In an interview with a Virginia political news outlet today, Former Sen. George Allen (R-VA), who has officially launched a campaign for the Senate seat he lost in 2006, kicked the hornets' nest that may have cost him the seat in the first place.

Allen said he regrets using the term "macaca" to describe a Democratic campaign tracker, but still maintains it is a "made-up" word, not a racial slur.

An appellate court panel in Illinois ruled 2-1 today that Rahm Emanuel should not appear on the Feb. 22 Chicago mayoral ballot.

Colorado's new Secretary of State Scott Gessler (R) says his official salary isn't enough to support his family, and plans to moonlight for his old law firm, which specializes in representing clients on elections and campaign law issues.

The Miami-Dade police department should soon be up and flying, while the Mayor of Ogden, Utah has floated a blimp idea. Still, unmanned drone use among U.S. law enforcement remains rare. That may soon change.

The Utah mayor who wants his town to use an unmanned blimp to fight crime tells TPM that when it comes to to the cost of your Unmanned Aerial Vechicle, there's no beating blimps. That's not to say that he was born a blimp believer.

Among the many charges in the 16 indictments related to the FBI's massive mob bust today, officials allege that members of the Genovese crime family have "preyed" for years on members of the International Longshoremen's Association in New Jersey -- with the help of union officials.

Attorney General Eric Holder and other officials provided more details of the massive mob bust executed by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies today. Holder said 110 people have been arrested, and 127 charged, in New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. Of the arrested, 91 are allegedly members and associates of seven organized crime families of La Cosa Nostra.

More than 100 alleged mobsters are being arrested today, in what the FBI is calling the biggest New York mafia bust ever, NBC New York reports.

Alabama's new governor has apologized for comments he made on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when he told a crowd at the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church in Montgomery, "anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother."

Matthew Godfrey, the mayor of Ogden, Utah, has a lofty goal. Godfrey has proposed that the town employ an unmanned blimp for surveillance and crime prevention.