WASHINGTON The Senate is poised to approve on Saturday the start of a historic debate over health care legislation aimed at making coverage easier, less expensive to obtain and harder to lose.

WASHINGTON The Justice Department intends to drop manslaughter and weapons charges against one of the Blackwater Worldwide security guards involved in a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting, prosecutors said in court documents Friday.

WASHINGTON A retired State Department worker and his wife accused of a three-decade-long plot to spy for Cuba have pleaded guilty in federal court.

WASHINGTON The Army says there will be an outside review of how body armor for its soldiers is tested.

WASHINGTON A retired State Department employee and his wife are expected to plead guilty Friday in federal court to charges that they have been spying for Cuba for decades.

WASHINGTON Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, one of three moderate Democratic senators wavering on whether to allow debate on health care legislation to proceed, said Friday that he would vote to move the bill forward.

WASHINGTON Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska is a "yes" in a crucial weekend test vote on health care.

WASHINGTON The Senate ethics committee on Friday admonished Democratic Sen. Roland Burris for misleading investigators about his maneuvering to get Barack Obama's old Senate seat from the governor who was ousted for trying to sell it.

WASHINGTON Suitably opaque, Section 2006 takes up only a few dozen lines in a sweeping health care bill that runs to 2,074 pages and mentions neither Sen. Mary Landrieu nor her state of Louisiana.

A look at key issues in the health care debate:

BETHESDA, Md. Fresh from his weeklong trip through Asia, President Barack Obama is taking time to catch up on dad duty.

WASHINGTON The Pentagon said Thursday it will scour its procedures for identifying volatile soldiers hidden in the ranks following the Fort Hood shooting rampage and lapses that might allow others to slip through bureaucratic cracks.

WASHINGTON Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced Thursday that he's appointed two former heads of the Army and the Navy to review the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, amid questions about whether political correctness and a shortage of mental health professionals drove the military to keep Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan in the Army longer than it should have.

WASHINGTON The Senate on Thursday began what promises to be a bitter, lengthy battle over the future of health care in America, and taxes, abortion, affordability and federal deficits emerged as key flashpoints.

WASHINGTON A high-octane effort to let U.S. tourists visit Cuba got a major endorsement Thursday from one of the island's leading dissidents, who suggested that "along with suitcases, Bermuda shorts and sun block, support, solidarity and freedom could come, too."