Tommy Thompson Is First Victim of Iowa Straw Poll  —  Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson dropped out of the race for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination tonight, a day after he finished a disappointing sixth in the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa.  —  "I have no regrets about running," Thompson said in a statement released by his campaign.

Karl Rove to Resign At the End of August  —  Karl Rove, President Bush's longtime political adviser, is resigning as White House deputy chief of staff effective Aug. 31, and returning to Texas, he said in an interview with Paul Gigot, editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page.

Yes, the Fund-Raising Records Fell, Just Not as Far  —  For Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, it was a monumental achievement: Her campaign announced in April that she had raised $26 million in the first quarter of the year, more than any other presidential candidate.

The GOP YouTube Debate Is Back On  —  This just in: The Republican CNN/YouTube debate, in limbo for the past few weeks, is on again.  —  But Mitt Romney, who won Saturday's Iowa straw poll and has criticized the debate format, has yet to commit to the Nov. 28 event.

Hardline group rallies for world Islamic rule  —  More than 70,000 members of a hardline Muslim group held a rally in Indonesia that heard calls for a caliphate — or Islamic rule — to govern the world.  —  The supporters of the Hizbut Tahrir group filled up most of an 80,000-seat sports stadium …

In Fundraising's Murky Corners  —  Candidates See Little of Millions Collected by Linda Chavez's Family  —  Linda Chavez rose to prominence in the 1980s as a tart-tongued Reagan administration official and candidate for the Senate, eventually becoming a well-known Latina voice on social issues …

Hungry for end to war, activists set up camp  —  Marghi Dutton is 90 and losing her eyesight, but nothing was going to stop her from trekking to midspan of the Golden Gate Bridge on Sunday with the anti-war group Code Pink: Women for Peace.  —  She joined a crowd of about 100 demonstrators dressed …

Wrong Way Out of Iraq  —  As Americans argue about how to bring the troops home from Iraq, British forces are already partway out the door.  Four years ago, there were some 30,000 British ground troops in southern Iraq.  By the end of this summer, there will be 5,000.  None will be based in urban areas.

Italy probe unearths huge Iraq arms deal  —  PERUGIA, Italy - In a hidden corner of Rome's busy Fiumicino Airport, police dug quietly through a traveler's checked baggage, looking for smuggled drugs.  What they found instead was a catalog of weapons, a clue to something bigger.

OBJECTIVITY....Mark Kleiman comments on the convention of objectivity in the reporting of straight news: … In theory, everyone agrees with this.  The problem is, I haven't yet come across a single person who's proposed a workable solution.  Who gets to decide whether an issue is still debatable?

The LAT had an interesting item today, speculating about whether presidential candidate Fred Thompson will follow Senate candidate Thompson's style, and campaign in his favorite prop. … As the piece explained, Thompson hopped in an old red pickup and won voters over with his folksy charm, accentuated by the prop.