Hurley's World

Some of the nation’s biggest companies want Congress to roll back rules requiring them to put more money into pension funds.

The Justice Department is resisting an effort by the New York Police Department to get broader latitude to eavesdrop on terrorism suspects.

Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Penny Pritzker, a businesswoman, also emerged as cabinet contenders.

Representative John D. Dingell’s reign as his party’s top member on the Committee on Energy and Commerce hangs on a vote of the full Democratic caucus.

The health insurance industry said it would support a plan requiring insurers to accept all customers, but asked that Congress require all Americans to have coverage in return.

At issue is Tom Daschle’s work since leaving the Senate as a board member of the Mayo Clinic and a highly paid adviser to health care clients.

The district attorney in Willacy County, Tex., has charged Vice President Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales with crimes connected to the poor treatment of illegal immigrants at detention centers.

Civility marked the opening of the statewide hand recount to determine whether Al Franken or Norm Coleman had won the U.S. Senate race.

For the first time since Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was mentioned as a possible choice for secretary of state, several of the people who could replace her in the Senate were in the same room together.

Responding to pleas from those on both sides of the issue, the California Supreme Court said that it would examine whether a voter-approved ban on same-sex unions was constitutional.

Mark Begich promised to be more of a listener and consensus builder than he said Ted Stevens, his defeated opponent, had often been.

Vendors still owed money from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign could be out of luck for years should she become secretary of state.

The commander of American and allied naval forces off the coast of Somalia has begun urging merchant vessels to sail with armed guards on board and to travel only within patrolled lanes.

Some American officials are on edge following French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s aggressive statements about American capitalism, and his decision to hold his own financial summit meeting.

Two longtime Republican lawmakers were named to the new five-member review panel set up to monitor the Bush administration’s $700 billion financial rescue plan.

The Big Three automakers left Washington empty-handed after two days of pleading for a financial lifeline.

Two government programs intended to help hundreds of thousands of borrowers avoid foreclosure are having negligible effects, a top Bush administration official said.

The recount in the Minnesota Senate race between the incumbent Republican, Norm Coleman, and his Democratic challenger, Al Franken, has begun.

Tom Daschle, the former South Dakota senator, has accepted Barack Obama’s offer to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Democrats said.

Powerful antipsychotic medicines are being used far too cavalierly in children, and regulators must do more to warn doctors of their risks, a panel of experts said.