Israeli soldier held in a 'secure place'  —  GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - A Palestinian militant leader said Tuesday a captured Israeli soldier was being held in a "secure place," and he claimed that his group also seized a Jewish settler in the West Bank.  —  The new claims came …

Tony Snow Tells E&P: 'NYT' Deserves Special Criticism  —  NEW YORK White House Press Secretary Tony Snow told E&P today that The New York Times deserves the brunt of criticism for disclosure of a secret bank records monitoring program, even though two other newspapers - The Wall Street Journal …

In the Senate, Covering Themselves in Old Glory  —  The Citizens Flag Alliance, a group pushing for the Senate this week to pass a flag-burning amendment to the Constitution, just reported an alarming, 33 percent increase in the number of flag-desecration incidents this year.

MORE ON CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS' VIEWS IN THE CAMPAIGN FINANCE DECISION: WHAT HAPPENED AFTER ORAL ARGUMENT?  —  This post follows up on my earlier initial thoughts on the Vermont campaign finance case.  —  At oral argument in the Vermont contribution limits case, Chief Justice Roberts was quite skeptical of the state's arguments.

Steele's Donor List Stirs Racial Questions  —  The fundraiser thrown for Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele on Thursday night, while ordinary in most ways, struck some African American leaders as notable because of the host.  —  Unlike the dozens of high-dollar events across the country …

Limbaugh Detained for Unathorized Viagra Possession (VIDEO)  —  Rush Limbaugh is once again in trouble for prescription drug irregularities: This time, he was carrying Viagra without his name on the bottle. … One could understand the fuss if Limbaugh were carrying Viagra in case quantities …

The Bush lynch mob against the nation's free press  —  (updated below)  —  Any doubts about whether the Bush administration intends to imprison unfriendly journalists (defined as "journalists who fail to obey the Bush administration's orders about what to publish") were completely dispelled this weekend.

Making love in the White House is even better  —  Because he was the first Democrat to step up and say publicly last year that he's exploring running for president, we can assume that Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) is plenty interested in the office.  —  But like most other men, apparently there are things that interest him more.

Womb environment 'makes men gay'  —  A man's sexual orientation may be determined by conditions in the womb, according to a study.  —  Previous research had revealed the more older brothers a boy has, the more likely he is to be gay, but the reason for this phenomenon was unknown.

'Breathtaking' Waste and Fraud in Hurricane Aid  —  FEMA spends $250,000 a month to store about 10,000 empty mobile homes at an airfield in Hope, Ark.  —  WASHINGTON, June 26 — Among the many superlatives associated with Hurricane Katrina can now be added this one: it produced …

The roots of Islamism  —  In the second extract from his book Celsius 7/7, Michael Gove claims Islamism is not a campaign to restore piety but a revolutionary attempt to re-make society  —  The First World War began with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the Second with the invasion …

Some Insurgents Are Asking Iraq for Negotiations  —  BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 26 — Several Sunni-led insurgent groups have approached the Iraqi government to try to start negotiations after the Iraqi prime minister's presentation on Sunday of a limited plan for reconciliation, a senior legislator from the prime minister's party said Monday.

A Well-Known Political Blogger Is Hired by the Clinton Campaign  —  WASHINGTON, June 26 — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign has hired Peter Daou, one of the most prominent political bloggers in the nation, to help disseminate her message in a forum that has not always been that hospitable to her.

When the Anchor Drops  —  Goodbye to Dan Rather.  He was a good man and served CBS for 44 years with distinction.  —  Television is a tough business.  When it's time to go, you go .  And if you don't go the way they want you to, they get very upset.  They tell the world …

Why we ran the bank story  —  The Times editor on the paper's decision to expose U.S. money monitoring.  —  MANY READERS have been sharply critical of our decision to publish an article Friday on the U.S. Treasury Department's program to secretly monitor worldwide money transfers in an effort to track terrorist financing.

Kerry Calls for 'Energy Independence'  —  Decrying political timidity in Washington and denouncing the Bush administration as anti-science and pro-Big Oil, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) yesterday outlined a program to combat climate change and move the United States toward energy independence …

Bush ignores laws he inks, vexing Congress  —  WASHINGTON - A bill becomes the rule of the land when Congress passes it and the president signs it into law, right?  —  Not necessarily, according to the White House.  A law is not binding when a president issues a separate statement saying …

Analysis finds e-voting machines vulnerable  —  WASHINGTON — Most of the electronic voting machines widely adopted since the disputed 2000 presidential election "pose a real danger to the integrity of national, state and local elections," a report out Tuesday concludes.