Washington has all but abandoned efforts to help the economy recover faster — and lawmakers don’t seem worried that voters will punish them for it.

There are no serious negotiations underway between the White House and congressional leaders on legislation to spur growth, and no bipartisan “gangs” of senators are huddling to craft a compromise job-creation package.

The White House offered a new account Monday of how and when it learned that the Internal Revenue Service had improperly targeted conservative groups, saying that some senior officials were informed of the findings but that President Obama was not.

The White House offered a new account Monday of how and when it learned that the Internal Revenue Service had improperly targeted conservative groups, saying that some senior officials were informed of the findings but that President Obama was not.

Apple used a “complex web” of offshore entities — with no employees or physical offices — that allowed it to pay little or no taxes on tens of billions it earned overseas, according to a Senate investigation unveiled Monday.

Looking for a good deal on a six-pack of beer? Try Charlotte. A haircut that won’t burn a hole in your wallet? Harlingen, Tex., is your best bet. A trip to the movies? Hilo, Hawaii, is supposed to be nice this time of year.

- "Since 2006, Slate has declared email, the independent bookstore, the American pun, and instant gratification dead."

- "Of the country's top 10 congressional districts with the highest capacity of wind-powered electricity, nine are represented by Republicans."

Apple went to Ireland, and it found a pot of gold. Or more precisely, it managed to bring in $30 billion in overseas profits over a four-year period without paying a dime of corporate income tax to the Irish, American or any other national government.

An international group of solar industry trade associations meeting in Shanghai last week has issued a joint declaration appealing to China, the European Union and the United States to avert a trade war and negotiate a settlement to disputes over solar panels, according to one person who attended the meeting.

One frequent knock on the official poverty rate is that it generally excluded income from some government programs like food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit, but included income from others, like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Social Security. That means people who, if those benefits were treated as cash, wouldn't be counted as impoverished, still get counted as such.

Work is all too often like high school. There are cliques. Everyone's usually a lot more interested in the gossip than the work. And there's typically somebody who likes to throw their weight around, intimidating others and taking credit for work that isn't theirs.

In recent years supporters of network neutrality have tried and failed to get Congress to enact neutrality regulations. In 2010, Julius Genachowski, President Obama's choice to lead the Federal Communications Commission, decided to act anyway, relying on a controversial interpretation of existing statutes to justify a new regime of "open Internet" rules.

Here's some interesting new data from Jaison Abel and Richard Dietz of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The vast majority of U.S. college grads, they find, work in jobs that aren't strictly related to their degrees:

If you've been reading the newspapers, you know that the Obama administration has had a very tough week.

It was "a bad week for the White House," according to the National Journal. USA Today said it was "one of the most challenging weeks at the White House for the Obama administration." The Washington Examiner went with "Obama's roughest week." Our colleagues at The Fix dissented a bit: They didn't think it was Obama's worst week ever. Just his second-worst week ever.

Chinese hackers who breached Google’s servers several years ago gained access to a sensitive database with years’ worth of information about U.S. surveillance targets, according to current and former government officials.

Welcome to Health Reform Watch, Sarah Kliff's regular look at how the Affordable Care Act is changing the American health-care system — and being changed by it. You can reach Sarah with questions, comments and suggestions here. Check back every Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon for the latest edition, and read previous columns here.

This video is about a year old, but it's resurfaced thanks to David Grann's always-excellent Twitter feed:

"A single drop of venom (from a Russell's viper) is dripped onto a petri dish of blood, and in seconds the blood clots into a thick chunk of solid matter." That about sums it up. Plus you get to watch venom drip out of a viper's fangs.

If you're sick of having to make student loan payments, you're not alone. A recent report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimates that there 38 million student loan borrowers in the United States and the total debt load has passed $1.1 trillion. The Project on Student Debt has estimated that 66 percent of graduating college seniors in 2011 had some student loan debt, with an average balance of $26,600.

Yahoo has concluded that Tumblr, the social blogging service, is worth a whopping $1.1 billion. Will the bet prove a good one? The answer depends on whether the combined company can turn its many millions of users into a interlocking set of services that no competitor can hope to replicate. In short, the question is whether Yahumblr, or Tumbloo, or whatever we want to call it, is more like Google or more like Craigslist.

Yahoo's acquisition of Tumblr for $1.1 billion is a big gamble by Marissa Mayer, the company's recently-hired CEO. The microblogging site is a valuable asset, but media accounts of Mayer's thinking suggest she hasn't come to terms with Yahoo's fundamental dysfunction: that it can't decide whether it's a media company or a technology company.

Wondering why Congress doesn't pass more environmental legislation? The poor economy probably has a lot to do with it. A new study finds that U.S. senators are far less likely to take green votes when the unemployment rate in their state is high.