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year, but panic didn't set in until recently, when the word "foreclosure" showed up in a letter from the bank.
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• WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate is spending this week debating, and summarily rejecting, Democratic-written bills to disclose the names of people who give more than $10,000 to help elect people such as, say, Mitt Romney, and to take away tax breaks from companies taken over by people such as, say, Mitt Romney, who move operations overseas.
• Their latest effort, unveiled Wednesday, would make candidates for federal office, like, say, Mitt Romney, disclose any of their financial holdings in offshore tax havens, such as Bermuda or the Cayman Islands.
• Senate Democrats certainly aren't alone in devoting congressional workdays to bills attacking the other party's presidential candidate.
• House Republicans last week voted to repeal President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. Next week, they plan to vote on freezing all of former President George W. Bush's tax cuts for another year, including those on the top 2 percent, whom Obama says should pay more. On Wednesday, the House passed a GOP bill ordering Obama to specify how many thousands of defense workers will lose their

jobs if the deficit-cutting deal he and Republicans negotiated a year ago stands.
• Congress is just two weeks away from a five-week August recess, with plenty of critical issues hanging over the Capitol. But neither party seems able to resist the allure of presidential politics. As tourists crowd the galleries to escape a record heat wave, lawmakers in both parties bash their opponents and push quixotic bills even as they complain about key work not being done.
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• SIDON, Lebanon (AP) -- On a main road connecting the Lebanese capital with the south, Sheik Ahmad Assir kneels under a blazing sun to pray and then sits down with supporters at his anti-Hezbollah protest camp and launches into a new tirade against Lebanon's most powerful and well-armed force.

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