Pakistan Denies Bin Laden Gets a Pass  —  Brian Ross Reports:  —  The government of Pakistan today denied it would allow Osama bin Laden to avoid capture under terms of a peace agreement it signed with Taliban leaders in the country's North Waziristan area.

Republican Rift Over Wiretapping Widens  —  Party at Odds on Surveillance Legislation  —  Deepening Republican divisions over the future of President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program may jeopardize GOP leaders' hopes of making terrorism surveillance legislation a centerpiece of their final legislative push this month.

Romney bars state security for Iranian's Harvard visit  —  Cites unacceptable use of funds on `a terrorist'  —  Governor Mitt Romney declared yesterday he would not allow any state resources to be used to protect a former Iranian president during his visit to the Boston area this weekend …

Time for Answers  —  For three years, Washington has been periodically consumed with the question of who unmasked a covert C.I.A. agent to the columnist Robert Novak.  It has been a huge distraction for the White House, resulted in the unjustified jailing of one reporter …

Harris wins Fla. GOP Senate nomination  —  MIAMI - U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris (news, bio, voting record) overcame a campaign ridiculed even by her own party to easily claim the GOP nomination for the Senate on Tuesday, and Rep. Jim Davis (news, bio, voting record) won the Democratic nomination to succeed popular Gov. Jeb Bush.

High-Value Detainees Will Be Given Prisoner-of-War Status  —  President Bush Expected to Announce Major Reversal in Handling of Terror Suspects  —  ABC News has learned that President Bush will announce that high-value detainees now being held at secret CIA prisons will be transferred …

Vast Oil Pool Tapped in Gulf of Mexico  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — A trio of oil companies led by Chevron Corp. has tapped a petroleum pool deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico that could boost the nation's reserves by more than 50 percent.  —  A test well indicates it could be the biggest …

'That sort of self-delusion is what it takes to be a real Aussie larrikin'  —  The world mourns.  World-famous wildlife warrior Steve Irwin has died a hero, doing the thing he loved, filming a sequence for a new TV series.  He was supposed to have been making a new documentary …

Ahmadinejad proposes debate with Bush  —  TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's president proposed Wednesday that he and President Bush should hold a public debate, and suggested that the U.N. General Assembly later this month would be the perfect place.  —  President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad first proposed …

In Bellwether District, G.O.P. Runs on Immigration  —  AURORA, Colo. — It was not by chance that Republicans brought their summer tour of hearings on illegal immigration to this growing community just outside Denver.  —  Not only is Aurora bearing the costs of schooling and providing …

To Stay Alive, Iraqis Change Their Names  —  Men waited for new ID cards recently in Baghdad.  Iraqis fear their names, which reveal them as Sunni or Shiite, could become a death sentence.  —  There was nothing out of the ordinary about the young man clutching a sheaf of papers …

Lobbying Probe Looks at Payments To DeLay's Wife  —  WASHINGTON — The Justice Department's congressional lobbying-and-bribery investigation is looking into whether former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's wife received money from a lobbying firm for a no-show job, recent FBI interviews indicate.

Judge Hears Arguments on Federal Spying Program  —  In a lively oral argument lasting almost three hours, a federal judge in Manhattan indicated yesterday that he had serious reservations about the legality of a National Security Agency surveillance program that monitors the international communications of people in the United States.

Best defence against terrorism is a split with US, say voters  —  MOST people believe that the Blair Government's foreign policy has increased significantly the risk of terrorist attacks and now want Britain to distance itself from America and set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, according to a poll for The Times.