Politics News

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, right, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speak during a news conference following their bi-partisan meeting with President-elect Barack Obama on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Jan. 5, 2009. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)AP - The new Congress opened for business at the stroke of noon on Tuesday, eager to join President-elect Barack Obama in tackling the worst economic crisis in generations. Democrats celebrated last fall's election gains in the House and Senate.



AP - President-elect Barack Obama says he will bar pork-barrel projects from the massive economic stimulus bill he wants Congress to pass.
AP - Five Blackwater Worldwide security guards have pleaded not guilty to manslaughter charges in the 2007 shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad.
AP - The new members of the U.S. House of Representatives have been sworn-in, as the 111th Congress begins its work.
Politico - From PolitickerPA:
AP - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will travel to New York and the United Nations on Tuesday in a bid to broker a sustainable cease-fire as soon as possible to end the crisis in Gaza.

Illinois U.S. Senate Appointee Roland Burris arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)AP - Roland Burris failed in his bid to take President-elect Barack Obama's Illinois Senate seat on Tuesday in a scripted piece of political theater staged just before the opening of the 111th Congress.



AP - The Senate put Washington's massive shift of power on public display Tuesday when senators convened for the opening of the 111th session of Congress.
AP - Health care continued to take up a greater share of the economy in 2007, as spending on hospitals, doctors and other services increased 6.1 percent to $2.2 trillion.
AP - President-elect Barack Obama on Monday chose the dean at his alma mater, Harvard Law School, to represent the United States before the Supreme Court.
AP - Sir Alan Walters, a top economic adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, has died at age 82.