For critical Senate races, Republicans are turning to the playbook that served them so well in the 2010 elections. They're saturating the airwaves with political ads detailing the perils of "Obamacare" and the nation's growing debt.
The Senate has blocked legislation that would have established a $1 billion jobs program putting veterans back to work tending to the country's federal lands and bolstering local police and fire departments.
States that borrowed billions from the federal government to keep unemployment benefits flowing through the recession now have to start paying those loans back, and they're hitting businesses with new assessments and higher taxes to make that happen.
Participants in same-sex marriages say they are still discriminated against because they can't get the same federal benefits that heterosexual couples receive.
Some of the states that have drained their unemployment insurance funds are cutting the number of weeks that a laid-off worker can count on those benefits.