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AP - Toyota's massive recalls are bringing new scrutiny to the government's auto safety agency, prompting Congress to look at how federal safety officials have lived up to their mission of protecting motorists.

AP - Wildlife officials lauded Washington's "holistic approach" to conservation in Hawaii after the Obama administration declared 48 species as endangered and announced plans to set aside more than 40 square miles on Kauai as critical habitat to allow the plants and animals to flourish.

AP - A final agreement nearly in hand, President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders are about to embark on one last sales job that will determine the outcome of the president's signature health care overhaul.

AP - One is a former Democratic freshman little known outside his Corning-Olean-Pittsford, N.Y., district. The other, a 20-term Democratic kingpin from Harlem, is widely known to New Yorkers and anyone following tax legislation.

AP - A conservative group's bashing of several Obama administration lawyers as the "al-Qaida Seven" has struck a nerve in the U.S. legal community, prompting even some fellow Republicans to denounce the group's attack.

AP - On Christmas Day, a passenger on a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit tried to blow up the plane with plastic explosives in his underwear. He failed, yet the very attempt shook the U.S. government, set federal agencies against each other and triggered months of political second-guessing.