A measure championed by U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan adds $5 million in new funding to the 2013 farm bill to help root out crop insurance fraud.

Get ready for another busy hurricane season, maybe unusually wild, federal forecasters say.

Weather forecasters are predicting another busy Atlantic hurricane season. The storms will get their names from an alphabetical list of 21 names:

A band of thunderstorms battered the Oklahoma City area Thursday, slowing cleanup operations in the suburb where a tornado killed 24 people and destroyed thousands of homes this week.

President Barack Obama's nominee for transportation secretary — Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx — received a friendly reception from senators of both parties Wednesday laced with warnings that the nation needs to make a host of transportation improvements with no clear way to pay for them.

The cost of a massive tornado that battered an Oklahoma City suburb could be more than $2 billion, according to a preliminary official estimate announced Wednesday. State authorities meanwhile said two infants were among the 24 people who perished in the twister.

The parents and guardians stood in the muddy grass outside a suburban Oklahoma City church, listening as someone with a bullhorn called out the names of children who were being dropped off — survivors of a deadly tornado that barreled through their community.

Search-and-rescue crews worked through the night after a monstrous tornado barreled through the Oklahoma City suburbs, demolishing an elementary school and reducing homes to piles of splintered wood. At least 24 people were killed, including at least seven children, and those numbers were expected to climb.

Three more suspects have been taken into custody in the marathon bombings, city police said Wednesday.

President Barack Obama intends to nominate veteran Rep. Melvin Watt to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the government regulator that oversees lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and he has chosen a former cable and wireless industry lobbyist to head the Federal Communications Commission, according to White House officials.

President Barack Obama is nominating Charlotte, N.C., Mayor Anthony Foxx, a rising star in Democratic politics, to run the Transportation Department, a White House official said.

President Barack Obama on Thursday praised his predecessor at the dedication of his library for showing strength and resolve in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks and said if Congress passes immigration reform "it will be in large part thanks to the hard work of President George W. Bush."

Confidence in the U.S. job market has rebounded to roughly a normal level from its record low after the Great Recession, a trend that could help boost the economy.

U.S. officials say the Boston Marathon explosions that killed three people and wounded more than 260 were triggered by a remote-controlled detonator.

In a quest to save money, political leaders in Washington state are exploring a proposal that would shift some government workers out of their current health plans and onto the insurance exchange developed under President Barack Obama's health care law.