. Embassy in Cairo is learning the hard way after being rebuked by both the Egyptian government and the State Department for causing an international incident. The embassy tweeted a link to a Jon Stewart monologue that [...]

  WASHINGTON (AP) — An amused President Barack Obama read a children’s book to a gathering of boys and girls at the White House, then peppered them with questions: Had any of them lost a tooth? Had any climbed trees? Had any fallen after climbing? It was all part of the annual White House Easter [...]

  HONOLULU (AP) — The future is looking bleak for a celebrity privacy bill in Hawaii known as the Steven Tyler Act. The proposal pushed by the Aerosmith lead singer would allow people to sue others who take photos or videos of their private moments. But after sailing through the Senate earlier this month following [...]

    BERLIN (AP) — With the wartime generation rapidly disappearing, a television drama about five young Germans in World War II has revived debate in Germany about the role ordinary men and women played in the Nazis’ murderous campaign to conquer Europe. Millions tuned in last week to watch the three-part series “Our Mothers, [...]

  BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — Big change is coming to the lives of the lesbian couple at the center of the fight for same-sex marriage in California no matter how the Supreme Court decides their case. After 13 years of raising four boys together, Kris Perry and Sandy Stier are about to be empty nesters. [...]

  AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — George Prescott Bush filed the official paperwork Tuesday, Mar. 15, to run for Texas land commissioner next year, hoping to use a little-known but powerful post to continue his family’s political dynasty in one of the country’s most-conservative states. A Spanish-speaking attorney and consultant based in Fort Worth, Bush is considered [...]