Virginia | featured news

In what's believed to be the first case of its kind, the same-sex spouse of a member of the military will be buried in a national cemetery.

As House Republicans gather at a private retreat in Williamsburg, Va., to plot a course to address the next string of fiscal deadlines facing Congress this spring, Rep. Paul Ryan, the former Republican nominee for vice president, told reporters today that conservatives could agree to a short-term increase to the debt limit.

Gun sales have surged in the region and across the nation in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre as enthusiasts rush to buy firearms they fear will be outlawed by a fresh push for gun control.

President Obama sought to shore up his standing in Midwestern states, including Iowa and Wisconsin, while Mitt Romney fought to secure critical states like Florida and Virginia.

Stumping in western Virginia on Thursday, Mitt Romney resumed his full-throated critique of President Barack Obama, mocking the president's proposed new cabinet position to oversee businesses' needs and predicting four more years of a stagnant economy should the incumbent be re-elected.

People in Florida, Virginia and Indiana have gotten calls falsely telling them they can vote early by phone and don't need to go to a polling place. In suburban Broward County, Fla., a handful of elderly voters who requested absentee ballots say they were visited by unknown people claiming to be authorized to collecttheballots.

With the presidential contest in Virginia teetering on a knife's edge, Mitt Romney is counting on the economic concerns of suburban women to lock up a state that's almost a must-carry for him. Joanie Smerdzinski, 34, is one of them. She voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and still finds him more likable than his Republican rival. "I mean, would I want to hang out with Romney? No," said the political independent, who also disagrees with Romney's opposition to same-sex marriage.

Timothy M. Kaine enters the final days of Virginia’s U.S. Senate contest with a clear advantage over George Allen, a new Washington Post poll shows, keeping an edge despite a tightening presidential race and an avalanche of outside spending against the Democrat.

President Obama is clinging to a slender, four-point lead over Republican Mitt Romney in Virginia, as both sides ramp up already aggressive campaigns in the crucial battleground state, according to a new Washington Post poll.

Retiree Robert Stevens says he turns off the television when the attack ads appear, and he hangs up the phone when it's a presidential campaign calling. At this point, he says, "I don't know who I am going to vote for."