President Barack Obama says small-business owners especially will benefit from a jobs bill that he plans to sign on Thursday. The bill includes about $18 billion in tax breaks and pumps $20 billion into highway and transit programs.

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.

The debate over health care reform was front and center Tuesday in central Bakersfield. Protesters for and against health care reform legislation gathered outside Congressman Jim Costa's office at 2700 M St.

Talk show host Oprah Winfrey must defend a defamation suit over remarks she made about a headmistress at her girls' school in South Africa after a sex-abuse scandal erupted there, a U.S. judge ruled.

If President Barack Obama is looking for a partner to play U.S. Sen. Scott Brown and his daughter in basketball, Connecticut's Maya Moore says she's prepared to serve.

U.S. and Mexican federal officials said Monday they were probing why a suspected drug gang ambushed two cars carrying families with ties to the U.S. consulate in this violent border city, killing an American couple and a Mexican man.

A U.S. consulate employee and her husband were shot to death as they drove in this drug-plagued Mexican city with their baby in the back seat, minutes after gunmen killed the husband of another consular employee and wounded his two children, officials said Sunday.

The senator trying to rewrite the nation's financial industry rules is dropping plans to create a stand-alone consumer financial protection agency and give a single regulator the power to oversee all banks, according to people familiar with the evolving proposal.

A bill that would let Native Hawaiians establish their own government is nearing a final vote in the Senate, bringing the day closer when they might reclaim a piece of their homeland.

President Barack Obama is having difficulty getting all federal agencies to follow his order to deliver "a new era of open government," according to a study of how they administer the Freedom of Information Act.

China plans to bid for contracts to build U.S. high-speed train lines and is stepping up exports of rail technology to Europe and Latin America, a government official said Saturday.