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and $5.3 million for the Republican Party.
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• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Chairman Ben Bernanke could offer some clues about whether the Federal Reserve is poised to take another step to jolt the sluggish U.S. economy when he appears before Congress this week.
• Bernanke will give his semiannual report to the Senate Banking Committee Tuesday and to the House Financial Services Committee Wednesday. His testimony comes as job growth has slumped, manufacturing has weakened and consumers have grown more cautious about spending.
• Investors are hoping Bernanke will signal another round of bond purchases is in the offing. The purchases seek to push down long-term interest rates and encourage more borrowing and spending. The first two rounds triggered powerful rallies in the U.S. stock market.
• The economy was already sputtering when the Fed's policymaking committee last met June 19-20. At that meeting, the Fed decided to extend a program that shifts its bond portfolio to try to lower long-term interest rates.
• Minutes of the June meeting show that Fed officials were open to taking further action -- but were divided over whether the economy needs help now.
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• WASHINGTON (AP) -- If diplomatic achievements were measured by the number of countries visited, Hillary Rodham Clinton would be the most accomplished secretary of state in history.
• While historians will debate and eventually rate her tenure as America's top diplomat, Clinton is already assured of a place in the State Department record book.
• When her plane touches down at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington early Tuesday morning, the former first lady will have completed an epic 13-day journey of 27,000 miles -- about 2,000 miles more than the circumference of the Earth -- through and over Europe to Asia and then doubling back to the Middle East.

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