Bush aides' use of GOP e-mail probed  —  WASHINGTON - The White House said Wednesday it had mishandled Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts used by nearly two dozen presidential aides, resulting in the loss of an undetermined number of e-mails concerning official White House business.

Kurt Vonnegut, Novelist Who Caught the Imagination of His Age, Is Dead at 84  —  Kurt Vonnegut, whose dark comic talent and urgent moral vision in novels like "Slaughterhouse-Five," "Cat's Cradle" and "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation, died last night in Manhattan.

Green Zone Bomb Blast  —  An explosion has rocked the Iraqi parliament in Baghdad killing at least two people and injuring many others.  —  One of the victims is said to be Mohammed Awad, a member of parliament for the Sunni National Dialogue Front.  —  A Shia MP also died in the blast.

Suing a Blogger  —  Big, powerful law firms like Nashville's King & Ballow really ought to hire someone with journalistic and new media experience to advise them on how to handle clients who complain about things published by bloggers.  Then they wouldn't do stupid things like issue threats …

McCain Calls War 'Necessary and Just'  —  Sinking in polls and struggling to reinvigorate his foundering presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) delivered a robust defense of the war in Iraq on Wednesday, declaring that President Bush and the conflict's supporters are on the right side …

In 5-Year Effort, Scant Evidence of Voter Fraud  —  Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews.

Blair blames spate of murders on black culture  —  Patrick Wintour and Vikram Dodd  —  Tony Blair yesterday claimed the spate of knife and gun murders in London was not being caused by poverty, but a distinctive black culture.  His remarks angered community leaders, who accused him of ignorance …

Civilian Claims on U.S. Suggest the Toll of War  —  In February 2006, nervous American soldiers in Tikrit killed an Iraqi fisherman on the Tigris River after he leaned over to switch off his engine.  A year earlier, a civilian filling his car and an Iraqi Army officer directing traffic …

All lacrosse charges dropped  —  RALEIGH - State Attorney General Roy Cooper said today he would dismiss sexual assault and kidnapping charges against three former Duke University lacrosse players, declaring them "innocent of these charges" and accusing Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong of overreaching.

NBC News Drops Imus Show Over Racial Remark  —  NBC News dropped Don Imus yesterday, canceling his talk show on its MSNBC cable news channel a week after he made a racially disparaging remark about the Rutgers University women's basketball team.  —  The move came after several days …

The Real Surge Story  —  Sen. John McCain[" The War You're Not Reading About," op-ed, April 8] is right to warn about the consequences of failure in Iraq.  But he is fundamentally wrong when he argues that those potential consequences require us to stick with a failing strategy.