How Lawmaker Rebuilt Hometown on Earmarks  —  Johnstown Gets Billions  —  With Power Broker's Aid;  —  FBI Questions a Contract  —  JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — If John Murtha were a businessman, he'd be the biggest employer in this town.  —  The powerful U.S. congressman has used his clout …

Poll Matching Hillary Clinton and Ron Paul Tells A Lot About Clinton, Little About Paul  —  A recent Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey featuring a match-up between Hillary Clinton and Ron Paul highlights one of the perils that comes from overanalyzing poll results between candidates with different levels of name recognition.

Against Giuliani  —  "Hillary and Obama are kind of debating whether to invite [Osama bin Laden and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] to the inauguration or the inaugural ball," says Rudy Giuliani.  Andrew's right.  This guy is out of his goddamn mind.  —  You know, a few years ago …

Sharpton chides Cheney over Confederate flag flap  —  Nobody got shot, but Vice President Cheney still fired up controversy Monday when he went hunting at a private club that hangs the Confederate flag.  —  A Daily News photographer captured the 3-by-5 foot Dixie flag affixed to a door …

Lessons in hate found at leading mosques  —  Books calling for the beheading of lapsed Muslims, ordering women to remain indoors and forbidding interfaith marriage are being sold inside some of Britain's leading mosques, according to research seen by The Times.

Bush: 'That's How I Work'  —  In the wake of last month's shooting of 17 civilians by Blackwater gunmen in Baghdad, the Bush administration is finally acknowledging — more than four years late — that private security contractors in Iraq should operate under the law.

Zogby Poll: 52% Support U.S. Military Strike Against Iran  —  Most see Clinton as the presidential candidate best equipped to deal with Iran, followed by Giuliani and McCain—but many express uncertainty  —  A majority of likely voters - 52% - would support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran …

New Congress at war over everything  —  In a closed-door meeting before the last vote on the children's health care bill, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer appealed for the support of about 30 wavering Republican lawmakers.  What he got instead was a tongue-lashing, participants said.

Fineman: What Obama must do in the debate  —  As Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., prepared for Tuesday night's crucial NBC debate on MSNBC, his high command was watching a lot of old Clinton videotape — not of Hillary Clinton, but of Bill, as a fresh-faced candidate of 46 back in 1991 and 1992.

Iraqi Dam Seen In Danger of Deadly Collapse  —  AT THE MOSUL DAM, Iraq — The largest dam in Iraq is in serious danger of an imminent collapse that could unleash a trillion-gallon wave of water, possibly killing thousands of people and flooding two of the largest cities in the country …

The Happiness Gap  —  Some elections are defined by the gap between the rich and the poor.  Others are defined by the gap between the left and the right.  But this election will be shaped by the gap within individual voters themselves — the gap between their private optimism and their public gloom.

Nature or Nurture?  Well, Smart Guy?  —  The forum at the usually sober American Enterprise Institute yesterday started off with a bit of Borscht Belt humor.  AEI adjunct fellow Jon Entine displayed a cartoon of a tablet-carrying Moses looking incredulously toward the heavens.