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Washington (CNN) - Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, just released the 2010 schedule for the House.

The "targeted adjournment" date is Oct. 8, less than one month before the midterm elections.

See full schedule here.

Follow Mark Preston on Twitter: @prestoncnn

President Barack Obama now stands closer to realizing the Democratic dream of universal coverage.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Where does the battle for health care reform go from here? More importantly, what does it mean for you?

Democrats made history over the weekend when the House of Representativesapproved the biggest expansion of medical coverage since Medicare was enacted over four decades ago. President Barack Obama now stands closer to realizing the Democratic dream of universal coverage than any of his White House predecessors since Harry Truman after World War II.

But top Democrats know that it is far too early to celebrate. The road to final passage of health care legislation is still long and bumpy.

The more conservative Senate - where it is much easier for the GOP minority to stifle the will of the Democratic majority - has yet to pass its own version of a health care bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada last week signaled uncertainty over whether that will happen this year.

If the Senate manages to pass a bill, a congressional conference committee will need to merge the House and Senate proposals into a consensus version requiring final approval from each chamber before moving to Obama's desk to be signed into law.

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WASHINGTON (CNN) – The House Republican leadership upped the ante Thursday in the ongoing debate over the size and scope of the federal budget, unveiling a proposal to cut spending by $375 billion over the next five years.

The bulk of the GOP's proposed savings would come from capping non-defense discretionary spending at the level of inflation.

President Barack Obama "challenged us to come up with budget savings, and today House Republicans encourage him to not only look over our proposed ... common-sense taxpayer savings, but to join our effort," House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, said in a statement.

"For the sake of our young people and America's long-term fiscal viability, Congress simply cannot keep spending money that the president
himself admits we don't have."

Obama asked congressional Republicans to propose new budget reductions
during an April 24 meeting at the White House.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – The House of Representatives passed a $96.7 billion Iraq and Afghanistan war funding bill Thursday.

The measure, which covers funding for the two conflicts for the remainder of 2009, passed in a 368-60 vote.

Fifty-one Democrats and nine Republicans opposed the measure.

House Democrats removed $80 billion requested by the Obama administration to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. They instead added a requirement that the administration submit a plan to Congress by October 1 on what to do with remaining Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The bill also includes a requirement that the administration give Congress a detailed progress report on the status of the Afghanistan conflict within a year.

The Senate is expected to vote on a similar war funding measure next week.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The House on Thursday passed a $6.4 billion school modernization bill that would commit funds for the construction and update of more energy-efficient school buildings.

The measure passed 275-155 in a largely party-line vote, and will now move to the Senate for further review.

Among other things, the bill allocates substantial funds for improvements along the Gulf Coast, where many school districts are still struggling to repair buildings damaged by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Full Story

A week after a woman was brutally attacked by a friend’s chimpanzee, a House committee moved to prohibit humans from keeping primates as pets.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – A week after a woman was brutally attacked by a friend’s chimpanzee, a House committee moved to prohibit humans from keeping primates as pets.

Rep. Nick Rahall, chairman of the Committee on Natural Resources, requested action Monday on legislation to prohibit people from buying or transporting primates across state lines as pets. The West Virginia Democrat warned that primates are too dangerous to be kept as pets.

“Images of Curious George and Koko may lead us to believe that these creatures are cuddly and harmless, but last week’s tragedy and other similar attacks stand as evidence that this is not the case, that they are in fact wild animals, and they simply must not be kept as pets,” Rahall said in a statement.

The Captive Primate Safety act would modify the Lacy Act amendments, which were passed in 1981 and only included a ban on buying or transporting fish and wildlife across state lines to keep as pets, by adding primates to that list. The legislation is expected to go to the House floor for debate this afternoon.

Roughly a dozen Americans were attacked by primates in 2008, according to the Humane Society.

Dingell has served in Congress for more than five decades.

(CNN)–Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich) has made history by becoming the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives, surpassing former Congressman Jamie Whitten (D-Miss). Rep. Dingell begins his 19,420th day in office on Wednesday.

At a reception in Rep. Dingell’s honor on Tuesday, former President Bill Clinton remarked, “we are not here for the length of his service, we are here for the quality of his service.” The 82-year-old Congressman has been representing Michigan’s 15th Congressional District since 1955 when he succeeded his late father. Some of his most notable moments in Congress include helping the House pass the legislation that created Medicare in 1965 and helping to write the 1973 Endangered Species Act. Rep. Dingell is known as a tireless backer of the auto industry.

But things have changed for the Michigan Congressman. After the election last fall, he lost his chairmanship of the influential House Committee on Energy and Commerce to California Rep. Henry Waxman.

Still, Rep. Dingell is receiving praise for his service. Today a flag will fly over the capitol in Dingell’s honor.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Florida Rep. Adam Putnam, a former member of the House Republican leadership, said Sunday he will leave Congress to run for agriculture commissioner in his home state next year.

Putnam, the former chairman of the House Republican Conference, said he would file paperwork Monday to seek the office in 2010.

"It's always been well known that my first love is Florida," Putnam told CNN in a brief telephone interview.

Putnam, 34, rose quickly through Republican ranks after winning his first term in the House of Representatives in 2000. He became GOP conference chairman - the No. 3 post in the party's leadership - in 2006.

But he opted out of seeking the leadership post again after November's Republican losses. Meanwhile, rank-and-file conservatives in the House criticized the leadership's support of the Bush administration's $700 billion financial bailout.

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Louisiana Democratic Rep. William Jefferson has been embroiled in a bribery scandal.

(CNN) – Nine-term Democratic Rep. William Jefferson, who has been battling scandals and a federal indictment for the past three years, lost his bid for re-election on Saturday.

Republican challenger Anh "Joseph" Cao, an attorney and community organizer, defeated Jefferson in the Louisiana 2nd Congressional district race. He will become the first Vietnamese-American elected to Congress.

With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Cao had almost 50 percent of the vote to Jefferson's 47 percent.

The 2nd Congressional district, in and around New Orleans, is mostly African-American and heavily Democratic, and Jefferson appeared to be favored to win re-election going into the election.

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Four congressional races have yet to be decided.

(CNN) – One month after Election Day, four congressional races have yet to be decided.

Two of those contests could come to conclusion this weekend.

Saturday is election day in Louisiana's 2nd and 4th Congressional Districts, where contests were delayed due to Hurricane Gustav.

The race in the 4th district is to replace retiring 10-term Republican congressman Jim McCrery. Democrat Paul Carmouche is facing off against Republican John Fleming in a campaign that's attracting national attention and money.

In the 2nd Congressional district, nine-term Democratic Rep. William Jefferson is running for re-election against Republican Anh "Joseph" Cao. Jefferson's been battling scandals and a federal indictment for the past three years, but the district, in and around New Orleans, is mostly African-American and heavily Democratic.

In two remaining districts, the vote counts are in dispute. In Virginia's 5th Congressional district, Republican Virgil Goode is calling for a recount. The nine-term Congressman trails Democrat Tom Perriello by 745 votes out of nearly 310,000 cast.

And the battle to succeed eight-term GOP Rep. Deborah Pryce in Ohio's 15th Congressional District is headed to court. Republican Steve Stivers leads Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy by 149 votes out of nearly 260,000 cast. Ohio's state Supreme Court will rule on whether to count thousands of disputed provisional ballots.

But at least one fight whose results were up in the air nearly a month after voters headed to the polls has officially drawn to a close, with the GOP holding on to a closely-contested House seat.

Republicans held on to a seat in northern California when Democrat Charlie Brown conceded defeat Tuesday to Republican state senator Tom McClintock in the battle for California's 4th congressional district. Brown's concession came a day after the counties in the district turned in their final vote counts.

Those tallies gave McClintock a lead of more than 1,500 votes out of nearly 370,000 cast. Given his narrow loss, Brown could have asked for a recount, but opted to concede. The seat was held by retiring nine-term Republican congressman John Doolittle, who was under investigation in connection with the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

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Rep. Chris Shays, R-Connecticut, failed to win his 11th full term.

(CNN) – Democrats appeared to have padded their 36-seat majority in the U.S. House, defeating a few established Republicans and winning some open contests as they tried to capitalize on an unpopular GOP president.

Democrats clinched a majority and took at least 21 seats from Republicans, with the GOP taking only four from the Democrats, according to CNN projections as of 4 a.m. ET Wednesday.

With winners yet to be called for 12 of the House's 435 seats, Democrats were projected to win 251 seats, with Republicans having 172.

Heading into Election Day, the Democrats had a 235-199 majority. The Democrats' apparent gains Tuesday come two years after they took control of the House - with a gain of 30 seats - after 12 years in the minority.

Full story

Mahoney admitted to affairs.

NEW YORK (CNN) – A Democratic lawmaker who won his seat after his predecessor became mired in scandal lost his bid for re-election after becoming embroiled in scandal himself.

Rep. Tim Mahoney of Florida's 16th district was defeated by Republican Tom Rooney, a lawyer and former Army officer.

Mahoney recently admitted having two extramarital affairs and paying one woman to keep quiet. He won his seat in 2006 partly by stressing family values after Republican Rep. Mark Foley resigned in disgrace. Foley had sent racy Internet messages to male former Capitol Hill pages.

Two Republicans in Congress launched this Web site Tuesday.

(CNN) – As House Republicans continue to focus on energy policy, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas launched a new Web site Tuesday that highlights October 1 as the day the congressional ban on offshore oil drilling will end unless Congress takes some action to continue the ban.

The site prominently features a YouTube video clip of DeMint and Hensarling discussing energy policy and encouraging the public to contact their representatives in Congress about lifting ban on offshore oil drilling and oil shale recovery. The site also contains a clock-like widget counting down the time until October 1. Visitors to the site can copy the HTML code for the widget so that they can embed the countdown clock on their own blogs or Web sites. Visitors can also sign an online petition on the site and read a blog about energy policy.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, also recently launched a Facebook application that allows users to add a gas-pump-shaped October 1 countdown clock to their profiles on the popular social networking site.

These online developments come on the heels of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s announcement Monday on Larry King Live that she would be open to holding a vote on offshore drilling if it were part of a larger energy package. Pelosi’s change in position echoes a similar change in position by Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Since August 1, House Republicans have been staging a protest against Pelosi’s refusal to hold a vote on an energy bill before Congress’ five-week recess began.

Newt Gingrich came to Capitol Hill Wednesday to support House Republicans protesting the need to vote on an energy bill.

(CNN) – MoveOn.org Political Action, a liberal advocacy group that supports many Democratic causes and Sen. Barack Obama presidential candidacy, will launch radio advertisements Friday that target six GOP members of Congress over their involvement in a week-long protest by House Republicans.

Since Congress’ five-week long recess began last Friday, some House Republicans have taken to the House floor every weekday to protest Congress’ failure to vote on an energy bill.

“The political theatrics in the House this week are brought to you by the Party that’s been sold to Big Oil,” said Noah T. Winer, in a statement released by MoveOn Thursday. “They are playing politics instead of offering solutions,” Winer, a campaign director at MoveOn also said in the statement.

The radio ads will air in the districts of Rep. Roy Blunt (Missouri’s 7th District), Rep. Mike Pence (Ohio’s Indiana’s 6th District), Rep. Mary Fallin (Oklahoma’s 5th District), Rep. John Culberson (Texas’s 7th District), Rep. Mike Conaway (Texas’s 11th District), and Rep. Jon Porter (Nevada’s 3rd District).

Newt Gingrich, former Republican Speaker of the House, met with House Republicans Wednesday, followed by a Capitol Hill press conference. The GOP protest is being support by a burgeoning movement of conservative online political activists.