Unfit for Majority Leader  —  The videotape is grainy, dark and devastating.  The congressman and the FBI undercover agents — the congressman thinks they represent an Arab sheik willing to pay $50,000 to get immigration papers — are talking business in the living room of a secretly wired Washington townhouse.

Lott succeeds in leadership comeback  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Trent Lott, ousted from the top Senate Republican leadership job four years ago because of remarks considered racially insensitive, won election to the No. 2 post Wednesday for the minority GOP in the next Congress.

Get Out Now?  Not So Fast, Experts Say  —  One of the most resonant arguments in the debate over Iraq holds that the United States can move forward by pulling its troops back, as part of a phased withdrawal.  If American troops begin to leave and the remaining forces assume a more limited role …

Class Struggle  —  American workers have a chance to be heard.  —  The most important—and unfortunately the least debated—issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century.

Reid Pledges To Press Bush On Iraq Policy  —  Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who was elected Senate majority leader yesterday, said last night that President Bush still has not grasped the urgent need to change course in Iraq.  Reid vowed to press quickly for phased troop withdrawals …

Toys for Tots rejects talking Jesus dolls  —  LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — A talking Jesus doll has been turned down by the Marine Reserves' Toys for Tots program.  —  A Los Angeles company offered to donate 4,000 of the 1-foot-tall dolls, which quote Bible verses, for distribution to needy children this holiday season.

freed for $2 million  —  Terrorists used cash for arms to 'hit Zionists,' payment said to encourage more abductions  —  JERUSALEM - Palestinian terror groups and security organizations in the Gaza Strip received $2 million from a United States source in exchange for the release …

Enter, Pariah: Now It's Hugs for Lieberman  —  Senator Joseph I. Lieberman strode into a Democratic caucus gathering like he owned the place or, at the very least, like someone who is a flight risk and could leave at any minute, taking the Democrats' new majority with him.

ARABIAN NIGHTMARES  —  YESTERDAY, 80 terrorists in police uniforms raided an Iraqi research institute in Baghdad, rounded up 100-plus male students, loaded them into vehicles in broad daylight and drove away.  —  They couldn't have pulled it off without the complicity of key elements within …

`Landslide Joe?'  —  Courtney Lands Capitol Nickname In Razor-Thin 2nd District Recount  —  The studious Democratic lawyer from Vernon appears to have clinched a win in the 2nd Congressional District.  —  And it took only 168 hours and 49 minutes after the polls closed on election night to receive the news.

School board votes to dump JROTC program  —  After 90 years in San Francisco high schools, the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps must go, the San Francisco school board decided Tuesday night.  —  The Board of Education voted 4-2 to eliminate the popular program, phasing it out over two years.

As Guard Changes in Congress, Lobbyists Scramble  —  Republicans do not cede control of Congress for nearly two months, but money, power and influence are already beginning to change hands.  The political economy, at least here in the capital, is humming for Democrats.