LIEBERMAN AND RUMSFELD  —  I've really got no dog in the whole Lieberman/Lamont fight.  I live in Manhattan, not Connecticut, and this blog has never focused much on senatorial races and the like.  So I wasn't going to write about it much, if any.  But today I hear that Lieberman has called for Don Rumsfeld's resignation.

McCain Mines Elite of G.O.P. for 2008 Team  —  Senator John McCain is locking up a cast of top-shelf Republican strategists, policy experts, fund-raisers and donors, in a methodical effort to build a 2008 presidential campaign machine that is drawing supporters of President Bush despite the sometimes rocky history between the two men.

Cold War Missiles Target of Blackout  —  The Bush administration has begun designating as secret some information that the government long provided even to its enemy the former Soviet Union: the numbers of strategic weapons in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during the Cold War.

For Kurds, a Long Wait for Justice  —  Hussein Begins Trial Today for 1988 Offensive That Used Chemical Attacks  —  Mustafa Arab Youssef walked up the grimy, stone steps of the crumbling, sand-colored Nizarkeh fort.  As he reached the second floor, his neighbor Haji Mohammed pointed …

If you want sharia law, you should go and live in Saudi  —  Shahid Malik, the Labour MP, explains why he told fellow Muslims that if they don't like Britain they should pack their bags  —  Scotland Yard described it as a plot "to commit mass murder on an unimaginable scale".

'Islamofascism'  —  Beware of a religion without irony.  —  The term "Islamofascism" was introduced by the French writer Maxine Rodinson (1915-2004) to describe the Iranian Revolution of 1978.  Rodinson was a Marxist, who described as "fascist" any movement of which he disapproved.

Overlooking New Orleans' women  —  A favorite approach of some cultural anthropologists is to look at the women of a given society as a gauge of its overall well-being.  By that approach, post-Katrina New Orleans is floundering.  No surprise there: We're all familiar with the criticism leveled …

Firebrand Islamic academic: 'dying for your beliefs is just'  —  A British-based Muslim radical appeared to back suicide bombing yesterday when he claimed that dying for your beliefs was 'just'.  —  Dr Azzam Tamimi told an 8,000-strong crowd that standing up for your principles was the 'greatest act of martyrdom'.

Katrina struggle goes on for many  —  WASHINGTON — As the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches next week, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of those hit by the storm finds that just 16% say their lives are back to normal.  —  While most people are still in their homes and back on the job …

Suha Arafat "remarries" (& anti-Hizbullah comment starts W. Bank wedding riot)  —  1. West Bank wedding riot after guest calls Nasrallah "a dog"  —  3. Palestinian babies being named after Hizbullah  —  6. Iranian cleric: We'll hit Tel Aviv over "iota" of Israeli aggression

Columbia-Educated Doctor Will Argue He Had To Help Al Qaeda  —  The Columbia University-educated doctor charged with promising to provide medical care to Al Qaeda operatives will argue that professional ethics require him to offer medical aid to all patients, even terrorists.

And now for the good news  —  Progress is being made in the fight against AIDS in Africa, thanks in no small part to the president's aid program.  But that's not what some people want to hear.  —  FIVE YEARS AGO, in Jos, Nigeria, a city on the country's central plateau …

Experts Praise Royal Treatment of Karr  —  Authorities probably had a very good reason for allowing JonBenet Ramsey murder suspect John Mark Karr to live it up on the 15-hour flight to the United States, legal experts say — they wanted him to talk.  —  Denver attorney Larry Pozner …

DID OSAMA LUST FOR  —  WHITNEY?  —  OSAMA bin Laden has more on his mind than just the destruction of the United States - the world's most wanted terrorist is obsessed with Whitney Houston, so much so that he's even mulled a hit on her hubby, Bobby Brown.  —  Kola Boof, 37 …

CIA's secret UK bank trawl may be illegal  —  US effort to track jihadist money transfers faces inquiry over privacy  —  Alexi Mostrous and Ian Cobain  —  A covert programme under which confidential information about British banking transactions is passed to the CIA with the full knowledge …