Man sets self aflame in Calif. protest  —  BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - A man used flammable liquid to light himself on fire, apparently to protest a San Joaquin Valley school district's decision to change the names of winter and spring breaks to Christmas and Easter vacation.

Channel tunnel is terror target  —  The Channel tunnel has been targeted by a group of Islamic militant terrorists aiming to cause maximum carnage during the holiday season, according to French and American secret services.  —  The plan, which the French DGSE foreign intelligence service became aware …

Commander Said to Be Open to More Troops  —  The American military command in Iraq is now willing to back a temporary increase in American troops in Baghdad as part of a broader Iraqi and United States effort to stem the slide toward chaos, senior American officials said Saturday.

When Resolve Turns Reckless  —  There's something much worse than being accused of "flip-flopping": refusing to flip when it's obvious that your course of action is a flop.  —  I say this to President Bush as someone who learned the hard way how embracing the world's complexity can be twisted into a crude political shorthand.

Putin to remain leader after leaving Kremlin: senior politician  —  President Vladimir Putin will retain a leadership role in Russia even if he steps down in 2008, as required by the constitution, a senior politician has said.  —  "He will not leave," Sergei Stepashin, head of Russia's accounting chamber …

Monica.  We Hardly Knew You  —  Congratulations to Monica Lewinsky, who just graduated from the London School of Economics with a master of science degree in social psychology.  Her thesis topic was: In Search of the Impartial Juror: An Exploration of the Third Person Effect and Pre-Trial Publicity.

Mahdi Christmas: Security Council approves meaningless sanctions on Iran  —  Follow the timeline.  It's been three and a half years since the IAEA first flagged them for noncompliance with the Nonproliferation Treaty.  And still the Security Council's giving them more time …

DNA Witness Jolted Dynamic of Duke Case  —  The moment that may have changed the course of the Duke lacrosse rape case came in a packed courtroom two Fridays ago.  —  On the stand at a pretrial hearing was Brian W. Meehan, director of a private laboratory that performed extensive DNA testing …

Iraqi Shiites resist isolating Sadr  —  Politicians and clerics support the leader and view U.S. opposition to him as interference.  —  NAJAF, Iraq — One of Iraq's most influential Shiite clerics rejected a U.S.-backed proposal to isolate Shiite extremists in the national government …

A Real-World Army  —  Military reality finally broke through the Bush administration's ideological wall last week, with President Bush publicly acknowledging the need to increase the size of the overstretched Army and Marine Corps.  —  Larger ground forces are an absolute necessity for the sort …

Your tax dollars at work: US government meets with CAIR and other Muslim leaders to discuss "Islamophobia"  —  Why is the State Department participating in conferences like this?  Why is the State Department participating in conferences with people like Nihad Awad and Mahdi Bray?

Gender Pay Gap, Once Narrowing, Is Stuck in Place  —  Throughout the 1980s and early '90s, women of all economic levels — poor, middle class and rich — were steadily gaining ground on their male counterparts in the work force.  By the mid-'90s, women earned more than 75 cents for every dollar …

The Way to Keep House  —  CORRUPTION was widely considered a principal cause of Republican losses in November.  Now that Democrats are preparing to take charge of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1994, they would do well to adopt a reform agenda that will help keep …

GOP Turns Anger on Campaign Committee  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — Narrowly defeated in his bid for a fourth term, Montana Sen. Conrad Burns turned his anger on the National Republican Senatorial Committee and commercials it had run months before the election.  —  ''The ads hurt me more than they helped.