New Yorkers salivating over 'subway election'  —  What a time to be a New York pol.  —  Three of the leading presidential candidates - judging, at least, by column inches in the largely New York-dominated national media - are New Yorkers: Its junior senator and its current and former mayors.

The CIA's torture teachers  —  Psychologists helped the CIA exploit a secret military program to develop brutal interrogation tactics — likely with the approval of the Bush White House.  —  A detainee is escorted by military police at Camp 4 of the maximum security prison Camp Delta …

A Visit to Fatah's Torture Chamber  —  A building formerly occupied by Fatah's intelligence service in Gaza was long notorious for torture and execution.  Now Hamas is in control — and is letting former inmates visit the chamber of horrors.  —  The cells are small, perhaps six feet by six feet …

Cheney in Dispute on Oversight of His Office  —  For four years, Vice President Dick Cheney has resisted routine oversight of his office's handling of classified information, and when the office in charge of overseeing classification in the executive branch objected, the vice president's office suggested …

White House contempt  —  House Judiciary Committee Democrats warned yesterday they would pursue a contempt of Congress motion if the White House fails respond to subpoenas for testimony and documents related to the firings of U.S. attorneys last year.  —  The deadline for a response is Thursday, June 28.

The Man Who Knows Too Little  —  WHAT RUDY GIULIANI'S GREEDY DECISION TO QUIT THE IRAQ STUDY GROUP REVEALS ABOUT HIS CANDIDACY.  —  If you don't read Newsday, you might not know (I didn't until this week) that Rudy Giuliani was an original member of the Iraq Study Group …

The Hillary Dilemma  —  Despite the breathless media reports about every jot and tittle of the Democratic contest for President, not all that much has changed in the last year.  Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) has consistently been the frontrunner in national surveys, sometimes by narrow spreads and frequently by sizeable margins.

In Aiding Poor, Edwards Built Bridge to 2008  —  John Edwards ended 2004 with a problem: how to keep alive his public profile without the benefit of a presidential campaign that could finance his travels and pay for his political staff.  —  Mr. Edwards, who reported this year that he had assets …

An Inconvenient Truth That Somehow Didn't Make The CEA Report  —  As I mentioned in a previous post, the CEA seems to have concluded that if one allows for complementarities between immigrants and natives who have the same education and work experience, the long-run gains from immigration …

Romney aide is the focus of probe  —  Allegedly acted as State Police trooper  —  State Police are investigating one of Mitt Romney's top campaign aides for allegedly impersonating a trooper by calling a Wilmington company and threatening to cite the driver of a company van for erratic driving …

CIA to Air Decades of Its Dirty Laundry  —  Assassination Attempts Among Abuses Detailed  —  The CIA will declassify hundreds of pages of long-secret records detailing some of the intelligence agency's worst illegal abuses — the so-called "family jewels" documenting a quarter-century …

Gore's 2000 team stays on sidelines  —  Most members of Al Gore's inner political circle have not yet signed up with any presidential campaign, triggering speculation that the 2000 Democratic nominee will jump into the race for the White House later this year.

Research Finds Firstborns Gain the Higher I.Q.  —  The eldest children in families tend to develop higher I.Q.'s than their siblings, researchers are reporting today, in a large study that could settle more than a half-century of scientific debate about the relationship between I.Q. and birth order.

IRAQ: Hundreds flee homes as Turkish forces battle Kurdish fighters  —  Hundreds of Iraqi Kurds have been forced to flee their homes after up to 30,000 Turkish soldiers massed on the Iraqi-Turkish border and launched attacks against Kurdish fighters, Iraqi border police say.

Inhofe: Clinton, Boxer Want to Squash Conservative Radio Talk Shows  —  Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer have big plans to rein in conservative radio talk shows, according to Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.  —  He said Thursday on John Ziegler's evening radio show on KFI in L.A. that he overheard Clinton …

Investors' Suits Face Higher Bar, Justices Rule  —  The Supreme Court on Thursday dealt a blow to investors who want to sue companies and executives because of suspected fraud, setting a higher standard for class-action lawsuits to go forward.  —  The decision was the second one this week …