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 …

Unwanted Pregnancies Rise for Poor Women  —  Rate Drops for Those Well Above Poverty Level, Report Indicates  —  Poor women in America are increasingly likely to have unwanted pregnancies, whereas relatively affluent women are succeeding more and more in getting pregnant only when they want to …

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.

Lucky for Blair that London results not reflected nationwide  —  THESE were not a set of local elections for those nervous of statistics.  In many ways they have been the most complicated for years.  In those parts of England outside of the capital, the appropriate comparison for 2006 …

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.

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 …

In Image War, U.S. Shows Video of Bumbling Zarqawi  —  BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 4 — In the video released last week by the terrorist Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, he is seen firing long bursts from a heavy automatic rifle, his forearms sprouting from beneath black fatigues as he exudes the very picture of a strong jihadist leader.