Chavez wins re-election by wide margin  —  CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez won re-election by a wide margin Sunday, giving the firebrand leftist six more years to redistribute Venezuela's vast oil wealth to the poor and press his campaign to counter U.S. influence in Latin America and beyond.

Why Military Calls to Raise Iraq Effort Grow  —  Rumsfeld Exit Revives Push to Boost Troops,  —  Money in One Last Effort to Stabilize Baghdad  —  WASHINGTON — As demands mount to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq, a growing number of senior military officials are arguing that the only way to salvage …

Separating Hyperbole From Horror in Iraq  —  Over the course of last week, an Associated Press article — one subsequently challenged by the military — in which six Sunni worshipers were reportedly doused in kerosene and burned alive by Shiite attackers, became the worst kind of totem.

Videotape Offers a Window Into a Terror Suspect's Isolation  —  One spring day during his three and a half years as an enemy combatant, Jose Padilla experienced a break from the monotony of his solitary confinement in a bare cell in the brig at the Naval Weapons Station in Charleston, S.C.

Clinton's Talks With Democrats May Signal Bid for President  —  Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has begun a calculated series of meetings with top New York Democratic officials to signal that she is likely to run for the presidency in 2008 and to ask for their support if she does …

Syria and Hizbullah to intensify offensive  —  The Hizbullah supporter that was shot dead on Sunday may or may not have been shot by the Sunni residents of Qasqas.  The area is infested with pro-Assad Ahbash Islamists, and I would not put it past one of them or some Syrian intelligence operative …

Spymania: Suspicions swirl around ... everyone  —  I bet this is how Tom Maguire ended up on the Plame beat.  He wrote a few posts about it when the story first broke, felt obliged to keep up with it as other righty bloggers dropped out, and before he knew it he was three years older and had 100 posts about Joe Wilson in his archives.

Ethics in journalism: Taking the Columbia J-School challenge  —  It seems that one or more students at the Columbia University School of Journalism cheated on the final exam of a course in ethics.  Glenn Reynolds wrote that "you can't make this stuff up... Sadly, you don't have to."

Censorship fears rise as Iran blocks access to top websites  —  Iran yesterday shut down access to some of the world's most popular websites.  Users were unable to open popular sites including Amazon.com and YouTube following instructions to service providers to filter them.

Open-Source Spying  —  When Matthew Burton arrived at the Defense Intelligence Agency in January 2003, he was excited about getting to his computer.  Burton, who was then 22, had long been interested in international relations: he had studied Russian politics and interned at the U.S. consulate in Ukraine …

Hush, Mama, Don't You Cry, a New Yellow Wiggle Will Sing  —  The millions of families with preschool-age children around the world who have bought CDs and DVDs featuring the Wiggles, the Australian foursome known as much for their cheery color-coded jerseys as their catchy tunes …