Pat cites pills in car wreck  —  WASHINGTON -U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy insisted yesterday that he had consumed "no alcohol" before he slammed his Mustang convertible into a concrete barrier near his office, but a hostess at a popular Capitol Hill watering hole told the Herald she saw him drinking in the hours before the crash.

Senate Defies Bush on Spending  —  $109 Billion Bill for Wars, Storm Relief Disdained in House  —  The Senate ignored President Bush's veto threat yesterday and easily passed a $109 billion emergency spending bill for war and hurricane recovery costs that also brimmed with favors for farmers …

'United 93' and the 20th Hijacker  —  Moussaoui will never rot in prison.  —  Need an antidote to the Moussaoui verdict?  Go out this weekend to see "United 93."  —  Zacarias Moussaoui is lucky the jurors at his sentencing trial weren't allowed to see the movie "United 93" the day before reaching a verdict.

Use of Contraception Drops, Slowing Decline of Abortion Rate  —  Contraception use has declined strikingly over the last decade, particularly among poor women, making them more likely to get pregnant unintentionally and to have abortions, according to a report released yesterday by the Guttmacher Institute.

Tories make gains on bad night for Labour  —  Mark Oliver and agencies  —  Labour suffered disastrous results in last night's local elections in England and was today reeling from its worst share of the vote since the Falklands war in 1982.  —  By 8am this morning, Labour were on a projected 26% …

Poll: Bush's Approval Falls to New Low  —  WASHINGTON - Angry conservatives are driving the approval ratings of President Bush and the GOP-led Congress to dismal new lows, according to an AP-Ipsos poll that underscores why Republicans fear an Election Day massacre.

Memorial Cost at Ground Zero Nears $1 Billion  —  The projected cost of building the World Trade Center memorial complex at ground zero has soared to nearly $1 billion, according to the most authoritative estimate to date.  —  Rebuilding officials concede that the new price tag is breathtaking …

Why Isn't Socialism Dead?  —  The President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, celebrated May Day by ordering soldiers to occupy his country's natural gas fields.  The purpose of this exercise was not military, but economic: Morales has demanded that all foreign companies currently operating …

Never Again?  —  When something happens for the first time in 1,871 years, it is worth noting.  In A.D. 70, and again in 135, the Roman Empire brutally put down Jewish revolts in Judea, destroying Jerusalem, killing hundreds of thousands of Jews and sending hundreds of thousands more into slavery and exile.

Committee OKs bill to add gays, lesbians to textbooks Hotly debated measure heads to state Senate  —  Sacramento — After a sometimes emotional debate centering on discrimination and sexual orientation, a Senate committee approved a bill Wednesday that would require that the contributions of gays and lesbians be included in textbooks.

An Army of Climate Davids  —  Something stunningly sensible has just occurred in the field of climate change research.  But what might actually induce gasps of amazement is that that something has been done by the US Government.  And it is already causing shock and dismay among tree huggers …