McClatchy Newspapers - WASHINGTON — Republican prosecutors from South Carolina and Florida said Friday they were preparing to file a lawsuit if the health care bill before Congress becomes law, challenging its requirement that all Americans buy insurance.

AFP - Passage of President Barack Obama's historic health care bill would "pretty much kill" chances for a sweeping immigration overhaul this year, a Republican senator warned Friday.

Reuters - Republicans in the House of Representatives on Friday recommended the country's top two mortgage finance companies, the recipients of a massive government bailout during the height of the financial crisis, be phased out in four years in order to restore stability to the housing market.

CQPolitics.com - The praise for conservative icon Ann Coulter and scorn for "Barack Hussein Obama's" socialist agenda was plentiful at a Republican candidate forum in Washington, D.C. Thursday, and it certainly sounded like any standard GOP event. But it sure as heck didn't look like one.

AP - A federal grand jury has issued subpoenas to a Republican campaign committee and companies in Nevada in a probe of Sen. John Ensign, who has been under scrutiny for his efforts to find lobbying work for the husband of his former mistress.

AP - A federal grand jury has issued subpoenas to a Republican campaign committee and companies in Nevada in a probe of Sen. John Ensign, who has been under scrutiny for his efforts to find lobbying work for the husband of his former mistress.

CQPolitics.com - Republican Jim Gibbons, a former college wrestling coach who is challenging Democratic Rep. Leonard L. Boswell, held a fundraiser with former Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) that some of Gibbons' opponents say is evidence that he is the choice of GOP political insiders.

The Christian Science Monitor - The dramatic shift in poll numbers in the California Senate race – a surge for former US Rep. Tom Campbell for the GOP nomination and a double-digit drop for Senator Barbara Boxer (D) since January – has serious national implications, according to political analysts.

AP - Republicans have lost an effort to force House Democrats to hold a direct vote on the health overhaul bill.

CQPolitics.com - The Senate Banking Committee's top Republican said the GOP will "keep our options open" for the March 22 markup of legislation that would overhaul the nation's financial system.

Reuters - A top Senate Republican said on Thursday that setting up a fund to help unwind large troubled firms may perpetrate the assumption that some financial firms will always be rescued by the U.S. government.

AP - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is predicting an all-out assault by Republicans and the insurance industry as Democrats prepare to push their health care overhaul through Congress.

AP - Utah's House Republicans say it was appropriate for a state lawmaker to resign after he acknowledged he paid a woman $150,000 to keep quiet about nude hot-tubbing a quarter century ago, when she was a minor.

Reuters - Some Tea Partiers say they can pinpoint the precise moment when they made it clear to the Republican Party they had no intention of being its lapdog.

AP - President Barack Obama on Wednesday took to the Fox News Channel, derided by his White House as a wing of the Republican Party, to sell his embattled health care overhaul in an interview punctuated with interruptions from the host and chiding from the guest.

Time.com - Rand Paul has taken the lead in the GOP primary race to succeed Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning, but he's done it by attacking Republicans as often as Democrats

AFP - A Japanese-American lawmaker took offense Wednesday after Republican Senator Lindsey Graham likened the Democrats' drive on health care to a Japanese suicide attack in World War II.

AP - Former President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday called the divide among Republicans and Democrats in Washington "unprecedented," and said President Barack Obama should hold private meetings with GOP leaders to make sure the gap doesn't grow.

Time.com - Rand Paul has taken a lead in the Kentucky GOP primary race to succeed Senator Jim Bunning, but he's done it by attacking Republicans as often as Democrats

AP - President Barack Obama is thanking lawmakers — and Republicans especially — for their help sending him a jobs bill.