House Republicans passed two amendments on a spending bill Tuesday that would bar the federal government from imposing light bulb standards that critics say are too meddlesome. Passed through a voice vote, the provision would amend the Energy and Water spending bill for 2013 by preventing the Energy Department from spending money to enforce bulb efficiency regulations that were established in a law passed during the Bush administration.

Under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, the phase-out was slated to commence in January 2012, which banned the sale of all 100-watt bulbs, as well as the sale of all 75-watt bulbs by July 2013. But a spending bill passed last December stalled the mandate until this October.

The tobacco industry has spent $47 million to defeat California’s Proposition 29, which would enact a new $1-a-pack cigarette tax, and its ad campaign is having a significant impact. 

The Obama administration has come under fire after the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) hired a public relations firm to help restore the muddied reputation of the President’s controversial Affordable Care Act. The $20-million, taxpayer-funded contract was awarded to a PR firm called Porter Novelli, which helped launch the Agriculture Department’s renowned healthy food pyramid.

Senate lawmakers are continuing investigations over the infamous prostitution scandal that implicated 12 Secret Service agents during a presidential assignment in Cartagena, Colombia. So far, eight Secret Service employees have lost their jobs, while the agency plans to permanently revoke the security clearance for one other employee.

While GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney handily won Tuesday’s Kentucky and Arkansas primaries, voters in the two states mounted a heavy revolt against President Obama, as Democratic contenders garnered a sizable block of votes. Moreover, discontent with Obama’s first term is so intensive that voters in West Virginia delivered a prison inmate in Texas over 40 percent of the state’s Democratic primary vote.

In an effort to curb growing discontent with ObamaCare, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has hired a public relations firm to help underscore portions of the law.

A new study published by the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) could proffer a formidable challenge to the Obama administration’s regulated approach to tapering healthcare costs, as the analysis found that healthcare spending is growing moderately, up 3.3 percent in 2010 but still three times the pace of general inflation.

A recently uploaded YouTube video showed a North Carolina teacher telling a student that disrespecting President Obama is a criminal offense.

A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) study, commissioned by Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.), is questioning the federal government’s $18-billion job training program.

Only days after Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, announced that it was terminating its student health insurance program, officials at Ave Maria University in Ave Maria, Florida, are voicing moral and financial concerns about their own student health program in light of ObamaCare's stringent guidelines. President Obama’s landmark healthcare overhaul has spurred a controversy not just for its contraception mandate, but also for the swelling economic costs accompanying its implementation.