Nominee

Michael Lehmann has been casting his Oscar ballot for nearly two decades. But when the filmmaker, best known for helming the 1988 comedy classic "Heathers," looked at the director nominees this year, he found himself stumped. "It's the most difficult director choice I've had to make since I joined the academy in 1996," Lehmann said Tuesday. "There's no clear front-runner, and every movie is not only really good but so different from every other movie. " Lehmann said he had such a hard time with which filmmaker to choose that, as of early Tuesday afternoon, he had not filled out his ballot.

Forget about the price of gasoline: The real skyrocketing expense this year is the Oscar race. With two deep-pocketed studios locked into one of the closest best picture duels in recent memory and Academy Award voting extended by two weeks, the battle between "Argo" and "Lincoln" has sparked what several Hollywood executives say is the costliest campaign on record. "It's like an arms race this year," said Jim Burke, a producer on last year's best picture nominee "The Descendants.

WASHINGTON - The persistent opposition by Senate Republicans to Chuck Hagel's nomination as Defense secretary isn't just about his national security views. It's also deeply personal. President Obama's choice of the former Republican senator, whose nomination received another setback Thursday, looked, on the surface, like a gesture of bipartisanship. But to many of his former colleagues, it's anything but. Hagel was seen as a tacit supporter of Obama in 2008 rather than Republican nominee John McCain - one of the senators key to his chances of confirmation.

Say yes to "No. " An entire country did, causing a political earthquake that uprooted a tenacious dictatorship and formed the basis of this smart, involving and provocative new film. Starring Gael García Bernal, "No" is inspired by a real-life 1988 scenario that marked the beginning of the end for Chile's brutal Augusto Pinochet dictatorship. It's an irresistible fable of sorts about the power of counter-intuitive thinking, but it is also something more. As put together by some of Chile's top cinematic talents, a hit at Cannes and one of the five foreign-language Oscar nominees this year, "No" is also unexpectedly amusing and as savvy as it gets about the psychology of the political process.

WASHINGTON -- Treasury secretary nominee Jacob J. Lew told senators Wednesday that his top priority was to boost the economic recovery while also grappling with the nation's growing debt. In his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, Lew warned that automatic government spending cuts coming March 1 would damage the recovery. And he called for Democrats and Republicans to work together to improve the economy, citing his history of working across party lines. "In recent years, some have argued that Washington is irrevocably broken, that our government cannot tackle the nation's most serious problems, that bipartisanship is a thing of the past.

WASHINGTON - Republican senators hit Treasury secretary nominee Jacob J. Lew with tough questions about his tenure as a top executive at Citigroup Inc. in the years leading up to the financial crisis, but the former White House chief of staff appeared to avoid any major controversy that could derail his confirmation. "Frankly, I think you've done really well," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), one of the most aggressive questioners, told Lew at the end of his three-hour confirmation hearing Wednesday.

WASHINGTON -- Treasury Secretary nominee Jacob J. Lew on Wednesday faced tough questions from Republican senators about his tenure as a top executive at Citigroup Inc. in the years leading up to the financial crisis. Lew was criticized for not knowing more about the investment strategy of two Citi units for which he was chief operating officer from 2006 to 2009. Republicans also hit him for an investment in the Cayman Islands and accepting a $944,518 payout from Citigroup in early 2009, just days before the company received an expanded bailout from the federal government's Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Brit­ish roots mu­sic band Mum­ford & Sons took the top hon­or for its album "Ba­bel" at the 55th Grammy Awards ce­re­mony Sunday. The night mostly dis­trib­uted hon­ors broadly to an ar­ray of young­er gen­er­a­tion acts in­clud­ing New York in­die trio Fun., Aus­trali­an elec­tron­ic pop artist Gotye, rap­per-R&B sing­er Frank Ocean and Ak­ron, Ohio, rock group the Black Keys. See the complete list of 2013 Grammy winners and nominees below. #story-body-text h2 { font-weight: bold !

Thursday's confirmation hearings for John Brennan, President Obama's nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency, offer a rare opportunity for senators to press the architect of the administration's policy of targeted killings about its legal rationale and practical application. The urgency of such an inquiry was underlined by the release this week of a troubling Justice Department document suggesting that the administration asserts the authority to assassinate suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens, even when they aren't planning an imminent attack - guidelines that could allow for a broad expansion of executive power to authorize such killings.

WASHINGTON - President Obama's nominee to be CIA director faced a grilling at his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday about a decade of CIA mistakes and misdeeds, from abuse of detainees to leaks of classified information. The highly unusual public hearing cast a rare spotlight on a spy agency that operates in the shadows. Senators from both parties took turns pushing John Brennan for his views of covert programs that have garnered headlines, including the administration's expanded use of targeted killings by drone aircraft, a highly classified effort he helped design and oversee as White House counter-terrorism chief.