For Democrats, Iowa Still Up for Grabs  —  The top three Democratic presidential contenders remain locked in a close battle in Iowa, with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) seeing her advantages diminish on key issues, including the questions of experience and which candidate is best prepared …

U.S. Attorney for Minnesota to Leave Post  —  Rachel K. Paulose, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota who sparked staff rebellions and a federal probe into her handling of classified information, is resigning to return to the Justice Department's Washington headquarters, department officials said yesterday.

U.N. to Cut Estimate Of AIDS Epidemic  —  Population With Virus Overstated by Millions  —  The United Nations' top AIDS scientists plan to acknowledge this week that they have long overestimated both the size and the course of the epidemic, which they now believe has been slowing for nearly a decade …

Baghdad Starts to Exhale as Security Improves  —  Five months ago, Suhaila al-Aasan lived in an oxygen tank factory with her husband and two sons, convinced that they would never go back to their apartment in Dora, a middle-class neighborhood in southern Baghdad.

Young voters dig Giuliani's moderate views  —  Zachary Zhengyi Lim, a freshman at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, is a self-described political moderate.  A 17-year-old who will turn 18 in time to vote in the Granite State's presidential primary, Lim said he registered Republican on a whim.

Iraqis Joining Insurgency Less for Cause Than Cash  —  MOSUL, Iraq — Abu Nawall, a captured al-Qaeda in Iraq leader, said he didn't join the Sunni insurgent group here to kill Americans or to form a Muslim caliphate.  He signed up for the cash.  —  "I was out of work and needed the money …

A myth in the unmaking  —  Fox News's status as a politically impartial channel is at last being exposed as a fiction  —  Britons may be familiar with Rupert Murdoch, but I don't think the UK has a beast quite like the American Fox News Channel.  Celebrating its 11th year on the air, Fox is a breathtaking institution.

Stem cell breakthrough uses no embryos  —  NEW YORK — Scientists have made ordinary human skin cells take on the chameleon-like powers of embryonic stem cells, a startling breakthrough that might someday deliver the medical payoffs of embryo cloning without the controversy.

You First, Governor Huckabee  —  To the many people, both domestic and foreign, who are asking Mitt Romney to do as John F. Kennedy once did and make a speech explaining why his religion is not a threat to our cherished American way of life, I suggest that Romney respond by pointing …

DHS Erred in $475 Million Contract Given to Native Firm  —  The Department of Homeland Security improperly awarded a half-billion-dollar, no-bid contract in 2003 to a little-known company to maintain thousands of X-ray, radiation and other screening machines at U.S. border checkpoints …

Grand Jury to Probe Shootings by Guards  —  Blackwater Among Contractors Facing Scrutiny  —  Federal authorities have convened a grand jury to investigate multiple shootings involving private security contractors in Iraq, including a Sept. 16 incident in which guards for Blackwater Worldwide …

Wrestler Ric Flair supporting Mike Huckabee  —  COLUMBIA, South Carolina (CNN) - In the race for presidential endorsements, Mike Huckabee has the kitschy pop culture celebrity vote on lockdown.  —  First it was martial arts hero and "Walker, Texas Ranger" star Chuck Norris, who appears with Huckabee in his first TV ad.

Effectiveness of D.C. gun ban still a mystery  —  WASHINGTON - Three decades ago, at the dawn of municipal self-government in the District of Columbia, the city's first elected mayor and council enacted one of the country's toughest gun-control measures, a ban on handgun ownership that opponents …

Collateral Damage  —  Casualties are definitely down.  Other places suddenly seem to need more urgent attention.  News coverage is shrinking, as is public interest.  All of which may help explain the breath of optimism one can now detect in Washington, and even in other places, about the war in Iraq.