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• The rare cooperation on display in the Senate last month with passage of a bipartisan immigration bill could be wiped out immediately if Majority Leader Harry Reid, frustrated with minority Republicans' delaying tactics on judges and nominations, tries to change the Senate rules by scrapping the three-fifths majority for a simple majority.
• Republican leader Mitch McConnell has indicated it is a decision Reid could regret if the GOP seizes control in next year's elections.
• "Once the Senate definitively breaks the rules to change the rules, the pressure to respond in kind will be irresistible to future majorities," McConnell said last month, looking ahead to 2014 when Democrats have to defend 21 seats to the GOP's 14.
• McConnell envisioned a long list of reversals from the Democratic agenda, from repealing President Barack Obama's signature health care law to shipping radioactive nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain in Reid's home state of Nevada.
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• LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec (AP) -- Fires continued burning more than 24 hours after a runaway train carrying crude oil derailed in eastern Quebec, igniting explosions and fires that destroyed a town's center and killed at least one person. Police said they expected the death toll to increase.
• The eruptions sent residents of Lac-Megantic scrambling through the streets under the intense heat of towering fireballs and a red glow that illuminated the night sky, witnesses said. Flames and billowing black smoke could still be seen long after the 73-car train derailed, and a fire chief likened the charred scene to a war zone.
• Up to 2,000 people were forced from their homes in the lakeside town of 6,000 people, which is about 155 miles (250 kilometers) east of Montreal and about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of the Maine border.
• Quebec provincial police Lt. Michel Brunet confirmed that one person had died. He refused to say how many others might be dead, but said authorities have been told "many" people have been reported missing.
• Lt. Guy Lapointe, a spokesman with Quebec provincial police, said: "I don't want to get into numbers, what I will say is we do expect we'll have other people who will be found deceased unfortunately."
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