US government

The shortfall was more than 8% from the previous year and the third highest on record, the Treasury Department said Friday.

The national debt is the total amount of outstanding debt that the U.S. Federal Government has accumulated. Here’s what you need to know.

Congress on Wednesday passed a temporary measure that keeps government agencies funded into December, avoiding a shutdown for now while punting final spending decisions until after the Nov. 5 election.

House Speaker Mike Johnson will move ahead with a temporary spending bill that would prevent a partial government shutdown when the new budget year begins on Oct. 1.

Surveys show that a third of American adults can’t name the three branches of the federal government. One found that 10% of college graduates think TV’s “Judge Judy” serves on the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Postal Service is ending discounts that shipping consolidators such as UPS and DHL use to get packages to the nation’s doorsteps, in a move meant to help the Postal Service slow losses but that could see the higher costs passed on to consumers. The changes announced Wednesday affect nearly 2 billion packages each year that consolidators send through...

The U.S. Postal Service hopes to save $3 billion a year through a series of changes reflecting greater reliance on streamlined regional networks.

The Senate bogged down Friday evening on a $1.2 trillion package of spending bills, increasing the prospects that funding for some key federal agencies could lapse and initiate a partial government shutdown beginning at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

Several state capitols received bomb threats that led to evacuations or lockdowns Wednesday morning.

Arizona and Utah will keep the iconic national parks in those states open if a federal government shutdown cuts off funding nationwide.

State and local agencies that distributed federal aid to renters facing eviction during the pandemic are now scrambling to claw back millions of dollars in overpayments.

The White House on Friday directed federal agencies to get ready for a shutdown after House Republicans left town for the weekend with no viable plan to keep the government funded and avert politically and economically costly disruption of federal services.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy is trying to accomplish what at times seems impossible. The Republican speaker is working furiously to convince his colleagues to come together to pass a conservative bill to keep the federal government open. But it has little chance of actually preventing a federal shutdown. Whatever Republicans come up with in the House is expected to be rejected...

The court ruled that Gershkovich, who has been detained since March, must stay in jail on espionage charges until the end of November.

Former OPM employee Sheron Spann will be sentenced Sept. 21 for steering information technology contracts to a company her husband co-founded.

The Bipartisan Policy Center modeled the Treasury Department’s cash flow, noting what day bills are paid as the U.S. tries to raise the debt ceiling.

The National Archives has been called more than 80 times in the past decade-plus about classified materials found in the papers of former members of Congress and other U.S. officials. That tally cited in newly released congressional testimony underscores the weaknesses in how the government tracks and safeguards its most important secrets. Archives officials said most of the calls came...