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This coming week will be a dramatic one for NASA's Curiosity rover: Hoping to get the vehicle onto smoother terrain, scientists will explore driving the rover over a three-foot sand dune and onto a valley with fewer hazards.

Remember, Curiosity is about the size of a Mini Cooper, but it's ...

The United States ambassador to Russia says he will leave his post after the conclusion of the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation Michael McFaul led the Obama administration's so-called "reset" of diplomatic relations with the country over the past five years. As The New ...

Facebook, Microsoft, Google and LinkedIn released updated details on the number of times the U.S. government asked the companies to turn over information about its users.

If you remember, the tech companies filed suit against the U.S., claiming that the government was violating their right ...

Two prominent U.S. senators are telling reporters that in a private meeting with John Kerry in Munich, the secretary of state said the administration's policy toward Syria is failing.

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) made the comments on a plane ride back to the U.S. with reporters ...

The United States is one step closer to a future where cars will communicate with each other to avoid accidents.

The Department of Transportation announced on Monday it was moving forward with the steps necessary to one day mandate vehicle-to-vehicle — V2V — communication technology on light automobiles.

The big ...

It's sweet, but it's also a little bit sad.

Gawker points us to this bit of human emotion making the rounds on the Internet today:

If you, like us, don't recognize the song, it's Say Something sung by A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera. If we were asked ...

Just as Janet L. Yellen was sworn in as the first woman to head the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke announced his next move on Monday.

The former fed chief, who saw the country through a recovery from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, will join Brookings' Hutchins ...

President Obama has decided to nominate Vice. Adm. Michael Rogers, the current head of U.S. Cyber Command, as the next director of the National Security Agency, The New York Times, Reuters and CNN are reporting.

The Times reports:

"Admiral Rogers, a cryptologist by training who has ...

Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department will seek the death penalty in the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the man charged in connection with the bombing of the 2013 Boston Marathon.

"The nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this decision," Holder said in a ...

A snowy owl that stopped pedestrian traffic — and the presses, when it found a spot outside The Washington Post's building — in Washington, D.C. could not escape the city's danger.

According to the Smithsonian National Zoo, the bird was apparently hit by a bus on Thursday. Police ...

Making good on a campaign promise, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city will drop an appeal challenging a judge's opinion that found the city's controversial "stop and frisk" practices violated the civil rights of thousands of black and Latino residents.

According to the Center for ...

The Department of Justice is looking to expand the number of low-level, nonviolent drug offenders considered for presidential clemency.

As The New York Times reports, Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole told lawyers at a meeting of the New York State Bar Association on Thursday to flag potential candidates.

Just days after President Obama called for action on immigration reform, Republican members of the House are regrouping on the issue during their yearly three-day retreat in Cambridge, Md.

As Roll Call explains, House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio is expected to present members with a one-sheet document on ...

A Colorado man has filed the first direct challenge to the FISA Amendments Act, claiming that the law allowing the government to collect vast amounts of data from the international communications of U.S. citizens in bulk is unconstitutional.

Jamshid Muhtorov, who is accused of providing material support to ...

"I'm not drinking the water."

That's what an environmental scientist from Marshall University and a member of the West Virginia Environmental Quality Board told state lawmakers today during a hearing about a chemical spill that contaminated the drinking water of nine counties.

The West Virginia Gazette ...

Because the economy continues to improve since it started tapering its stimulus program, the Federal Reserve said it would continue to slow the pace of its bond-buying programs.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the Federal Open Market Committee said:

"In light of the cumulative progress toward maximum ...

In his yearly report (pdf) to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the country's spy chief says one of the top threats facing the United States is the unauthorized leak of classified information.

In his threat assessment report, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, listed "insider threats," alongside ...

There was one moment during President Obama's State of the Union speech on Tuesday that overcame all the bitter division and cynicism of Washington.

It happened when Obama spoke about Army Ranger Cory Remsburg, who was almost killed by a roadside bomb during his 10th deployment to Afghanistan.

Sitting next ...

With the country slowly digging itself out of recession, some of his legislative priorities buried under Washington's partisanship and his approval ratings at some of their lowest levels, President Obama called for "a year of action" during his fifth State of the Union address on Tuesday.

During the roughly one-hour ...

Today, President Obama will deliver his fifth State of the Union address. He'll talk about the past year and he'll lay out his vision for the year to come.

A few days ago we asked NPR listeners to show us the state of the union through their lens. We ...