Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senior Treasury officials were made aware in June 2012 that investigators were looking into complaints from tea party groups that they were being harassed by the Internal Revenue Service, a Treasury inspector general said Friday, disclosing that Obama administration officials knew there was a probe during the heat of the presidential campaign....

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Days after bursts of gunfire brought a chaotic and bloody end to a Mother's Day neighborhood parade in New Orleans, news of now seven arrests gave an organizer of the traditional event reason to celebrate again....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Friday ordered the military to recertify all 25,000 people involved in programs designed to prevent and respond to sexual assault, an acknowledgement that assaults have escalated beyond the Pentagon's control....

NEW YORK (AP) -- It was supposed to be our IPO, the people's public offering....

In workplaces across the nation, Americans are inviting their colleagues to chip in $2 for a Powerball ticket and a shared daydream....

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Bombs ripped through Sunni areas in Baghdad and surrounding areas Friday, killing at least 76 people in the deadliest day in Iraq in more than eight months. The major spike in sectarian bloodshed heightened fears the country could again be veering toward civil war....

PETARE, Venezuela (AP) -- Stern-looking soldiers clutching assault rifles wave down the beat-up Chevy Caprice entering this sprawling slum on the outskirts of Caracas....

BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- He was a Russian-speaking truck driver in Idaho, among hundreds of Uzbekistan natives for whom the state has become a sanctuary from violence in their home country in the past decade....

MILAN (AP) -- Silvio Berlusconi's private disco featured not only aspiring showgirls performing striptease acts as sexy nuns and nurses, but one woman dressed up as President Barack Obama and a prominent Milan prosecutor whom the billionaire media mogul has accused of persecuting him, according to the first public sworn testimony by the Moroccan woman at the center of the scandal....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Internal Revenue Service is feeling the sort of heat that targeted taxpayers feel from the tax agency. It's the sense that a powerful someone is breathing down your neck....

BRUNSWICK, Maine (AP) -- Patty Wagstaff is a Hollywood stunt pilot, three-time U.S. aerobatic champion, inductee to the National Aviation Hall of Fame and favorite on the air show circuit. One of her tricked-out planes is on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The embarrassing arrest of a suspected CIA officer in Moscow is the latest reminder that even after the Cold War, the U.S. and Russia are in an espionage battle with secret tactics, spying devices and training that sometimes can't prevent capture....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The organic food industry is gaining influence on Capitol Hill, prompted by its entry into traditional farm states and by increasing consumer demand....

BEIRUT (AP) -- About 30 security agents showed up just after midnight, breaking down the door to an apartment in the town of Daraya near the Syrian capital of Damascus. They grabbed a 24-year-old university student and drove off....

PARIS (AP) -- Suspected thieves ripped out a small safe from the wall of a hotel room near the Cannes Film Festival and made off with about $1 million worth of jewelry inside, a French police official said Friday....

NEW YORK (AP) -- In one photo, a woman is on all fours, presumably picking something up, her posterior pressed against a glass window. Another photo shows a couple in bathrobes, their feet touching beneath a table. And there is one of a man, in jeans and a T-shirt, lying on his side as he takes a nap....

Japanese goods are getting more affordable. For consumers worldwide - and for Japan's economy - it's welcome news....

1. HOUSE TO GRILL OUSTED IRS CHIEF...

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- The numbers sum up the frenzy that has taken over the Golden State since it joined the madness over Powerball, which has seen its jackpot soar to $550 million for Saturday's drawing....

PARIS (AP) -- After David Beckham's long and distinguished soccer career ends on an artificial turf field in northwestern France, his life promises to be perhaps even more glamorous than it already has been....