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.

BLAST IN THE GREEN ZONE: EXPLOSION AT IRAQI PARLIAMENT KILLS 3 MPS  —  3rd victim unofficially confirmed.  (Sky News)  —  It was a suicide bomber.  (al-Jazeera)  —  Sunnis targeted? the list of wounded in local media show that most of the wounded were Sunnis, PJM Baghdad editor Mohammed Fadhil reports.

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 campaign to cut back on staff  —  WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record)'s troubled presidential campaign is eliminating some non-senior staff positions and cutting some consultants' contracts.  —  The Arizona senator's campaign characterized the moves as …

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 …

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 …

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.

5 in the morning  —  1. Am I alone in being disturbed by Barack Obama's call for firing a broadcaster over something he said?  This off-with-his-heads mentality is unpresidential.  Imagine if President Bush said someone should be fired.  He called Adam Clymer an a**hole and that caused a stir.

Campaigns may consider Super Bowl ads  —  WASHINGTON - Drink beer, eat candy, buy a car.  Now add a new pitch to next year's lineup of Super Bowl television ads: Vote for me.  —  As states line up to hold presidential primaries on the first Tuesday in February, the Feb. 3 Super Bowl …