Senate OKs Border Fence, Mulls Citizenship  —  The Senate voted to build 370 miles of triple-layered fencing along the Mexican border Wednesday and clashed over citizenship for millions of men and women who live in the United States illegally.  —  Amid increasingly emotional debate …

'Earthquake in Pennsylvania'  —  TRIBUNE-REVIEW  —  Angry taxpayers on Tuesday tossed out the two Republican Senate leaders who helped engineer last year's legislative pay raise, an issue that apparently cost 15 House members their jobs, too.  —  Senate President Pro Tempore Robert Jubelirer of Altoona …

New Presidential Memorandum Permits Intelligence Director To Authorize Telcos To Lie Without Violating Securities Law  —  In recent days, AT&T, Bell South and Verizon have all issued statements denying that they've handed over phone records to the NSA, as reported by USA today.  —  There are three possibilities:

Bush Is Now A Lame Duck  —  CBS' Meyer: Forget November, Forget '08; President Is Done  —  (CBS) This commentary was written by CBSNews.com's Dick Meyer.  —  The great impulse of the punditocracy right now is to look at President Bush's swelling problems with the public and his party …

Confidence In GOP Is At New Low in Poll  —  Public confidence in GOP governance has plunged to the lowest levels of the Bush presidency, with Americans saying by wide margins that they now trust Democrats more than Republicans to deal with Iraq, the economy, immigration and other issues …

G.O.P. Voters to Be Target of Radio Ads by Democrats  —  WASHINGTON, May 16 — House Democrats, trying to capitalize on conservative dissatisfaction with Republicans, are reaching out to Christian voters with radio advertisements critical of Republican proposals to overhaul Social Security.

Aksa Brigades threatens US, Europe  —  The Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah, on Monday threatened to strike at US and European interests in response to international sanctions on the Palestinian Authority.  —  The threat, the first of its kind, came as PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas …

GOP Official Faces Sentence in Phone-Jamming  —  Democratic Lines Were Blocked in 2002 as New Hampshire Elected U.S. Senator  —  In October 2002, Charles McGee, executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party, was mailed a Democratic flier that offered Election Day rides to the polls.

Disinvited  —  The EEOC cancels a meeting rather than listen to criticism.  —  Last month, I received an invitation to testify before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about affirmative action and diversity in U.S. companies.  The testimony was scheduled for today …

Sherwood Survives  —  Rep. Don Sherwood (R-PA), his popularity weighed down by a messy extramartial affair, narrowly survived a primary challenge from a virtual unknown with a Democratic voting history.  —  With more than half of the vote counted, Sherwood led challenger Kathy Scott 56 percent to 44 percent.

Still Dodging Immigration's Truths  —  President Bush's immigration speech mostly missed the true nature of the problem.  We face two interconnected population issues.  One is aging; the other is immigration.  We aren't dealing sensibly with either, and as a result we face a future …

Libby Judge Is Allowed To View Reporters' Notes  —  Several media organizations agreed yesterday to let a federal judge overseeing the trial of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby review reporters' notebooks and other materials related to their work in the CIA leak case.

DHS Does About-Face In Backing Use of National Guard to Seal Border  —  In December of 2005, Fox News talking head Bill O'Reilly floated an unlikely — even brash — idea to the Homeland Security secretary to seal off the porous southwest border.  —  "Why don't you put the National Guard …

Dow Plunges; Nasdaq Turns Negative on Yr.  —  NEW YORK - Stocks plunged Wednesday after a stronger-than-expected rise in consumer prices intensified Wall Street's fear that interest rates will keep climbing.  The Dow Jones industrial average lost 200 points, and the Nasdaq composite index turned negative for the year.

Senate guest worker plan survives attack  —  Boxer, Alabama Republican fail to kill provision, but number of visas is reduced  —  Washington — Seldom do California's liberal Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and Alabama's conservative Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions agree on anything.

Big Oil Launches Attack On Al Gore  —  Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) will unveil two 60-second TV ads focusing on what it calls "global warming alarmism and the call by some environmental groups and politicians to reduce fossil fuel and carbon dioxide emissions."

U.S. Secretly Backing Warlords in Somalia  —  More than a decade after U.S. troops withdrew from Somalia following a disastrous military intervention, officials of Somalia's interim government and some U.S. analysts of Africa policy say the United States has returned to the African country …