washington

It took a tad longer than expected, but a bill to honor President Ronald Reagan on what would have been his 100th birthday has cleared its final hurdle in Congress.
The Senate approved the legislation, sponsored by Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Calif., late Tuesday after a senator who had blocked the bill for two months agreed to allow a vote.

After a three-judge panel declared Al Franken the top vote-getter in the Minnesota Senate recount -- propelling Norm Coleman's appeal to the state Supreme Court -- a leading TV pundit turned to the other senator from Minnesota with a question.
"Can we seat a senator so Amy (Klobuchar) doesn't have to do the job of two senators?" asked MSNBC host Joe Scarborough.

When Ken Carter found the name of DONNIE S. BARTLETT etched into the polished black granite of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, he sat on the ground and took off his hat.
A question he's been asking for 27 years was answered.
"I've always wondered who it was," he said.

The Social Security Administration expects to send $250 economic stimulus checks to about 10,000 dead people.
The agency said it faced such a tight deadline that there wasn't enough time to make sure their records were accurate. The checks were part of the stimulus plan hastily cobbled together earlier this year as the economy tanked.

Chester Kanach grew too frail to carry the American flag.
He was once strong enough to serve in World War II with the U.S. Army's 317th Troop Carrier Group. Called the "Jungle Skippers," they were known for their prowess in transporting troops and supplies, and evacuating the wounded in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands.

It's not exactly the Oscars, but it is public recognition for achievement in film.
Or, more precisely, one little film.
A 41-minute documentary that was produced by an obscure air-quality district in California is getting kudos from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for promoting clean air.

The American Legion is trying to stop the May 28 release of photographs showing American personnel abusing detainees in Afghan and Iraqi prisons.
The Department of Defense agreed last month to release some of the requested photographs in response to an American Civil Liberties Union Freedom of Information Act request.

The Obama administration, publicly committed as it is to let science, not politics, guide scientific decisions, may find that doctrine sorely tested soon. If there's to be any chance a vaccine against the new swine-flu variant can be ready in time to protect people this fall, a decision to start production has to be made by early summer.

One out of every 50 Americans living near landfills or ponds used to store ash or sludge from coal-fired power plants has a high risk of getting cancer from drinking water contaminated with arsenic, according to government research that environmentalists say the Bush administration kept secret for years.

Some experts believe that the devastating Spanish influenza epidemic began in 1918 in Kansas, when an Army private at Camp Funston caught a particularly contagious variant of swine flu.
There's little doubt that the movement of hundreds of thousands of troops in that final year of World War I helped spread and evolve a disease that killed more than 50 million people worldwide.