washington

WASHINGTON - Mark Herr of Memphis, Tenn. and a group of like-minded tea party activists hit the road to the nation's capital this week, hoping to stand before the Lincoln Memorial Saturday at Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally.

WASHINGTON - About 70 percent of the schools the Department of Defense runs across the globe are physically substandard, with some so outmoded that classrooms have only one electrical outlet each.

WASHINGTON - Here's one spirited grass-roots campaign where bickering Democrats and Republicans just might manage to find some common ground.

WASHINGTON - No acronym is more feared on Capitol Hill than BRAC, shorthand for the military Base Realignment and Closure Commissions, which, since 1988, have approved the closing of 119 major installations and 88 substantial realignments.

WASHINGTON - Cammie Croft is paid to communicate with people in 140 characters or fewer.

As the director of new media and citizen engagement for the U.S. Department of Energy, Croft is tasked with managing the agency's website and social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter.

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon has slammed the door -- again -- on a request from former military dog handlers to honor U.S. war dogs with an official medal for their service.

WASHINGTON - House Republican leaders sent their members a new weapon last week for their summer campaign to win back the House: a slick, 15-page document called "Tread Boldly" that demands an end to Washington's "reckless spending binge."

WASHINGTON - Rep. Elton Gallegly has argued for nearly 20 years that one way to fight illegal immigration would be to deny citizenship to U.S.-born children of people who enter the country illegally.

It has been a lonely battle. Until now.

WASHINGTON - It's time, say America's dentists, that they are welcomed into the ranks of first responders who come to their country's emergency aid, and they're not talking about mobilizing to combat mass outbreaks of gingivitis.

NORMAN, Okla. - At ease amid noisy young relatives and family photos in her brother's home here, Elizabeth Warren doesn't seem like a person at the center of a fierce political battle that stretches from Wall Street to the White House.