Records Show Ex-Senator's Work for Family Planning Unit  —  Billing records show that former Senator Fred Thompson spent nearly 20 hours working as a lobbyist on behalf of a group seeking to ease restrictive federal rules on abortion counseling in the 1990s, even though he recently …

Bush: No Deal On Children's Health Plan  —  President Says He Objects On Philosophical Grounds  —  President Bush yesterday rejected entreaties by his Republican allies that he compromise with Democrats on legislation to renew a popular program that provides health coverage to poor children …

Activity Guide  —  Democrats want 'John Doe' provision cut  —  Democrats are trying to pull a provision from a homeland security bill that will protect the public from being sued for reporting suspicious behavior that may lead to a terrorist attack, according to House Republican leadership aides.

Author of His Own Undoing  —  At noon on April 25, in Prescott Park in Portsmouth, N.H., John McCain announced his presidential candidacy.  Less than two hours earlier, in the U.S. Supreme Court, a lawyer who had been solicitor general in the Clinton administration spoke in the name of McCain.

Mysterious insurgent a sham, U.S. says  —  BAGHDAD — Over the past year, Iraqis heard several audio recordings by a mysterious terrorist leader named Omar al-Baghdadi singing the praises of al-Qaida and urging his followers to attack U.S. troops.  —  The whole thing was a sham, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

Democrats Fail to Win Troop Withdrawal From Iraq  —  · After more than a week of debating Iraq, including a climactic all-night session, the Senate moved on to an education bill Thursday.  —  Republicans on Wednesday blocked a proposal calling for most U.S. troops to be out of Iraq by next spring.

'Brandeis Boys' come to D.C. Madam's rescue with website of phone listings  —  As the phone records of the "D.C. Madam," Deborah Jeane Palfrey, became public last week, curious Washingtonians started searching a mysterious database at dcphonelist.com that had organized mountains of her documents.

How Murdoch had a hotline to the PM in the run-up to Iraq war  —  Tony Blair had three conversations with the media magnate Rupert Murdoch in the nine days before the start of the Iraq war, the Government has disclosed.  —  Details of the former prime minister's contacts with Mr Murdoch …

General David Petraeus on the conditions on the ground in Iraq  —  The Hugh Hewitt Show  —  HH: Welcome, General.  You took over command of the multinational forces in February of this year, February 10.  In the past five months, how have conditions in Iraq changed?

Sex Ed for Kindergarteners 'Right Thing to Do,' Says Obama  —  ABC News' Teddy Davis and Lindsey Ellerson Report: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told Planned Parenthood Tuesday that sex education for kindergarteners, as long as it is "age-appropriate," is "the right thing to do."

Murdoch's Arrival Worries Journal Employees  —  On May 14, more than 100 reporters, editors and executives clustered in The Wall Street Journal's main newsroom to mark the retirement of Peter R. Kann, the longtime leader of their corporate parent, Dow Jones & Company.

Bush's Agencies Of Mass Politicization  —  This week's report that officials in the Office of National Drug Control Policy made politically motivated appearances in the months leading up to the 2006 elections are only the latest example of the Bush administration's misuse of federal employees.

Biden puts struggles on display in book  —  WASHINGTON — Sen. Joe Biden began to understand in 1972 how despair led people to "just cash it in" and how "suicide wasn't just an option, but a rational option," he wrote in his new book, "Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics."

In Which I Go Insane  —  Washington Post's Lyndsey Layton: