Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter on Wednesday became the first state chief executive to sign a measure requiring his attorney general to sue Congress if it passes health reforms that force residents to buy insurance.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer declined to say Wednesday if Democrats have enough votes to pass historic health care legislation, but hinted that they're poised to use an arcane parliamentary process to get it done.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's wife and daughter were being treated in a hospital Thursday for serious injuries they sustained when their vehicle was rear-ended by a truck, a spokesman said.

Rep. Charles Rangel, the most powerful tax-writing lawmaker in Congress and a 34-year veteran of Capitol Hill, knowingly accepted Caribbean trips from a corporation in violation of House rules, the House Ethics Committee ruled Thursday, The Associated Press has learned.

Ask national Republicans to name a model 2010 congressional candidate, and they're likely to mention Stephen Fincher. A 37-year-old farmer and gospel singer from Frog Jump, Tenn., Fincher has raised more than $675,000 in his bid to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. John Tanner.

A spokesman says Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a retired Marine Corps officer who became an outspoken critic of the Iraq war, has died. He was 77.

A Spanish lawmaker on Tuesday angrily rejected the United States' apology for the FBI's using a photo of him to create a poster showing what Osama bin Laden might look like today.

In a major breakthrough, union leaders bowed Thursday to White House demands for a new tax on high-cost insurance plans as part of landmark health care legislation taking final shape in intensive negotiations. "We are on the doorstep" of success, President Barack Obama said.

President Barack Obama plans to announce a new fee Thursday on the country's biggest financial firms to recover up to $120 billion in taxpayers' money used to prop up corporations during the economic crisis, a senior administration official said.

Targeting an industry whose political deafness has vexed his administration, President Barack Obama is weighing a levy aimed at recovering tax dollars from government-rescued financial institutions.

Ten months into President Barack Obama's first economic stimulus plan, a surge in spending on roads and bridges has had no effect on local unemployment and only barely helped the beleaguered construction industry, an Associated Press analysis has found.