When paid family leave was briefly dropped from congressional Democrats’ massive social spending and climate bill earlier this fall, the outcry was swift.

Women and caregivers suddenly were calling lawmakers and advocates, and they were sharing their own stories on social media in huge numbers, said Dawn Huckelbridge, director of Paid Leave for All, a national advocacy group, during a virtual event with reporters on Tuesday.

“I think people assumed this was a given, that why would you drop paid leave in a pandemic?” Huckelbridge said. “And when that happened, there was outrage.” ...

President Joe Biden's sprawling social spending and climate package has been slimmed down into a still-massive $1.75 trillion plan that he and top congressional Democrats are attempting to wrestle through after months of negotiations.

Snipped from that proposal are a number of key priorities for Democrats, including an attempt to create the first paid family leave program for parents and other caregivers.

But the framework announced Thursday includes other sweeping policy changes, such as universal pre-K for U.S. children, help with skyrocketing daycare costs, expanded health care coverage for millions of people, and a major clean-energy investment aimed at combating climate change....

The Office of Congressional Ethics is recommending that a congressional panel subpoena U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania and his wife as it investigates whether a stock purchase she made was the result of confidential information Kelly received in his role as a public official.

The recommendation was part of a report released Thursday, which concluded that there is “substantial reason" to believe that Kelly, a six-term Republican lawmaker from Butler County, and his wife, Victoria, violated House ethics rules.

On April 29, 2020, Victoria Kelly purchased between $15,001 and $50,000 in stock in Cleveland-Cliffs. The company owns a steel plant in the congressman's district that employs 1,400 workers, but was threatened by foreign steel imports....