Iran Letter to Bush Criticizes U.S. Govt  —  NEW YORK - Iran's president declared in a letter to President Bush that democracy had failed worldwide and lamented "an ever-increasing global hatred" of the U.S. government.  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice swiftly rejected the letter …

Captured AQ Documents: "Every Year Is Worse Than The Previous Year"  —  CENTCOM announced today that they had captured al-Qaeda correspondence in Iraq that discusses the state of the insurgency, especially around Baghdad but also around the entire country.  Far from optimistic …

Digital Lynch Mob  —  Two weeks ago I wrote about Al Gore's new movie on global warming.  I liked the film.  In response, I instantly got more than 1,000 e-mails, most of them praising Gore, some calling him the usual names and some concluding there was no such thing as global warming, if only because Gore said there was.

Rove prepares 20 judges  —  Presidential adviser Karl Rove and White House counsel Harriet Miers yesterday told conservative activists and Senate staff that the administration would soon send the names of more than 20 judicial nominees to Capitol Hill for confirmation.

Experts See a Strategy Behind CIA Shuffle  —  General May Help Intelligence Chief Rein In Rumsfeld and His Military Spy Plans  —  Gen. Michael V. Hayden isn't the first active-duty military officer tapped to lead the CIA — he is in fact the fifth — but many intelligence experts and officers …

Murdoch to host fundraiser for Hillary Clinton campaign  —  Rupert Murdoch, the conservative media mogul whose New York Post tabloid savaged Hillary Clinton's initial aspirations to become a US senator for New York, has agreed to host a political fundraiser for her re-election campaign.

Out and About  —  The Vice President's Daughter Tells The Inside Story in Her New Book.  But the Subject Is Politics.  —  NEW YORK  —  "Are the eyes too much?"  —  Mary Cheney is peering into the makeup artist's mirror in the early hours of the morning, getting "done" for her appearance on …

We're the Decider  —  Drum provides the regular lament that there ain't enough wonk talk in the blogosphere.  There's more than he gives credit for - there's certainly a lot of reacting to the atrocity-in-Congress-of-the- day - and as Stoller points out it is to a great degree a waste of time.

Optimistic, Democrats Debate the Party's Vision  —  WASHINGTON, May 8 — With Democrats increasingly optimistic about this year's midterm elections and the landscape for 2008, intellectuals in the center and on the left are debating how to sharpen the party's identity and present a clear alternative …

Lesbians' brains respond differently from those of heterosexual women  —  WASHINGTON — Homosexuals' brains respond differently from those of straight men and women when exposed to sex hormones, but researchers now say the difference is less pronounced in lesbians than in gay men.

Another Possible Bump to the Debt Ceiling  —  A $2.7 trillion budget plan pending before the House would raise the federal debt ceiling to nearly $10 trillion, less than two months after Congress last raised the federal government's borrowing limit.  —  The provision — buried on page 121 …

Moussaoui Fails in Bid to Withdraw 9/11 Guilty Plea  —  Facing transfer to the nation's toughest federal prison, Zacarias Moussaoui served up what may be his final legal surprise yesterday: The al-Qaeda conspirator said he was not involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror plot after all and wants a new trial to prove it.

MSNBC reporter: 'I am convinced that Karl Rove will, in fact, be indicted'  —  Rush transcript from Countdown with Keith Olbermann / MSNBC.  —  MSNBC's Keith Olbermann: There are stories — possibly apocryphal — from the medieval courts of chancery in England, of lawsuits that took so long …

Vaccine makers helped write Frist-backed shield law  —  WASHINGTON — Vaccine industry officials helped shape legislation behind the scenes that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist secretly amended into a bill to shield them from lawsuits, according to e-mails obtained by a public advocacy group.

Support for Labour at lowest level since 1992  —  LABOUR'S poll rating has fallen to its lowest level for years amid the turmoil at the top of the party and the bad local election results, a poll for The Times suggests today.  —  Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are given the starkest warning …

Former Aide to Rep. Ney Pleads Guilty  —  Volz Will Be Third Abramoff Associate to Testify Against GOP Lawmaker  —  A former senior aide to Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) who left Congress to join Jack Abramoff's lobbying team pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiring to corruptly influence Ney's official actions …