BEIJING — All across China, scores of ordinary citizens are challenging the Communist Party’s ironclad grip on political life, launching full-blown campaigns outside its grasp for local “people’s congresses.” The local congresses — the lowest rung in China’s government structure, equivalent to neighborhood commissions — are relatively powerless bodies in the complex system that the party maintains as a formal display of grass-roots participation. Until now, they have been filled almost entirely with candidates from the party, or people endorsed by it. Read full article > >

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China sees surge of independent candidates

The White House and congressional leaders are accelerating negotiations over the biggest debt-reduction package in at least two decades amid mounting concern that the effort is running out of time. Over the next six weeks, negotiators must strike a bipartisan compromise to slice more than $2 trillion from the federal budget by 2021, reduce the complex plan to writing and persuade a bitterly divided Congress to support it. But one or both chambers is due to be on break for three of those weeks. And when Congress last reached a big debt-reduction deal, it took more than a month just to draft the legislation. That leaves little room for chance — or last-minute negotiating to marshal votes for what is likely to be a politically difficult package of unprecedented cuts to long- sacrosanct federal programs. Read full article > >

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White House, lawmakers speed up debt-reduction talks

Jonathan W. Jordan explores the complex relationship of the World War II generals Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton and Omar Bradley.

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Eisenhower, Patton and Bradley: Team of Rivals

For many experts, a better test of the complex law is not its effect on jobs, but whether it will slow the growth of health costs.

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In the Health Care Fight, a Political Focus on Jobs, With No Simple Answers

Potential candidates like Mitt Romney can manipulate the complex campaign finance system to their benefit.

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Romney, Weighing Run, Leans on State PACs

At least one organization has figured out how to help young victims of violence in Washington.

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In D.C.’s Cedar Heights complex, tackling the trauma of violence