Top House Democrat denounces Clinton campaign tactics  —  WASHINGTON - “Scurrilous” and “disingenuous” were among the words a top Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives used on Thursday to describe Hillary Clinton's campaign tactics in her bid to defeat Barack Obama for their party's presidential nomination.

Syria Reactor Story a Diversion; But From What?  —  The US and Israel accused Syria on Thursday of building a secret nuclear reactor with North Korean help.  There was a lot of innuendo in the press that the reactor was intended for nuclear weapons production.  But AFP notes:

Obama's ‘Distractions’?  —  Real change has never been easy. . . . The status quo in Washington will fight.  They will fight harder than ever to divide us and distract us with ads and attacks from now until November.  —  Pennsylvania primary night speech  —  With that, Obama identified …

Self-Inflicted Confusion  —  After Barack Obama's defeat in Pennsylvania, David Axelrod, his campaign manager, brushed it off: “Nothing has changed tonight in the basic physics of this race.”  —  He may well be right — but what a comedown.  A few months ago the Obama campaign was talking about transcendence.

The men in black vanish and Basra comes to life  —  The first Western journalist to enter the city since Operation Charge of the Knights was launched a month ago  —  Young women are daring to wear jeans, soldiers listen to pop music on their mobile phones and bands are performing at wedding parties again.

Obama has a punctuation problem  —  Barack Obama's real opponent now is not Hillary Rodham Clinton.  It is a pair of punctuation marks.  —  The first is a question.  The second is an asterisk.  —  Both threaten to hover over Obama if he wins the Democratic nomination without confronting …

Jeremiah Wright  —  More than 3,000 news stories have been penned since early April about Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama.  But behind the five second loop is a man who has preached three different sermons nearly every Sunday since 1972.  In his interview on BILL MOYERS JOURNAL …

Study says near extinction threatened people 70,00 years ago  —  WASHINGTON - Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests.  The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought …

Fair Is Fair  —  What's wrong with this picture?  Our campaign runs a TV ad Monday saying that the presidency is the toughest job in the world and giving examples of challenges presidents have faced and challenges the next president will face — including terrorism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan …

Snipes Gets Maximum Sentence: 36 Months  —  OCALA, Fla. — Wesley Snipes was sentenced to 36 months in prison Thursday, the maximum sentence allowed.  —  Watch The Story  —  Snipes was convicted of three misdemeanor charges for not filing his taxes.  —  During the sentencing, Snipes did apologize.

THE WORST OF TIMES  —  STAFF BRACES FOR LAYOFFS AFTER BUYOUTS FALL SHORT  —  THE New York Times' news room is bracing for a bloodbath in the next 10 days.  —  The word from inside is that approximately 50 unionized journalists have accepted the buyout proposal, and only another 20 non-union editorial employees have gotten on board.