Illinois Senator ahead by 3 points  —  Officials in both camps agree: The race is a toss-up that will remain hotly competitive  —  Sen. Barack Obama holds a narrow lead over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Indiana, with the outcome of the May 6 primary likely in the hands of a large number …

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 …

The Wright Stuff: ABC provides the context  —  Barack Obama needs another eruption of the Wright Stuff like he needs another video of him making fun of embittered Bible-thumping bigots, but at least the former appears inevitable.  ABC News responds to Jeremiah Wright's allegation that his words …

McCain changes his tune on taxes  —  Reversal includes new support for Bush cuts  —  Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., delivers a speech in Baton Rouge, La., on Thursday.  —  McCain slams Bush  —  April 24: John McCain slammed the White House's response to Katrina while on a visit to New Orleans.

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 …

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 …

Iraq War Is Everyone Else's Fault, Feith Explains  —  Mistakes were made.  But not by him.  —  Doug Feith, the No. 3 man at the Pentagon before, during and after the invasion of Iraq, has come in for his share of blame for the failures there — in large part because he led the Pentagon policy shop …

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.