Social Security numbers were fraudulent, so were the income-tax returns. Tax-scammer and former inmate gets 57 months in prison.

A county clerk discovered 14,000 unrecorded votes, which just happened to turn the election for the man she once worked for. "Human error," as she claims, or something more nefarious?

Most seem to think Speaker John Boehner did particularly well. He cut the FY 2011 budget a lot more than Democrats wanted, and he wrangled most of his rambunctious freshmen into order.

AP - Prime Minister Naoto Kan paid another visit to Japan's tsunami-devastated coast Sunday, promising officials in a fishing-dependent city that his government will do whatever it can to help.

AP - There was barely an hour left before the midnight padlocking of government doors. In a Capitol basement meeting room, House Speaker John Boehner was telling exhausted fellow Republicans that a deal to avert a shutdown was nearly finished when an aide alerted him that staff had completed the final details and the agreement was complete.

AP - Republican conservatives were the chief winners in the budget deal that forced Democrats to accept historic spending cuts they strongly opposed.