WASHINGTON – Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had cancer surgery earlier this year, was kept at a hospital overnight after she became drowsy and fell from her seat aboard an airplane. Court officials blamed a reaction to medicine. Ginsburg was taken to Washington Hospital Center around 11:15 p.m. Wednesday by paramedics and released Thursday morning, court officials said. Ginsburg, ...

Is David Letterman to blame for the lack of diversity at the Department of Homeland Security? The talk show host's recent admission of trysts with women who worked for him, a Republican lawmaker said Wednesday, has provoked not outrage among his fans and the media, but rather a sense of reluctant acceptance. And Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.) suggested that such a ...

Current and former federal employees angered by premium increases in the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program will get their day before Congress on Wednesday, when senators hope to get answers about why the impending price jump is warranted and what the government did to inform participants. Most federal and postal employees are eligible for the program, which is run by ...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama restated his campaign pledge to allow homosexual men and women to serve openly in the military, but many in his audience of gay activists were left wondering when he would make good on the promise. "I will end 'don't ask-don't tell,'" Obama said Saturday night to a standing ovation from the crowd of about 3,000 ...

Some federal employees will have to choose new health plans during open season this year because their insurance providers are leaving the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, or reducing the number of areas they cover. "Some employees still might not receive instructions to change plans during open season," Kathleen M. McGettigan, deputy associate director of the Center for Retirement and Insurance ...

The White House and the Office of Personnel Management this week announced hiring initiatives aimed at halting a decline in the representation of disabled employees in the federal workforce. President Obama earlier this week said he hoped the government could become a model for other employers. "Across this country, millions of people with disabilities are working or want to work, and ...

The U.S. Postal Service lost billions of dollars in revenue during the last fiscal year as the volume of mail plunged. Lawmakers may one day soon consider cutting mail delivery to five days a week. They also may need to sort out how the Postal Service pays for the benefits of current and future retirees. But most customers only care about ...

OSLO (AP) -- President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to encourage his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism. Nobel observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two ...

The Department of Veterans Affairs' problems with the Post-9/11 GI Bill's benefits seem to linger, no matter what the government does. Tens of thousands of veterans, active-duty servicemembers and their dependents have been waiting for promised higher-education benefits from VA since fall classes began last month. The agency attempted to address the backlog by granting $3,000 in emergency checks, but that ...

WASHINGTON — California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger praised President Barack Obama's drive to overhaul the nation's health care system on Tuesday and urged fellow Republicans to join in efforts to finish the job this year. Although Schwarzenegger stopped short of embracing a Democratic bill, his words of encouragement came on the heels of similar statements from other Republicans outside Congress, including former ...

Delivering on President Obama's promise to boost the labor movement, the administration has announced a $35 million federal construction project in New Hampshire that requires union representation for the workers and forces nonunion employees to pay dues and contribute to a union pension fund. Mr. Obama issued an executive order in the first weeks of his presidency that would make the ...

Latino Americans may be the nation's fastest-growing minority group, but they're also the most underrepresented among civilian federal employees. As of last September, Hispanics accounted for about 8 percent of the total civilian federal workforce, according to the Office of Personnel Management. That's well below the 13.2 percent of Hispanics in the national civilian labor force, according to Labor Department statistics. ...

For a long time there has been a lot of empty noise about the federal hiring process. Now the squeaky wheel is finally getting some high-level grease. Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, has put agency and department heads on notice about the urgent need to fix federal hiring. He gave them six months to make progress ...

Federal managers tend to be more enthusiastic about their work and more committed to their organizations' missions than their counterparts in the private sector, a new survey shows. The survey, conducted by McKinsey & Co. in partnership with Government Executive, found that the federal government earns higher marks than the private sector on questions relating to what McKinsey calls the "heart ...

Lawyers, lobbyists, librarians and concerned citizens, rejoice: As of Monday, it is much easier to access the Federal Register. The de facto daily newspaper of the executive branch publishes approximately 80,000 pages of documents each year, including presidential disaster declarations, Medicare reimbursement rates, and thousands of agency rulings on policies ranging from banking to fishing to food. It's a must-read for ...

Citing the ongoing economic crisis and a ballooning federal budget, President Obama announced he would use his authority to set a 2 percent pay raise for federal employees starting in January 2010. The proposal angered employee groups and lawmakers who have pushed for pay parity between civilians and members of the military, who are slated to receive a 3.4 percent raise ...

Never let it be said that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano doesn't know how to kick off National CyberSecurity Awareness Month. "I'm pleased to announce today that we've been given direct authority to hire up to 1,000 additional cyberspecialists within the Department of Homeland Security, to assist, and make our efforts more robust and vibrant than they are right now." The ...

Federal employees have submitted more than 10,000 ideas to improve government, and feds still are two more weeks to enter. The Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag wrote in his blog today that his office has received 10,266 entries under the Securing Americans Value and Efficiency (SAVE) Award. OMB announced the competition Sept. 23, and it runs through Oct. ...

President Obama has banned federal employees from text messaging when they are behind the wheel of government vehicles and from texting in their own cars if they use government-issued phones or are on official business. The ban, in the form of an executive order signed Wednesday night, was announced Thursday by U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood at the culmination of a ...

On Nov. 3, 2008, Elizabeth Colton, a Foreign Service officer, received an e-mail with good news: She had been offered a two-year posting as chief of the political-economic section at the U.S. Embassy in Algiers. "Congratulations!" wrote Maggie Nardi, acting director of the Office of Maghreb Affairs in the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. "On behalf of NEA and ...