by Noam N. Levey and Matea Gold President-elect Barack Obama has asked Dr. Sanjay Gupta to be the next U.S. surgeon general, looking to a popular television personality to help provide a public face for his healthcare agenda. Best known as a health and medicine correspondent for CNN and CBS, Gupta, 39, (pictured left in a photo...

by Frank James President-elect Barack Obama has reportedly decided on Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the neurosurgeon who serves as CNN's chief medical correspondent, for his surgeon general, according to a report on Washingtonpost.com. President-elect Barack Obama has offered the job of surgeon general to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the neurosurgeon and...

by Frank James President-elect Barack Obama's planned pre-inauguration train trip to Washington via Philadelphia, Wilmington, Del. and Baltimore has stoked concerns among some that he could be at risk from a terrorist attack on caustic industrial chemicals near the rail lines his official train will use. According to Government Security News...

By Peter Wallsten and updated at 4:05 pm with Bush statement Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and brother of President Bush, has decided not to run for the U.S. Senate, ending weeks of speculation that he would preserve a Bush family power center in the nation's capital. Unlike his older brother, Jeb Bush (pictured at left in an AP...

by Frank James A lot of people who checked out the House hearing yesterday on Bernard Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme probably got a little confused by something Rep. Gary Ackerman of New York said. Ackerman, a Democrat, was castigating the Security Investors Protection Corp. chief executive and other government officials for not doing enough...

by Mark Silva The private fundraising for President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration -- $27 million and counting - is nearing the $40 million raised for each of President Bush's two big shows. And some of the biggest donors are no strangers: Nearly 400 donors have contributed the maximum $50,000 allowed to support the Jan. 20 swearing-in....

by Frank James Remember the Patty Duke Show of the 1960s with the ridiculous, genetically impossible premise of two cousins who were identical twins? It was double trouble in black and white. If you do, then the Social Security Administration is trying to get your attention with a new ad featuring that classic show's star. The SSA wants aging...

by Mike Dorning and Mark Silva Roland Burris of Illinois, rejected in his attempt to take a new seat in the Senate this morning, averted any public showdown by quietly accepting the refusal of his credentials inside the Secretary of the Senate's office on the third floor of the Capitol. "My name is Roland Burris, the junior Senator from the...

by Mark Silva We don't often see the president-elect of the United States doing restaurant reviews. And we only now are seeing this one, taped in 2001. The producers of Chicago station WTTW's Check, Please! had been scouting for amateur reviewers. "The premise was simple: Check, Please! would feature three new amateur reviewers each week;...

by Frank James Next time you go to the airport, have pity on the Transportation Security Administration officers who make you remove your shoes or go through the magnetometer several times. For they may be going through their own form of fresh hell. As the Washington Post explains: The new blue uniforms issued to Transportation Security...