Curator Emily Braun advised Leonard Lauder on the cubist collection he just donated to the Met.

The Boy Scouts of America have decided to allow gay youth to openly join its ranks, reversing a longtime ban.

Insured losses from the tornadoes and severe storms that struck a large swath of the U.S. this week could reach $5 billion, according to the disaster-modeling company Eqecat.

The House passed a bill that would peg the interest rates on federal student loans to the government's borrowing costs and allow them to vary annually, replacing the practice of Congress setting fixed rates.

Minnesota's move to raise $2.1 billion in new taxes, largely from the wealthy, to fund government programs puts it among a handful of states controlled by Democrats that are adopting more liberal fiscal policies.

Director Alex Gibney has a gift for transforming the impenetrable into the palatable, as he did with Abramoff, Spitzer, Kissinger—and now Assange.

An earthquake has struck Northern California's Plumas County with a preliminary magnitude of 5.7.

Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of a controversy over targeting of conservative groups, was placed on administrative leave, according to lawmakers.

Eight House lawmakers were forced to backtrack from an "agreement in principle" on overhauling immigration after Democratic leaders objected to a provision dealing with health-care coverage for illegal immigrants.

A man whom prosecutors charged Wednesday with sending a ricin-laced letter to a federal judge had spent 18 months behind bars for a sex crime more than a decade ago.

Fed chief Ben Bernanke knows clear communication is key to managing market expectations for the central bank's bond-buying program, but discordant voices make clarity easier said than done.

Home buyers are paying more for newly built homes than they ever have, as U.S. home builders continue pushing up prices and limiting the number of properties hitting the market.

As Oklahomans recover from a tornado likely to be among the costliest in U.S. history, many will find that insurance will cover less of the tab than after past storms.

For the first time, Obama has succeeded in placing a judge on a key Washington appeals court. The Senate unanimously confirmed Justice Department lawyer Sri Srinivasan for a seat on the court.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its hurricane forecast for the Atlantic basin, predicting up to 20 named storms and up to six major hurricanes.

The wife of a Chechen man killed during an FBI interrogation in Orlando said authorities also questioned her but never asked about a 2011 triple murder that agents now suggest involved her husband and Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Average premiums in California's new online health-insurance marketplace for consumers won't be as high as predicted by actuaries, though they will vary widely, according to the agency setting up the exchange.

House Republicans attempted to push through approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, passing a bill that would circumvent the need for a special permit from President Obama.

PokerStars, the largest online poker company in the world, is playing a difficult hand: Just two years after being shut down in the U.S. it wants to return to the table.

Infrequent travelers will be in for plenty of surprises over the next three months and ought to prepare to avoid frustration.