AP - President Barack Obama's push for cleaner-running automobiles is being viewed as the clearest signal yet that he intends to regulate greenhouse gases.

AP - A multibillion-dollar pyramid scheme allegedly spawned by disgraced investor Bernard Madoff is being probed by a Senate panel that will, for the first time, question federal regulators responsible for inspecting investment firms and enforcing action against violations.

AP - Starting in 1992, federal regulators on many occasions examined various aspects of Bernard Madoff's business operations, but they never turned up the alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme that led to Madoff's arrest in mid-December. The history of regulatory failure in the Madoff scandal:

Politico - The Obama administration on Tuesday will announce tough new restrictions on bailout funds aimed at curbing lobbying by companies that receive taxpayer injections.

Politico - Just after November’s election, Republican senators huddled in a closed-door meeting to consider a package of rules that would have tossed Ted Stevens out of their conference, imposed term limits on party leaders and otherwise changed the way the Senate Republican Conference does business.

AP - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and President Barack Obama spoke by phone Monday and vowed to try their best to improve the strained relationship between Moscow and Washington, the Kremlin said.

AP - As a judge for the United Nations' Rwanda war crimes tribunal, Erik Mose has spent a decade soberly delving into the most horrific crimes possible.

Politico - Blog: Fred U. Dicker, the New York Post's feared Albany bureau chief, let's loose: Gov. Paterson yesterday insisted he had no idea who did

McClatchy Newspapers - ������ President Obama has told Congressional Democrats to drop a proposal to spend money on family planning from the proposed $825 billion plan to stimulate the economy. a White House aide tells McClatchy.������ Obama�is likely to offer that concession when he meets Tuesday with Congressional Republicans, who've complained bitterly that the proposal is liberal pork that has nothing to do with stimulating the economy or creating jobs.������� “How can you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives? How does that stimulate the economy?” said an incredulous Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, his party’s leader in the House of Representatives, after an opening meeting with Obama at the White House Friday.������ Boehner will host Obama at a follow up lunch in the Capitol Tuesday.������ Boehner was pointing to a proposal in the bill to expand Medicaid family planning services. Republicans said the proposal would make taxpayer-financed family planning services, including contraceptives, available to those who do not now qualify for the help under Medicaid.������ “Whether or not you think that is good public policy, it has nothing to do with an economic stimulus,” a Boehner aide said.�House Speaker Nancy Pelosi-D-Calif., appeared to sidestep the question when pressed over the weekend to explain how family planning money would boost the economy or create jobs.������ “Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost,” she said on ABC’s This Week program.������ “The states are in terrible fiscal budget crisis now, and part of it, what we do for children's health, education, and some of those elements, are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those, one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception…will reduce cost to the state and to the federal government.������ She refused to concede then that it was a mistake to include the proposal in the stimulus proposal and likened it to helping people buy food or get financial help when out of work.������ “No apologies,” she said. “We have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy. ������ “Food stamps, unemployment insurance, some of the initiatives you just mentioned, what the economists have told us, from right to left, there is more bang for the buck, is the term they use, by investing in food stamps and in unemployment insurance than in any tax cuts.”�Republicans also are likely to renew their pitch to Obama to cut back some of the other spending in the proposed bill.�Among some of their targets:�-$5 billion for colleges and universities, many with billion dollar endowments already;������ -$600 million for new cars for the federal government;������ -$200 million to improve the National Mall, including $21 million for new grass;������ -$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts.������ Overall, they say, the proposal creates at least 32 new government programs at a cost of over $136 billion.�

AP - A German couple who started a charity to reconnect their town with Jewish families who fled during the Holocaust is among five recipients of an annual Jewish history award.

AP - The man nominated to be the Pentagon's second-in-command could make at least a half-million dollars next month with vested stock he earned as a lobbyist for military contractor Raytheon.

AP - Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he is troubled by Iranian activities in Latin America that he sees as meddling. But he told a Senate panel Tuesday that Russian military outreach there doesn't bother him at all.

Politico - Blog: One of the funny sidelights of the Gillibrand appointment in New York has been the straightforward expectation from senior Democrats that she will p

Politico - Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that he believes the Republican Party is poised for a comeback now that it is free of the “political burden” of an unpopular president.

AP - They've been bailed out, but not kicked out.

AP - The head of the Senate Banking Committee is asking regulators to report frequently to the panel on their progress to improve fraud detection after their failure to discover the multibillion-dollar pyramid scheme allegedly hatched by disgraced financier Bernard Madoff.

AP - The following recalls have been announced:

AP - Romance and rugby � strange bedfellows or perfect match?

AP - Kirsten Gillibrand, a little-known, pro-gun Democrat from upstate New York, was sworn in Tuesday as the state's junior U.S. senator.

AP - They've been bailed out, but not kicked out.

Politico - Blog: Foreign Policy's new blog, The Cable, reported recently that India lobbied to be excluded from Richard Holbrooke's portfolio, which had -- according

Politico - As the Pentagon plans to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday new forces could arrive in Afghanistan by summer. 

AP - Two senators said Tuesday the Army hasn't acted fast enough to fix electrical problems in Iraq that led to the electrocutions of U.S. troops.

AP - It survived the French Revolution and a devastating 1999 storm, but high winds have finally toppled a towering beech tree planted for Marie Antoinette more than two centuries ago at Versailles Palace.

AP - Even before crafting its own Middle East strategy, the Obama administration is making clear that its approach will differ � in tone and style, if not also in substance � from its predecessor's.

Politico - Blog: First reported (natch?) by Cindy Adams, Sarah Palin has launched a Virginia-based political action committee, SarahPAC, and a website.

Politico - New York Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco has been tapped as the Republican nominee for Kirsten Gillibrand’s vacant 20th District House seat, according to several New York GOP sources.

AP - A potential terror threat just before last week's presidential inauguration turned out to be a ruse, a top military commander said Tuesday.

AP - Officials say four kinds of salmonella have been identified in the growing investigation of tainted peanut products.

AP - Iranian opposition activists long branded as terrorists by the European Union celebrated their legalization Tuesday with confetti, bullhorns and balloons � and appealed to be removed from the U.S. list as well.

AP - On the eve of a key vote, President Barack Obama privately promised Republican critics he stands ready to accept changes in $825 billion economic stimulus legislation, and urged lawmakers to 'put politics aside' in the interest of creating badly needed jobs.

AP - The Veterans Affairs Department has agreed to pay up to $20 million to veterans for exposing them to possible identity theft in 2006 after losing their sensitive personal information.

Politico - Blog: Charlie Rose interviews David Axelrod. Stimulus is popular, however you ask. Obama's Kenyan aunt can stay in the U.S.

Politico - Rush Limbaugh may command a large following, but his caustic comments Monday about the GOP’s congressional leadership have at least one Republican House member defending his colleagues and offering an unusually candid critique of the talk radio powerhouse and his fellow commentators.

AP - President Barack Obama is retaining a powerful but controversial weapon left over from the Bush administration's war on terror: Predator missile strikes on Pakistan.

AP - Congress sent the White House Tuesday what is expected to be the first legislation that President Barack Obama signs into law, a bill that makes it easier for women and others to sue for pay discrimination, even if the discrimination has prevailed for years, even decades.

AP - The Georgia peanut processing plant that's the epicenter of a national salmonella outbreak had a history of problems it failed to correct, federal health officials said Tuesday.

Reuters - The Democratic-led U.S. Congress on Tuesday gave final approval to what may be the first bill signed into law by President Barack Obama -- a measure to reverse a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that made it tougher to sue for wage discrimination.

Politico - The apologies keep coming for the victims of the now infamous Purple Tunnel of Doom – the thousands who were stuck outside the Inaugural gates despite having tickets.

AP - A Senate committee has voted to extend a big tax cut for middle-income and wealthy taxpayers as part of the massive economic recovery bill working its way through Congress.

AP - WASHINGTON � The Senate defeated an effort Tuesday by Republicans to make it harder for states to extend government-sponsored health insurance to children of legal immigrants.

AP - Nearly 100 children were killed and 2,000 injured in 2007 when they were backed over by cars, typically in residential driveways, the government said Tuesday.

AP - A British tribunal ordered the government to make public the formal minutes of two contentious Cabinet discussions held before the invasion of Iraq.

AP - When the Bush administration last year cut what Medicare will provide for hospice care for dying patients, the hospice industry fought back.

Politico - A portion of Rod Blagojevich’s recorded telephone conversations were played publicly for the first time Tuesday as part of the Illinois governor’s ongoing impeachment trial.

AP - The nation's fastest-growing labor union wrested control Tuesday of an insurgent California local after more than a yearlong power struggle over how best to wield union clout.

Politico - President Barack Obama's budget director has reached out to a trio of House committee chairmen, reminding them to remain fiscally disciplined — after they spend $825 billion to bolster the flailing economy, that is.