Lieberman's Words on the War Show Some Shifts Over the Years  —  The widely watched campaign for United States Senate here has largely been a war of words over the war in Iraq — a war, primarily, over the words of the incumbent, Joseph I. Lieberman.  —  Ned Lamont, who upset Mr. Lieberman …

'06 ELEX: BACK TO TOSS-UP  —  The latest polls show something very strange and quite encouraging is happening: The Republican base seems to be coming back home.  This trend, only vaguely and dimly emerging from a variety of polls, suggests that a trend may be afoot that would deny the Democrats control of the House and the Senate.

GOP holds narrow lead in must-win Senate races  —  WASHINGTON — Republican Senate candidates have fought back to regain an edge in two key races, pivotal battlegrounds that could determine which party controls the Senate, according to a series of new McClatchy-MSNBC polls.

Debate gets personal  —  Sunday's acrimonious debate between candidates for Wyoming's lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives reportedly got quite personal away from the podiums as incumbent Barbara Cubin allegedly threatened to slap Libertarian challenger Thomas Rankin.

Democrats Urge Their Flush Candidates to Share the Wealth  —  The balance in the campaign account of Representative Martin T. Meehan, Democrat of Massachusetts, is $4,886,325.  It is a muscular sum for a member of the House, and ordinarily it would be hailed as an exhibit of fund-raising savvy.

Video: Hunter asks Blitzer, "Does CNN want America to win this thing?"  —  Hunter asked Rumsfeld on Friday to disembed CNN's reporters as punishment for airing pointless jihadi snuff.  Blitzer had him on today to talk things over.  —  A meeting of the minds was not in the cards.

For a Top Democrat, Further Climb Seems Out  —  Representative Jane Harman has gained national prominence as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, but even her supporters now concede that she is unlikely to become chairman if her party wins control of the House.

Some Voting Machines Chop Off Candidates' Names  —  Computer Glitch Affects Voters in 3 Jurisdictions; Error Cannot Be Fixed by Nov. 7  —  U.S. Senate candidate James Webb's last name has been cut off on part of the electronic ballot used by voters in Alexandria, Falls Church and Charlottesville …

U.S. Rank on Press Freedom Slides Lower  —  Some poor countries, such as Mauritania and Haiti, improved their record in a global press freedom index this year, while France, the United States and Japan slipped further down the scale of 168 countries rated, the group Reporters Without Borders said yesterday.

Obama Offers More Variations From the Norm  —  Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat who said Sunday that he was considering running for president in 2008, created a little sunlight on Monday between himself and both Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton.  —  For one thing, he said that as a youth he had inhaled.

Remember Global Cooling?  —  Why scientists find climate change so hard to predict.  —  Hot and Cold: Signs of global warming at a dried-up pond in China in August 2006 (left) and a 1975 NEWSWEEK report on the threat of global cooling.  —  In April, 1975, in an issue mostly taken …

Bleak House  —  Republicans deserve to lose, but what happens if Democrats win?  —  Two weeks from tonight America is going to be different—first politically and then substantively—for Democrats will likely take control of the House, and move public policy in very liberal directions.

Women Scarcer On Evening News  —  B&C Contributing Editor Andrew Tyndall analyzed the first six weeks of Katie Couric's tenure atop the CBS Evening News and found that woman have gotten fewer assignments.  —  When former Today host Katie Couric arrived at the anchor chair of the CBS Evening News …

This Time, It's Not the Economy  —  In many ways, the economy has not looked so good in a long time.  —  The price of gas at the pump has tumbled since midsummer.  Unemployment has fallen to its lowest level in more than five years.  On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average …

Poll: War Evens Up Race In 4th District  —  The race between incumbent Republican Chris Shays and Democrat Diane Farrell for Connecticut's 4th Congressional District is now tied and is being driven more than ever by the war in Iraq, according to a new poll commissioned by The Courant.

Democrats fight historical labels  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — On the cusp of an election that could overturn the Republican majority on Capitol Hill, I jokingly asked a senior Democratic aide whether he had ordered new business cards to reflect majority status.  —  "Don't underestimate our ability to blow it," he said.