Mitt Romney leads Republicans  —  Mitt Romney has sprinted ahead of presidential competitors John McCain and Rudy Giuliani in a new Iowa Poll of likely Republican caucus participants.  —  The Des Moines Register poll shows Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, is the top choice of 30 percent …

Islamic militants, security forces battle in Lebanon … TRIPOLI, Lebanon (AP) — Lebanese tanks pounded the headquarters of a group with suspected links to al Qaeda in a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli Sunday after the northern city's worst clashes in two decades killed 22 soldiers and 17 militants.

Iraq's Sadr Overhauls His Tactics  —  NAJAF, Iraq — The movement of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has embarked on one of its most dramatic tactical shifts since the beginning of the war.  —  The 33-year-old populist is reaching out to a broad array of Sunni leaders, from politicians to insurgents …

Tainted Chinese Imports Common  —  In Four Months, FDA Refused 298 Shipments  —  Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical.  —  Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics.  —  Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria.  —  Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.

"F*** YOU": THE INSIDE STORY  —  John McCain's eruption at fellow conservative Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is an incident that reverberates on several levels.  It renews lingering doubts about whether McCain possesses proper temperament to be President.  It also raises serious questions …

GETTING OUT....Greg Miller of the LA Times reports today that the CIA deployed about 50 additional agents in Pakistan last year as part of a plan to replace the agents who were yanked out of Afghanistan in 2002 to help prepare for the war with Iraq.  The goal was to reinvigorate the search …

JEEZ, ANDREW'S AT IT AGAIN.  —  I never understand what sends him off on these tears.  I kind of think he actually wants me to be pro-torture, though he certainly knows better.  Sullivan's certainly not above torturing the record to get the answers he wants, though to be fair he more often simply ignores it.

Selling Out  —  Well, as I watch Elvis Costello hawk Lexuses (Lexi?) on TV, I wave goodbye to one of the last holdouts from the pre-80's era.  Its now assumed that if you were a rock star with any integrity from this era, you now have no problem using your song about "social revolution" to sell jeans, trucks and Carnival cruises.

Fred's watershed?  —  TRIBUNE-REVIEW  —  On the day of the first Southern-state Republican debate on the Fox News Channel, one undeclared GOP candidate performed a media leapfrog.  —  With the help of one 38-second video clip and a great sense of humor, Fred Thompson …

US surge is failing, says UK's Iraq envoy  —  The "troop surge" by American soldiers in Iraq is not working, one of Britain's senior military officials in Baghdad has said.  —  In a pessimistic assessment of the strategy designed to pull Iraq back from all-out civil war, Alastair Campbell …

Canadians don't care for Sicko  —  Moore's health-care film gets rough reception  —  Michael Moore is handing out fake bandages to promote his new film Sicko, an exposé of the failings of the U.S. health care system.  —  But he may feel like applying a couple to himself after the mauling …

So how did it become required classroom viewing?  —  Even climate change experts say many of the claims in Al Gore's film are wrong.  —  First it was his world history class.  Then he saw it in his economics class.  And his world issues class.  And his environment class.

Growing number of Hispanic Americans converting to Islam in the US  —  Orlando : Muslim leaders in the United States say interest in their religion has increased in the past few years.  —  More Hispanic Americans are converting to Islam, particularly in New York, California, Texas and Florida …

Decline and fall of the neocons  —  Paul Wolfowitz's departure from the World Bank signals the end of an ideological era in Washington  —  As Tony Blair was bidding farewell to President George W Bush in the Rose Garden on Thursday, the World Bank was preparing to kick out Paul Wolfowitz as president.

Rumor on Islamist Websites: The Bodies of Two of the Kidnapped Soldiers Have Been Found in Iraq  —  According to a rumor posted on Islamist websites, the American forces have discovered the headless bodies of two of the kidnapped American soldiers.  The reports stated that the bodies were found on May 18 …

Flynt On Falwell  —  Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler Magazine, writes a remembrance of the odd friendship that he shared with the founder of Moral Majority, Rev. Jerry Falwell.  His recollections should remind us that the personal and the political need not become inseparable.

Editorial: The Immigration Deal  —  The immigration deal announced in the Senate last week poses an excruciating choice.  It is a good plan wedded to a repugnant one.  Its architects seized a once-in-a-generation opportunity to overhaul a broken system and emerged with a deeply flawed compromise.

Bush's Summer Hires Targeted  —  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has a little trick up his sleeve that could spell an end to President Bush's devilish recess appointments of controversial figures like former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton.  We hear that over the long August vacation …