Questions About Carroll's Captivity  —  I spoke to David Bloom days before he died and then covered his memorial service.  I wrote about the death of Michael Kelly.  I said goodbye to Bob Woodruff before he went to Iraq and got badly injured by a roadside bomb.

No Apology From McKinney for Hill Scuffle  —  Rep. Cynthia McKinney, the Georgia congresswoman who had a physical altercation with a police officer, is speaking out about the episode after saying she regretted the incident.  —  But she has refused to apologize in a statement and a brief on-camera interview.

Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer  —  Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.  —  And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate …

Conservatives Stand Firm on Immigration  —  WASHINGTON, March 30 — Conservative House Republicans bluntly warned their leaders Thursday against any immigration compromise that would allow temporary foreign workers and assailed a Senate proposal that would open the way for illegal immigrants to earn citizenship.

Immigration tensions spark flag-burning in A.J.  —  This week's tensions over immigration reform literally caught fire in the East Valley on Thursday when students raised a Mexican flag over Apache Junction High School — and then other students yanked it down and burned it.

Rudy Plea Deal Implicates Buckham  —  Tony Rudy was the second former aide to Tom DeLay to go down - the first was Michael Scanlon.  But the details in his plea, it looks like he's going to take down a third with him, Ed Buckham.  Buckham's name might not be immediately familiar to you now …

Intelligence Redo Is Harshly Judged  —  A Judge Critiques 9/11 Overhaul, and Finds It Top-Heavy  —  U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Richard A. Posner sharply criticized the restructuring of U.S. intelligence agencies last week, telling CIA lawyers that the overhaul has done nothing …

Air America Anniversary, Sacramento, New York City, Al Franken, Bill O'Reilly  —  DEBACLE  —  After Two Years, How Else To Describe Air America?  —  As certain as the presence of a dozen Dunkin' Donuts outlets in every New England town, today's second Air America Radio on-air anniversary …

The Left's Fear of Money, Part II  —  Nine months ago I wrote a post that got a good amount of attention, it was about the fear of money that some people have on the left.  I think it's time for the next installment.  —  Last night I attended the Radio and Television Correspondents Association annual dinner in Washington, DC.

Whose Backlash?  —  Hundreds of thousands of Mexican citizens, along with Mexican-Americans and Hispanics in general, hit the streets throughout the United States this past week in one of the largest displays of public outrage since the Vietnam-War era.  —  The conventional wisdom …

The Twilight of Objectivity  —  How opinion journalism could change the face of the news.  —  CNN says it is just thrilled by the transformation of Lou Dobbs—formerly a mild-mannered news anchor noted for his palsy-walsy interviews with corporate CEOs—into a raving populist xenophobe.  Ratings are up.

How the FBI Let 9/11 Happen  —  Never mind Moussaoui, the smoldering gun was right there all the time  —  Anyone paying attention to the Zacarias Moussaoui trial gets it now.  All the 9/11 blanks are filled in, and the picture is complete.  Sorry, conspiracy freaks and blind partisan hacks.

Pentagon to Test a Huge Conventional Bomb  —  A huge mushroom cloud of dust is expected to rise over Nevada's desert in June when the Pentagon plans to detonate a gigantic 700-ton explosive — the biggest open-air chemical blast ever at the Nevada Test Site — as part of the research …

The Iran Crisis: A "roundtable" discussion at Princeton University  —  Last night I attended "roundtable" discussion of the Iranian nuclear crisis at Princeton University.  I originally wrote my report up as a "live-blogging" session, but it was sometimes tough to hear through the accents …

Levee Repair Costs Triple  —  The Bush administration said yesterday that the cost of rebuilding New Orleans's levees to federal standards has nearly tripled to $10 billion and that there may not be enough money to fully protect the entire region.  —  Donald E. Powell, the administration's …

Bill Clinton's A Convert To Dean's 50-State Project  —  NOTE: This post is updated above.  —  Will Howard Dean's Democratic National Committee be ready for the November elections?  Party leaders and congressional campaign strategists are nervously pressuring Dean to stop spending money …

The Two Branches of Government  —  Forget it.  —  Just forget everything.  Forget everything They ever taught you — it's garbage anyway.  —  Yeah, yeah, I know what you learned; I learned it too.  There are three branches of federal government, not two:  — Excutive  — Legislative

Rice admits "thousands" of errors in Iraq  —  BLACKBURN (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accepted on Friday the United States had probably made thousands of errors in Iraq but defended the overall strategy of removing Saddam Hussein.  —  Local Muslims and anti-war activists told Rice …