Bush Warns Dems to Take Offer in Firings  —  WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush warned Democrats Tuesday to accept his offer to allow top aides to testify about the firings of federal prosecutors only privately and not under oath, or risk a constitutional showdown from which he would not back down.

Blanco: 'I will not seek re-election'; see photo gallery of the governor in action  —  BATON ROUGE — Gov. Kathleen Blanco has made it official: she will not run for re-election.  —  "I am choosing to do what I believe to be what is best for the state," the governor said in a statewide television broadcast.

Congress Job Approval Back Down Again This Month  —  January and February uptick appears to have dissipated  —  PRINCETON, NJ — The modest uptick in approval of the job being done by Congress has dissipated for the most part after only two months.  Congress job approval had risen …

Why I Was Fired  —  WITH this week's release of more than 3,000 Justice Department e-mail messages about the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors, it seems clear that politics played a role in the ousters.  —  Of course, as one of the eight, I've felt this way for some time.

John W. Backus, 82, Fortran Developer, Dies  —  John W. Backus, who assembled and led the I.B.M. team that created Fortran, the first widely used programming language, which helped open the door to modern computing, died on Saturday at his home in Ashland, Ore. He was 82.

Iraq insurgents used children in car bombing: general  —  Insurgents in Iraq detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle with two children in the back seat after US soldiers let it through a Baghdad checkpoint over the weekend, a senior US military official said Tuesday.

Soldier's dad tells Bush, `This war is wrong'  —  The two-page letter is signed from the "proud father of a fallen soldier."  —  A little more than six weeks ago, his soul a cauldron of grief and rage, Richard Landeck, 56, of Wheaton addressed and mailed it to President Bush.

Iraq Supplemental Update  —  The whip operation is currently underway for the Iraq supplemental funding bill.  While I do not know for certain exactly how many votes are currently secured in favor, I am pretty sure that it is somewhere between 210 and 221.  At this point, there are very few Republicans who will vote in favor.

Democrats Split on Iraq Bill  —  Even Vote Counters Aren't Lined Up Behind Spending Measure  —  One of the Democrats' chief designated vote counters, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), is actively working against the Iraq war spending bill.  The leadership's senior chief deputy whip …

'We want this baby polar bear dead' say animal rights lobby  —  Tiny, fluffy and adorable, Knut the baby polar bear became an animal superstar after he was abandoned by his mother.  —  He rapidly became the symbol of Berlin Zoo, whose staff bottle-fed him and handed out cuddles in between

Far From Iraq, A Demonstration Of a War Zone  —  There's a lot of weirdness every day in the capital city, but this one pushed the envelope: 13 Iraq war veterans in full desert camo going on "patrol" from Union Station to Arlington National Cemetery.  They carried imaginary assault rifles …