A little-noticed provision of the energy bill, which is expected to become law, phases out the 125-year-old bulb in the next four to 12 years in favor of a new generation of energy-efficient lights that will cost consumers more but return their investment in a few months.

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Under the measure, all light bulbs must use 25% to 30% less energy than today's products by 2012 to 2014. The phase-in will start with 100-watt bulbs in January 2012 and end with 40-watt bulbs in January 2014. By 2020, bulbs must be 70% more efficient.

Federal law enforcement agents are currently searching the Girdwood home of Alaska U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens.

"All I can say is that agents from the FBI and IRS are currently conducting a search at that residence," said Dave Heller, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Anchorage office. The search began earlier this afternoon, he said. It's the only such search warrant currently being served, he said.

The star of "The Nanny" wouldn't mind playing the title role in "The Representative" someday - but right now she's too busy telling women about the importance of early cancer detection.

Fran Drescher yesterday admitted she's interested in running for elected office, though she won't be announcing a 2008 congressional run tomorrow during a cancer survivors celebration in Lake Success.

Retired New York Rangers goalie Mike Richter has decided not to run for Congress against Republican U.S. Rep. Chris Shays, a Democratic party leader said today.

Richter, a 40-year-old Democrat who lives in Guilford, said last month he was considering a run for the Fairfield County seat in 2008.

Republican congressional hopeful John Jacob believes the devil is impeding his efforts to unseat five-term Representative Chris Cannon.

He says there's another force that wants to keep him from going to Washington and the devil is what it is.

Jacob says that since he decided to run for Congress, Satan has disrupted his business deals, preventing him from putting as much money into the race as he had hoped.

The ascent last week of Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) to the Majority Leader post has put the agenda for the upcoming House GOP retreat somewhat in flux, but one thing is certain: Frank Luntz won't be there. The omnipresent Republican pollster was uninvited from the retreat — scheduled for this Thursday through Saturday in Cambridge, Md. — after Boehner adamantly told his colleagues at his first leadership meeting last Friday that he didn't want Luntz there.

Alberto Gonzales writes: In the days following Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush charted a course of action to respond to the worst attack on our homeland in history. He promised to use every tool available to defeat al Qaeda and pledged to take the fight to the enemy abroad as he worked to prevent another attack. As he said in the State of the Union address, "Our country must remain on the offensive against terrorism here at home." The president has the constitutional responsibility--and authority--to lead this response.

Just two weeks after House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) pledged to pass far-reaching changes to the rules of lobbying on Capitol Hill, House Republican members pushed back hard against those proposals yesterday, charging that their leaders are overreacting to a growing corruption scandal.

In July of last year the staff of U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan of Massachusetts literally re-wrote history. Before then, anyone visiting the the Wikipedia entry for Marty Meehan could learn some simple, undisputed truths about him. Now if one looks up Meehan in the online encyclopedia, history looks a little different.

THIS IS ONE OF THOSE moments when you realize Congress is not an altogether serious body. There have been others. One that comes to mind is the frantic effort several decades ago to stop the National Football League from blacking out home games on local television (unless stadium tickets have already sold out). This time it's worse. The current drive for lobbying reform is purely cosmetic. And it skirts the real issue. Lobbyists, for all their selfish intentions and dubious methods, aren't the problem. Members of Congress and the way they spend taxpayers' money are.

Sources tell TIME that Duke Cunningham wore a wire after agreeing to cooperate with a graft probe