In Following His Own Script, Webb May Test Senate's Limits  —  At a recent White House reception for freshman members of Congress, Virginia's newest senator tried to avoid President Bush.  Democrat James Webb declined to stand in a presidential receiving line or to have his picture taken …

Bush Adviser's Memo Cites Doubts About Iraqi Leader  —  A classified memorandum by President Bush's national security adviser expressed serious doubts about whether Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki had the capacity to control the sectarian violence in Iraq and recommended that the United States …

Pelosi Passes on Hastings, Harman for House Intel Chair  —  House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has decided against naming either Reps. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), the senior Democrat on the House intelligence committee, or Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.), the panel's No. 2 Democrat …

Romney plans campaign base in North End  —  Governor Mitt Romney, erasing any doubt that he intends to make a White House bid in 2008, is laying plans to run his presidential campaign from a three-story waterfront building at the edge of Boston's North End, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the proposed deal.

Judge strikes down Bush on terror groups  —  LOS ANGELES - A federal judge struck down President Bush's authority to designate groups as terrorists, saying his post-Sept. 11 executive order was unconstitutionally vague, according to a ruling released Tuesday.

A Second American Civil War?  —  Is America in danger of civil war?  Not immediately, perhaps, but famed science fiction writer Orson Scott Card thinks that we're in enough danger that he's authored a cautionary tale entitled Empire that's set in more-or-less present times.

Gingrich: Free Speech Should Be Curtailed To Fight Terrorism  —  A former House speaker, Newt Gingrich, is causing a stir by proposing that free speech may have to be curtailed in order to fight terrorism.  —  "We need to get ahead of the curve rather than wait until we actually literally lose a city …

Iraq exit via Iran?  —  The Iraq war, civil or not, is costing $226 million a day — or $8 billion a month, $76 billion a year.  It's hard to figure out what to call it when Iraqis are killing Iraqis by the score every day and when the U.S. has been fighting and dying there longer than its involvement in World War II.

JUDGE ORDERS TREASURY DEPARTMENT TO MAKE PAPER MONEY RECOGNIZABLE TO BLIND PEOPLE  —  WASHINGTON — American paper money represents an unfair impediment to the blind, and the Treasury Department must come up with new U.S. currency to help the visually impaired use cash, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

Report: Syrian network planned to kill Lebanese officials  —  Al-Mustaqbal newspaper reports Lebanese security forces exposed network of 200 members which trained in refugee camps in Lebanon, planned to assassinate 36 senior Lebanese officials  —  The Lebanese security forces exposed a network …

Houston man admits trying to help Taliban  —  A second man, in U.S. illegally, faces similar conspiracy and weapons charges  —  One of two Houston men accused of training to fight with the Taliban pleaded guilty this afternoon in federal court.  —  Kobie Diallo Williams, 33 …

Globalization Makes an Easy Scapegoat  —  WASHINGTON — We may be about to shoot ourselves in the foot — or maybe the chest — on trade.  In the name of "fair trade,'' we may punish our own exporters.  In 2005, worldwide exports exceeded $10 trillion.  Since 1980, they've more than tripled while the overall global economy doubled.

Accept defeat by Taliban, Pakistan tells Nato  —  Senior Pakistani officials are urging Nato countries to accept the Taliban and work towards a new coalition government in Kabul that might exclude the Afghan president Hamid Karzai.  —  Pakistan's foreign minister, Khurshid Kasuri …

Disembowelled, then torn apart: The price of daring to teach girls  —  The gunmen came at night to drag Mohammed Halim away from his home, in front of his crying children and his wife begging for mercy.  —  The 46-year-old schoolteacher tried to reassure his family that he would return safely.