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.

President Barack Obama strongly signaled that Democrats will move forward on a health care overhaul with or without Republicans, preparing his party for a fight whose political outcome will rest with voters in November.

The top Republican in the Senate said Sunday that GOP lawmakers "may well" vote for a jobs bill, though it's not clear whether they will allow a Democratic measure to advance right away.

Sen. Evan Bayh, a centrist Democrat from Indiana, announced Monday that he won't seek a third term in Congress, giving Republicans a chance to pick up a Senate seat.

The outlook for jobs became a bit less bleak with January's unexpected decline in the unemployment rate, which fell to 9.7 percent from 10 percent as more people said they had jobs.

Bolstered by a White House lobbying effort that included the president, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's chances at a second four-year term improved Monday, calming a stock market that had grown anxious over the uncertainty of his support.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke faced mounting Senate opposition for another four-year term Friday, and the White House worked aggressively to keep his nomination afloat.

In an epic upset in liberal Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown rode a wave of voter anger to defeat Democrat Martha Coakley in a U.S. Senate election Tuesday that left President Barack Obama's health care overhaul in doubt and marred the end of his first year in office.

The perks of Senate membership just got sweeter. For the first time, all 100 members of the chamber will have their own cloistered hideaways in the U.S. Capitol, traditionally a coveted mark of seniority and clout.

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.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid apologized on Saturday for saying the race of Barack Obama - whom he described as a "light skinned" African-American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one" - would help rather than hurt his eventual presidential bid.

Nearly four months after a judge dismissed his lawsuit over Social Security benefits, 66-year-old Johnny Lee Wicks opened fire with a shotgun in a Las Vegas federal building, killing one security guard and wounding a U.S. marshal before being shot to death, authorities said.