Employee Participation

Members of a special deficit-cutting panel are getting renewed encouragement from their colleagues even as they remain far apart on taxes and cuts to so-called entitlement programs like Medicare.

Democrats and union officials encouraged by voters' rejection Tuesday of an anti-union law in Ohio hope to channel that momentum and money into the next big fight the effort to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

Labor unions are celebrating one of their biggest victories in decades after turning back an Ohio law that curbed collective bargaining rights for the state's public workers. The vote showed unions are still a potent political force that can't be ignored.

The fate of Ohio's contentious new public worker collective bargaining law went to voters Tuesday, wrapping up a campaign that pitted teachers, firefighters and police against Republican leadership in a swing state that often serves as a barometer of the nation's political mood.

NBA players are facing a Wednesday afternoon deadline to accept the league's current proposal or face a harsher one that calls for rolling back their salaries, and Commissioner David Stern said Monday "the only rational thing to do is for us to make that deal."

The Senate voted overwhelmingly Monday to temporarily set aside its partisan standoff over President Barack Obama's jobs plan and move toward giving a modest economic spark to two potent interest groups: veterans and businesses.