New York's oldest library can finally fill a gap left on its shelves two centuries ago when George Washington borrowed a book and failed to bring it back. The first US president took "The Law of Nations" by Emer de Vattel from the New York Society Library on October 5, 1789 and, like many a less illustrious borrower, didn ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A library book borrowed by the first U.S. president, George Washington, has been returned to a New York City's oldest library, 221 years late. Washington checked out the book from the New York Society Library at a time when the library shared a building with the federal government in lower Manhattan. The library said in ...

The White House says Vice President Joe Biden's son Beau is being transferred to a Philadelphia hospital for further observation and examination after suffering a mild stroke. Beau Biden, who is Delaware's attorney general, was scheduled to be moved Tuesday afternoon from Delaware to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. He was said to be in stable condition and alert ...

W. Willard Wirtz, a lawyer and labor arbitrator who was labor secretary in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations but broke publicly with Lyndon Johnson over Vietnam, has died. Wirtz, 98, died Saturday of natural causes at his home in Washington, his son Philip said ...

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - When historian Michael F. Holt was asked to write a book on Franklin Pierce, the 14th president of the United States, he admits he had little interest in the Democrat who ran the country from 1853 to 1857. But Holt, a leading historian of 19th century U.S. politics and author of six books, said he was ...

President Barack Obama congratulated John Paul Stevens on his 90th birthday Tuesday, hailing the Supreme Court justice's decades-long career for leaving "an undeniable imprint on our country's jurisprudence." Stevens joined Oliver Wendell Holmes as the only justices to celebrate their 90th birthdays on the court. Stevens marked ...

A renowned debating society at Britain's Cambridge University said Monday it would offer pole dancing tuition to members, in a building more used to the presence of international statesmen. The Cambridge Union Society said female students would be offered lessons in the sensuous dance more often associated with strip clubs than the historic chambers of one of the world ...

Eugene Allen, a White House butler who served presidents from Harry Truman through Ronald Reagan, has died. He was 90. Allen died of renal failure Wednesday at a hospital in Takoma Park, Md., The Washington Post reported Friday. Allen, who was black, started at the ...

Jerald terHorst, who resigned as White House press secretary rather than defend President Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon, is dead at age 87. A longtime Detroit News journalist, terHorst served for a month as Ford's spokesman in 1974 before quitting to ...

Forget Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers. Washington visitors apparently want to see the likes of John Quincy Adams, Grover Cleveland and perhaps Chester A. Arthur. The city's Madame Tussauds wax museum is preparing to rebrand itself as the only place with sculptures of all ...