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 …

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.

Congress Weighs Sweeping Overhaul Of Consumer Product Commission  —  Spurred by a spate of scares over the safety of imported goods, Congress is weighing the most significant consumer-safety legislation in a generation — even as states and nonprofit groups step up their own watchdog efforts.

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 …

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.

Fineman: What Obama must do in the debate  —  WASHINGTON - As Sen. Barack Obama prepared for Tuesday night's crucial NBC debate in Philadelphia, his high command back in Chicago was watching a lot of old Clinton videotape — not of Hillary Clinton, but of Bill, and not of Bill as president …

Gay Enclaves Face Prospect of Being Passé  —  This Halloween, the Glindas, gladiators and harem boys of the Castro — along with untold numbers who plan to dress up as Senator Larry E. Craig, this year's camp celebrity — will be celebrating behind closed doors.

Memories of Obama in New York Differ  —  Barack Obama does not say much about his years in New York City.  The time he spent as an undergraduate at Columbia College and then working in Manhattan in the early 1980s surfaces only fleetingly in his memoir.  In the book, he casts himself …

2007 Spying Said to Cost $50 Billion  —  Some Formerly Classified Figures Are to Be Disclosed Today  —  The director of national intelligence will disclose today that national intelligence activities amounting to roughly 80 percent of all U.S. intelligence spending for the year cost more than $40 billion …

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.

Mega-donors prepare for '08 battle  —  The wealthy Democrats and giant organizations that spent $135 million to make John Kerry president in 2004 are reaching into their pockets for another round.  —  Sources involved in the nascent effort said representatives of Democratic powerhouses …

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.