Alan Greenblatt

All of a sudden, Sen. John McCain matters again.

It's not like he disappeared. But after being sidelined for a time by his 2008 defeat in the presidential election against Barack Obama, the Arizona Republican has re-emerged as one of Obama's most important allies in the Senate.

McCain took the ...

Pat McCrory hasn't fared too well with protesters.

The Republican governor of North Carolina has signed off on a vast array of conservative legislation this year, cutting taxes, slashing unemployment benefits and abolishing teacher tenure. So much change so fast has led to protests, including "Moral Monday" events staged at ...

It's going to be a party in Minneapolis.

With gay marriages becoming legal in Minnesota on Thursday, courthouses in major cities across the state will be open after midnight to accommodate dozens of same-sex couples eager to tie the knot.

"It's good for our business," says Ron Stein, a jeweler ...

Detroit was supposed to be a showplace of the urban renaissance.

A little more than a decade ago, Detroit was widely touted as one of the great comeback stories in the country. It was a common theme in the mid-to-late-1990s, with a generation of successful mayors leading their cities back ...

Joe Kelso and John Winter probably waited too long. The couple has been together for a dozen years but only got serious recently about buying a house in San Francisco.

They saved enough to be able to afford anything under $500,000, but houses at such prices are now few and ...

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner's problems — a sex scandal coupled with federal investigations into possible financial improprieties — may end up being purely personal matters.

But they aren't helping the city's reputation any.

Nearly a decade ago, the city suffered through a pension underfunding scandal that anticipated ...

This is a big year for mayor's races. And it was supposed to be "the year of the woman" for mayoral candidates.

When 2013 began, there was a fair amount of hope that women could make up for their relatively measly representation in local offices nationwide by capturing the mayoralty ...

You've probably never heard of Alan Rosenthal, but few people have done more over the past half-century not only to describe state governments, but redefine how they operate.

Rosenthal, a longtime political scientist at Rutgers University and a giant in his field, died Wednesday at age 81, after battling cancer. ...

Democrats aren't getting any younger. At least, their top leaders aren't.

Voters under the age of 30 were key to President Obama's electoral success. But Obama's going gray and his most prominent potential successors aren't paragons of youth.

Hillary Clinton, who would be the presumptive Democratic favorite for president ...

It's a political ticket only Jon Stewart could dream up.

With Anthony Weiner leading the race for New York mayor in some polls, fellow Democrat Eliot Spitzer now hopes to appear on the same ballot in the city comptroller slot.

This latest news comes in a season that has already ...

Andrea Brearley's kids really want to see Pixar while on vacation. The problem is that the family is staying in San Francisco, and with rail workers on strike, they're having a hard time figuring out how to get to the cartoon-maker's headquarters across the bay in Emeryville, Calif.

Brearley, who ...

It's not that firefighters are never afraid, but they have too many other things to worry about to give in to fear.

Especially the elite wildland crews known as hotshots.

"Fear is not an aspect of the job, per se," says David Simpson, superintendent of the hotshot crew based in ...

Bernice Frucht performed San Francisco's last same-sex marriage in 2008. She finished just under the wire.

As she's done for the past 20 years, Bernice was conducting weddings at City Hall as a volunteer deputy marriage commissioner at the time. Officials there were awaiting instructions following passage of Proposition 8, ...

The death penalty has become a bit like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland. It may never fade away entirely, but capital punishment is certainly less visible or actively pursued than it used to be.

In May, Maryland became the sixth state in as many years to abolish the ...

Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who is already executing prisoners faster than any Florida governor in modern times, signed a bill Monday designed to speed up the death penalty process.

Six weeks ago, Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley moved in the opposite direction: He signed a bill abolishing the death penalty, making ...

If it's him, it's going to be a letdown.

For the better part of 40 years, the disappearance of former Teamsters President James Hoffa has been a source of fascination on par with Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and the aliens in Roswell, N.M.

If the FBI finds and identifies ...

The Supreme Court may rule on gay marriage this week. Advocates both for and against are glad the issue didn't reach the court any sooner.

They didn't want a repeat of the abortion issue. With its landmark decision in Roe v. Wade, the high court stepped in and guaranteed a ...

American politics has become like a big square dance. When the music stops after an election, people switch to the other side on a number of issues, depending on whether their party remains in power.

That was pretty clear this week, when polls revealed more Democrats than Republicans support tracking ...

President Obama says he welcomes a debate about the National Security Agency's surveillance programs. So far, there's not much sign of one happening, at least on Capitol Hill.

Leading members of Congress remain largely supportive of the effort to "protect America," as some senators have characterized broad tracking of Internet ...

Are you old enough to remember privacy?

Teens and even young adults have grown up in an environment where sharing information about themselves online is not just encouraged but expected.

Yet there's a disconnect between the attitudes young people express about online privacy and their actual behavior.

A Washington Post-Pew ...