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 …

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 …

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.

Bush renominates Tomlinson for Broadcasting Board of Governors  —  You've got to be kidding me. … It's one thing to pick a partisan hack for an important governmental post, evaluate his joke of a tenure, and then move onto someone new.  After all, maybe the president didn't realize …

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.

Abramoff Reports to Prison; Officials Focus on Reid, Others  —  Brian Ross and Rhonda Schwartz Report:  —  As convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff reported to federal prison today, a source close to the investigation surrounding his activities told ABC News that Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) …

Lame-Duck Texas Rep. Gets Down to Work Without DeLay  —  Shelley Sekula-Gibbs was sworn in as a congresswoman on Monday night and already she's a lame duck.  Because of a weird electoral quirk, her brief term in office expires next month.  —  But you couldn't tell that by listening to her.

Document shows Bush guided CIA on detention  —  WASHINGTON: The Central Intelligence Agency has acknowledged for the first time the existence of two classified documents, including one signed by President George W. Bush, that have guided the agency's interrogation and detention of terror suspects.

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 …

Pakistan votes to amend rape laws  —  Pakistan's national assembly has voted to amend the country's strict Sharia laws on rape and adultery.  —  Until now rape cases were dealt with in Sharia courts.  Victims had to have four male witnesses to the crime - if not they faced prosecution for adultery.