Police: Many casualties in Egyptian resort blasts  —  Three explosions rocked the Sinai resort city of Dahab on Monday night leaving at least 100 dead and wounded, according to the doctor who runs Egypt's rescue squad in the peninsula.  —  Dr. Said Essa said he was headed to the scene of the blasts …

Transcript: Bin Laden accuses West  —  The following is an edited translation of an audiotape attributed to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, parts of which were aired by Aljazeera on April 23, 2006.  (It is not known where or when the recording was made.)  —  Praise be to Allah …

Ex-CIA official: WMD evidence ignored  —  '60 Minutes' report: White House disregarded good intelligence  —  (CNN) — A retired CIA official has accused the Bush administration of ignoring intelligence indicating that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and no active nuclear program …

The Internet Freedom Fight: A Round-Up  —  Background on the Issue: The internet is open because private companies haven't been allowed to block content they don't like.  Now the telcos want to make it so they can block what you see.  —  The Threat to You is real: Telcos …

INTRODUCING HOT AIR  —  I'm excited to introduce you today to Hot Air—a conservative Internet broadcast network I founded with a team of multi-talented bloggers.  (Press release here.)  —  Internet video is booming.  Apple's iTunes store has sold a gazillion videos since its debut.

7 Car Bombs Explode in Baghdad, Killing 6  —  BAGHDAD, Iraq - Seven car bombs exploded across the capital Monday, killing at least six people and wounding dozens, as politicians met to try to finalize a new Cabinet.  Police discovered the bodies of 20 Iraqis — apparent victims of sectarian killings …

A Religious Push Against Gay Unions  —  WASHINGTON, April 23 — About 50 prominent religious leaders, including seven Roman Catholic cardinals and about a half-dozen archbishops, have signed a petition in support of a constitutional amendment blocking same-sex marriage.

Cole Fire  —  Yale is set to ditch Taliban Man and may hire a notorious anti-Israel professor.  —  Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi's luck is running out.  Eight weeks ago the Taliban diplomat turned special Yale student made a media splash on the cover of the New York Times magazine in which he proclaimed …

Inspectors Find More Torture at Iraqi Jails  —  Top General's Pledge To Protect Prisoners 'Not Being Followed'  —  BAGHDAD — Last Nov. 13, U.S. soldiers found 173 incarcerated men, some of them emaciated and showing signs of torture, in a secret bunker in an Interior Ministry compound in central Baghdad.

Can The New Sheriff Tame The West Wing?  —  Josh Bolten started by shaking up the staff.  Next comes a five-point White House "recovery plan"  —  At the George W. Bush campaign headquarters in Austin, Texas, in 1999, policy director Josh Bolten was a low-key Washingtonian in a building full of brash Texans.

Dissident President  —  George W. Bush has the courage to speak out for freedom.  —  There are two distinct marks of a dissident.  First, dissidents are fired by ideas and stay true to them no matter the consequences.  Second, they generally believe that betraying those ideas would constitute the greatest of moral failures.

An Experiment in Journalism  —  I went to the Middle East for six months so I could expand my freelance writing portfolio.  But I found, after a few months, there may be a better way forward than publishing disconnected dispatches here and there for low pay.  —  The mainstream media is an industry in decline.

Let's Get This Right, Please  —  Walter Pincus of the WaPo tries to report on the Mary McCarthy firing and manages to bungle a related story: … No, she wasn't referring to the Valerie Plame leak, or if she was, the WaPo should have noted her error rather than reinforcing it …

Concerns About Pain Put Lethal Injection on Trial  —  A flurry of litigation challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection has placed a spotlight on growing evidence that condemned inmates may not be properly anesthetized and therefore experience excruciating pain during executions.

Bush's Thousand Days  —  The Hundred Days is indelibly associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Thousand Days with John F. Kennedy.  But as of this week, a thousand days remain of President Bush's last term — days filled with ominous preparations for and dark rumors of a preventive war against Iran.

Cyber war over UCSC protest heats up  —  In the easy and anonymous world of cyberspace communication, angry partisans on both sides of the anti-war movement can volley threatening barbs at the click of a button.  UC Santa Cruz students and conservative pundits alike have seen such messages filing …

Thousands Protest Brussels MP3 Murder.  BBC Omits Facts  —  Today, some 80,000 people participated in a silent march in Brussels to commemorate 17 year old Joe Van Holsbeeck, who was knifed on 12 April because he refused to hand over his MP3 player to two North African youths.

Gearing Up for '08?  McCain Befriends Old Enemies  —  He's Receiving Money From People Who Attacked Him in 2000  —  April 23, 2006— Once they were "coyotes."  Now, they're pals.  —  Some of the very same men who helped derail Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign in 2000 using techniques …