NEWS ANALYSIS  —  Few Good Choices in Standoff  —  The Bush administration has tried to ignore North Korea, then, reluctantly, to engage it, and then to squeeze its bankers in a manner intended to make the country's leader, Kim Jong Il, personally feel the pinch.  —  Yet none of these steps in the past six years has worked.

Ken Lay's Last Evasion  —  To Some, CEO Is Cheating Them One More Time  —  Ah, Kenneth Lay of Enron: America hardly knew you before your trial, but learned after your big-hammer jury conviction that you had left countless suckers broke, employees cheated and stockholders betrayed.

N.Y. Court Says Lawmakers Should Consider Gay Marriage  —  The New York Court of Appeals ruled this morning that the state Constitution does not guarantee a right to marriage for same-sex couples, and that state lawmakers, not the courts, are better suited to consider the issue.

A Taliban Past, and a Cloudy Yale Future  —  A student at Yale University who was once a roving ambassador for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan has been denied admission to a degree-granting program at Yale, one of the student's financial supporters said yesterday.

UPDATE: Coulter's Syndicate Requests Report From Plagiarism Prober — As She Hits Back at 'NY Post'  —  NEW YORK Universal Press Syndicate has requested a copy of a report about Ann Coulter's alleged plagiarism, according to a post on the TPMmuckraker.com blog.

al-Qaeda releases tape commemorating the 7/7 London bombings (UPDATED)  —  As-Sahab banner announcing upcoming al-Qaeda tape commemorating the 7/7 London bombings.  Banner courtesy of Rita Katz of the SITE Institute.  —  Last evening, ABC News' Brian Ross reported, via the Blotter …

Consultant Breached FBI's Computers  —  Frustrated by Bureaucracy, Hacker Says Agents Approved and Aided Break-Ins  —  A government consultant, using computer programs easily found on the Internet, managed to crack the FBI's classified computer system and gain the passwords of 38,000 employees …

Splits Over Immigration Reform On Display From Coast to Coast  —  PHILADELPHIA, July 5 — House and Senate Republicans sparred over immigration in hearings on opposite coasts Wednesday, holding firm to their starkly different viewpoints on what has become one of the most intractable and divisive issues to confront the GOP in years.

Iraq How-to Manual Directed Arab Military Operatives In Afghanistan  —  An Arab regime, possibly Iraq, supplied how-to manuals for Arab operatives working throughout Afghanistan before 9/11, and provided military assistance to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.  —  That's the most likely conclusion drawn …

Bloggers battle old-school media for political clout  —  Online journals gaining greater influence, scrutiny  —  WASHINGTON — When a writer for The New Republic, the 92-year-old doyen of elite Washington opinion journals, accused the nation's most prominent political blogger of using …

Fallen Soldier Gets a Bronze Star but No Pagan Star  —  At the Veterans Memorial Cemetery in the small town of Fernley, Nev., there is a wall of brass plaques for local heroes.  But one space is blank.  There is no memorial for Sgt. Patrick D. Stewart.  —  That's because Stewart was a Wiccan …

Left's bloggers try to play kingmaker in lower races  —  Four of the most powerful left-wing political bloggers have developed a new joint strategy to steer financial support from the "netroots," or Internet-based activists, to Democratic challengers, many of whom they know have little chance of winning their mid-term election races.

The Vatican Confronts Islam  —  [Jerusalem Post title: "Quest for reciprocity"]  —  "Enough now with this turning the other cheek!  It's our duty to protect ourselves."  Thus spoke Monsignor Velasio De Paolis, secretary of the Vatican's supreme court, referring to Muslims.