United States

The fate of healthcare legislation turns on the endgame skills of two Democrats who bring vastly different assets to the task: President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Obama's signature ability to inspire fellow Democrats and Pelosi's well-honed ability to read their parochial needs will be tested as they tackle the job of finding the last stubborn votes for the healthcare bill. The final push is giving Obama a chance to redeem himself among Democrats who have complained that he has been too detached from the nitty-gritty of crafting the healthcare bill.

The reputed head of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel is threatening a more aggressive stance against competitors and law enforcement north of the border, instructing associates to use deadly force, if needed, to protect increasingly contested trafficking operations, authorities said. Such a move by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, Mexico's most-wanted fugitive, would mark a turn from the cartel's previous position of largely avoiding violent confrontations in the U.S.

The United States tries to take care of its warriors, a tradition that Congress has continued in little-known sections of the latest home buyer tax credit legislation and one of the government's main programs to help military owners who must sell their houses for less than what they owe. Under the Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act, which was signed into law in November, military personnel and certain other federal employees serving...

Ushering in a new era in medicine, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday that it had cleared the way for the world's first clinical trial of a therapy derived from human embryonic stem cells. By early summer, a handful of patients with severe spinal cord injuries will be eligible for injections of specialized nerve cells designed to enable electrical signals to travel between the brain and the rest of the body.

An ambitious, multibillion-dollar project to hot-wire the new Southwest border fence with high-tech radar, cameras and satellite signals has been plagued with serious system failures and repeated delays and will probably not be completed for another seven years -- if it is finished at all. The system, originally intended to be completed next year, languishes in the testing phase in two remote spots of the border in Arizona. There, the supposedly state-of-the-art system combining sensor towers, communication relay systems and unattended ground sensors has been bogged down with radar clutter, blurred imagery on computer screens and satellite time lapses that often permit drug smugglers and undocumented workers to slip past U.S. law enforcement agents, government officials candidly admit.

Looking for new ways to help plug the leaky job market, President Obama pressed Congress to provide money to homeowners to improve energy efficiency -- and the economy -- by replacing doors, caulking windows and padding their attics with more insulation. Obama admitted that the "idea may not be very glamorous" but declared Tuesday that he found insulation "sexy." Lawmakers also are getting excited by the concept, which they said could help create badly needed jobs for the beleaguered building trades.

For biologist Meri Firpo, the controversy over human embryonic stem cells boils down to pens. In one of her laboratories -- the one that gets government money to study federally approved stem cells -- researchers are required to use Paper Mate Flexgrips. Just across the hall is a nearly identical laboratory set up with private funds so she can study new embryonic stem cell lines that do not have President Bush's seal of approval.

Ready to chuck his electric bills, Camarillo resident Marc Weinberg last year asked his homeowners association for permission to put solar panels on his roof. When the Spanish Hills Homeowners Assn. said no, Weinberg sued the group. Under the state's Solar Rights Act, he argued, a homeowners association can't unreasonably block solar installations. Weinberg won, and the Spanish Hills Homeowners Assn. was ordered to not only permit the solar panels but to cover the tens of thousands of dollars that Weinberg had spent on legal fees.

After a month of intense pressure on banks and other mortgage servicers, the Obama administration on Friday reported improvement in its much-criticized program to reduce mortgage payments to stave off foreclosures. The number of temporary loan modifications that were made permanent had more than doubled to 66,465 as of Dec. 30, the Treasury Department said. In addition, 46,056 three-month trial mortgage modifications were approved and awaiting only the homeowner signatures before they were made permanent as well.

The drumbeat is growing in Washington for extending -- even expanding -- the popular $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers, a soon-expiring benefit that some experts estimate is on its way to spurring as many as 400,000 additional sales this year. The program has been a component in the federal effort to resuscitate the devastated real estate market. Reversing falling housing prices by stimulating sales is a key to halting the tide of foreclosures that have helped drag down the economy.

Their numbers and influence may be declining, but American nuns demonstrated Wednesday what generations of schoolchildren already knew: They are a force to be reckoned with. By sending a letter to Congress in support of the Senate healthcare bill, a wide coalition of nuns took sides against not only the Republican minority but against their own church hierarchy, as represented by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which opposes the bill. The nuns' letter contributed to the momentum in favor of the legislation, despite opposition that is partially rooted in a disagreement over abortion funding.

Frustrated at the White House and Congress, immigrant advocates are rolling out a series of pressure tactics to push forward legalization for illegal immigrants and other reforms. Tens of thousands of people are expected to march Sunday in Washington, D.C., urging officials to act on legislative reforms or face the consequences -- including a possible Latino voter backlash in November. Activists plan to launch texting and "tacos for justice" campaigns Friday to raise money for the reform campaign.

President Obama and Democratic leaders gathered momentum for their sweeping healthcare overhaul Wednesday, picking up support from Democratic factions where defections were most feared: liberals, abortion opponents and backbenchers. Working into the night to put the finishing touches on the legislation, Democratic leaders said they continued to expect the balloting to be a cliffhanger. But a cascade of developments buoyed supporters of the bill, which would cap Obama's drive for legislation to reduce the ranks of the uninsured, offer new protections for those who have medical coverage, and try to curb skyrocketing healthcare costs.

California's prison population declined in 2009 for the third straight year as the number of state prisoners fell nationally for the first time in nearly four decades, according to a new survey from the Pew Center on the States. The overall decline was relatively small, 0.4% of roughly 1.4 million state inmates in the nation, but the study's authors said it is significant because it represents the first year-over-year drop since 1972. "After so many years on the rise, any size drop is notable," said Adam Gelb, director of the Pew Center's Public Safety Performance Project.

Uncle Sam wants more of the nation's small-business exporters to step up their international sales as part of an ambitious goal to double U.S. exports to $3 trillion within five years. The National Export Initiative announced by President Obama as part of his State of the Union speech in January is meant to boost jobs and the economy. To succeed, the government will have to persuade more small businesses to tackle the complexities of international trade. And that won't be easy, experts said.

Senior White House officials predicted Sunday that President Obama's healthcare initiative would pass the House this week and warned Republicans that if they made it an issue in November elections, they did so at their own political peril. "We're happy to have the 2010 elections be about the achievement of healthcare reform," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said. "That's a debate I think we're obviously comfortable having." "Make my day," senior White House political advisor David Axelrod said.

An early chance for the Obama administration to reshape the nation's judiciary -- and counter gains made in the federal courts by conservatives -- appears close to slipping away, due to a combination of White House inattention and Republican opposition. During President Obama's first year, judicial nominations trickled out of the White House at a far slower pace than in President George W. Bush's first year. Bush announced 11 nominees for federal appeals courts in the fourth month of his tenure.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried Sunday to move beyond a diplomatic rift with the U.S. even as Obama administration officials reiterated their displeasure with a controversial housing project in East Jerusalem. In his first public comments about last week's tense visit by Vice President Joe Biden, Netanyahu expressed regret for Israel's surprise announcement of 1,600 new housing units to be built on land occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East War. U.S. officials say the move embarrassed Biden and jeopardized efforts to restart peace talks with Palestinians, which was a purpose of his visit to the Mideast.

U.S. citizens reported losing more than $550 million in 2009 in Internet fraud, falling prey to a variety of increasingly sophisticated scams, according to a report by the Internet Crime Complaint Center. The loss was more than twice that reported in 2008, according to the agency, a partnership of the FBI and the privately funded National White Collar Crime Center. Based in West Virginia, the center tracks Internet crime around the world. "Criminals are continuing to take full advantage of the anonymity afforded them by the Internet.

Legislation to be unveiled Monday by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd to overhaul the financial regulatory system is likely to be more modest than either the Obama administration's proposal last summer or a plan Dodd pushed last fall. Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, was set to release detailed legislation for the most sweeping overhaul of financial regulations since the Great Depression, which Democrats want to pass before the fall elections. Tightening federal oversight of the financial system is designed to prevent a repeat of the banking-system meltdown in 2008 and is a priority of President Obama.