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A proposed U.S. law requiring employers to provide paid sick leave would help stop the spread of swine flu and increase productivity, supporters argued on Tuesday.

Vice President Joe Biden's son, who has returned after serving a tour with the Army National Guard in Iraq, says he'll take his time to decide whether to seek his father's Senate seat.

A second Republican senator signaled Wednesday she's open to voting for sweeping health care legislation this year, putting President Barack Obama closer to a historic achievement that has eluded generations of Democratic leaders.

Reacting to an amendment proposed by Sen. Jon Cornyn (R-Texas) during the Senate Finance Committee's markup of health care reform legislation on Thursday, committee member Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) called his colleague a pawn of the health insurance industry.

"This is a very, very important amendment and it's a very, very bad amendment," said Rockefeller. "If there's anything which is clear, it's that the insurance industry is not running this markup, but is running certain people in this markup."

Paul G. Kirk Jr., the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, will replace the late Ted Kennedy in the Senate until a special election is held in January, sources told FOX News.

Ambulances and fire trucks raced to the home of the 91-year-old West Virginia Democrat, the longest-serving senator in U.S. history. He was taken to a hospital but has not been admitted.

Massachusetts could have a new U.S. senator by the end of the week.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick threw his support Monday behind a proposal to appoint an interim successor to the late Senator Edward Kennedy and also set a date of Jan. 19 for a special election to fill the term that ends in 2012.

As a soft twilight fell over the nation's capital, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was laid to his final rest Saturday in a ceremony on a sloping site in Arlington National Cemetery.

Mourners for Senator Edward M. Kennedy gathered in long lines around the presidential library in Boston.