"This process has been drug-out a long time, which says to me it is political," he said. "There is no wrong doing."

Opposition Democrats are calling for the Attorney General's ouster over what they say is the politically-motivated firing of eight federal prosecutors. The Justice Department says those dismissals were based on poor performance.

During this trip to Europe, President Bush also suffered a set-back to his top legislative priority of the year: comprehensive immigration reform.

A bipartisan bill fell short of the votes it needed in the Senate because some members of the president's own party object to its provisions giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

The president says he knows it is a tough debate, but he is still optimistic about getting the bill through.

At dusk, illegal immigrants prepare to use an inner-tube to cross the Rio Grande River at the U.S-Mexico border in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, 02 June 2007
"I believe we can get an immigration bill," he said. "Now it is going to require leadership from the Democrat leaders in the Senate, and it is going to require me to stay engaged and work with Republicans who want a bill."

While in Europe, the president telephoned three Republican Senators to lobby for the immigration bill. He will go to Capitol Hill Tuesday to press them further.

"It is important that we address this issue now and I believe we can get it done," he said. "Listen, a lot of progress was made between people in both parties making hard decisions necessary to move a comprehensive plan."

Mr. Bush says the legislative process often takes two steps forward and one step back. He says he will start Tuesday to work toward taking some steps forward again, telling a reporter on the trip, "I will see you at the bill signing."

No one is predicting that a symbolic resolution expressing no confidence in Gonzales will survive even the test vote Monday. Most Republicans are likely to vote no, dismissing the whole exercise as a ploy to embarrass President Bush.

"I'm not going to comment on the kind of job" Gonzales has done, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition." "The vote is whether we should take a vote to express a lack of confidence by the Senate. That's wrong."

At the same time, not many of the Senate's 100 members have been supportive of Gonzales after the attorney general told a Senate committee dozens of times that he could not recall key details about the firing of eight federal prosecutors.

White House spokesman Tony Snow brushed off the impending vote.

"There's an attempt to sort of pull this thing like a piece of taffy and looking if there's any political advantage in it. There's not," Snow said on "Fox News Sunday."

Democrats say it's only right for senators to go on record, since five Republicans have called outright for Gonzales' dismissal and many more of the president's party have said in public comments that they have lost confidence in him.

Previously, large scientific studies have found no association between autism and vaccines containing thimerosal.

But many parents say their children's symptoms did not show up until after their children received the vaccines, required by many states for admission to school. If they prevail in the courts, the families are entitled to compensation from a multibillion-dollar trust fund.

The first of what eventually could be nine test cases from those claims is the subject of the hearing opening Monday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Three special masters appointed by the court will preside over the hearing, expected to last through June 29.

The court is being asked to decide whether there is a link between autism and childhood vaccines. If it finds one exists, the families could be eligible for compensation under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund, a program established by Congress to ensure an adequate supply of vaccines by safeguarding manufacturers from lawsuits. Under the program, people injured by vaccines receive compensation through a special trust fund.

Autism is characterized by impaired social interaction. Those affected often have trouble communicating, and they exhibit unusual or severely limited activities and interests. Classic symptoms of mercury poisoning include anxiety, fatigue and abnormal irritation, as well as cognitive and motor dysfunction.

Monday's case addresses the theory that the cause of autism is the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine in combination with other vaccines containing thimerosal. The preservative, about 50 percent mercury by weight, is no longer found in routine childhood vaccines but is used in some flu shots.

In July 1999, the U.S. government asked vaccine manufacturers to eliminate or reduce, as expeditiously as possible, the mercury content of their vaccines to avoid any possibility of infants who receive vaccines being exposed to more mercury than is recommended by federal guidelines.

The case was brought by lawyers for Evelyn Coke, a 73-year-old retiree who spent more than two decades in the home care industry helping the ill and the elderly.

Now in failing health, Coke said her employer never paid her time and a half for all her extra hours on the job.

Lawyers for Coke challenged the Labor Department regulation, and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City ruled in the workers' favor.

The appeals court said it was "implausible" that Congress would have wanted the Labor Department to wipe out protection for an entire category of workers.

The Labor Department wrote the restrictive regulation after Congress expanded the law's coverage.

Paying overtime would cost billions, the home care industry says.

In New York City, the annual cost of the Medicaid-funded Personal Care Services Program would rise by at least a quarter of a billion dollars if the appeals court decision is allowed to stand, the city says. The Personal Care Services program pays 90 private companies to send 60,000 home attendants to the homes of low-income elderly and disabled.

Coke's former employer, Long Island Care at Home Ltd., says it would experience "tremendous and unsustainable losses" if it had to comply with federal overtime requirements.

The Bush administration and the company that employed Coke opposed her lawsuit.

If Congress had wanted to apply the law's wage and overtime provisions to such workers, "it easily could have done so," the Bush administration said in papers filed in the case. Instead, Congress assigned the secretary of labor the task of deciding the issue, the administration said.

At issue is a suit filed against Philip Morris by two Arkansas women alleging that the company engaged in unfair business practices in marketing its low-tar Cambridge Lights and Marlboro Lights cigarette brands.

Companies facing class-action lawsuits typically prefer to have those cases litigated in federal courts, where they usually fare better than in state courts.

Philip Morris succeeded in having the case moved to federal court, saying it was appropriate because cigarette advertisements had been regulated by a U.S. agency -- the Federal Trade Commission.

The move was subsequently upheld by a federal appeals court in St. Louis. The U.S. Justice Department told the Supreme Court that the appeals court's ruling should be overturned.

The Supreme Court agreed and reversed the ruling in an opinion written by Justice Stephen Breyer.

Breyer said the fact that a federal regulatory agency directs, supervises and monitors a company's activities in considerable detail does not bring that company under the scope of the law that permits removal to federal court.

Three years earlier, he had shot his grandparents, Joe and Joy Pittman, with a pump-action shotgun as they slept, then set fire to their home in Chester County.

His attorneys argued unsuccessfully at trial that he was involuntarily intoxicated by the antidepressant Zoloft and didn't know right from wrong.

Pfizer Inc., the manufacturer of Zoloft, has said the drug "didn't cause his problems, nor did the medication drive him to commit murder."

Zoloft is the most widely prescribed antidepressant in the United States, with 32.7 million prescriptions written in 2003. In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration ordered Zoloft and other antidepressants to carry "black box" warnings — the government's strongest warning short of a ban — about an increased risk of suicidal behavior in children.

Christopher Pittman, now 6-foot-2, has attracted attention worldwide. He turned 18 in April and is in an adult prison, where supporters visit him regularly.

The case generated outrage that Pittman was held so long before his trial. In October, dozens of supporters and relatives gathered in Columbia as defense attorney Andy Vickery argued before the state Supreme Court that his client's confession was influenced by Zoloft and his youth.