Jesse Jackson Apologizes for Remarks on Obama  —  WASHINGTON — The Rev. Jesse Jackson apologized on Wednesday for critical and crude comments he made about Senator Barack Obama, remarks in which he accused Mr. Obama of “talking down to black people.”  —  Mr. Jackson, before an interview …

Obama's Ideology Proving Difficult to Pinpoint  —  Democrats Decry a Move Toward Middle, but Republicans Still See a Liberal  —  Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama put himself on the opposite side of his party's leadership in the Senate yesterday by reversing course to support a compromise intelligence surveillance bill.

Barack's Brilliant Ground Game  —  For a campaign that says it wants to end the politics of the Bush-Cheney years, the Obama for President effort has cribbed an awful lot from the Bush-Cheney playbooks of 2000 and 2004.  —  For starters, Barack Obama's manager admitted to the New York Times …

In an Iranian Image, a Missile Too Many  —  Updated, 9:33 a.m., Agence France-Presse has retracted the image as “apparently digitally altered.”  —  As news spread across the world of Iran's provocative missile tests, so did an image of four missiles heading skyward in unison.

Carly Fiorina's fuzzy McCain-speak  —  Carly Fiorina is one of John McCain's chief surrogates, talking him up particularly to that key target group, women.  But Fiorina, ousted as chief of Hewlett-Packard in 2005, is not above rounding the edges on straight talk.

Obama Urges Backers to Address Clinton Debt  —  Senator Barack Obama asked a roomful of his loyal donors in New York on Wednesday night to help his primary foe Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton pay off part of the $23 million in debt she ran up trying to beat him.

This year, 6 types of voters will decide the presidential election  —  All voters are not created equal.  —  Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama leads Republican John McCain in the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll by only single digits among registered voters, 48%-42%, at the edge of the survey's margin of error.

Rove Is a No-Show  —  Members of the House Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law didn't even wait until the 10 a.m. mark to declare former presidential adviser Karl Rove a no-show this morning.  The committee had subpoenaed Rove to appear to discuss the politicization …

Bush to G8: 'Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter'  —  After rejecting global climate-change targets, George Bush's parting shot to the G8 summit  —  President George Bush signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept global climate change targets at his last G8 summit.

The Price of Fannie Mae  —  As opposed to GM or Ford, most Americans have never heard of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Yet the insolvency of either mortgage giant would have far more profound consequences for every American taxpayer than the bankruptcy of those car companies.

Voters Reject Obama's call for Bilingualism  —  Barack Obama said yesterday that “instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English,” Americans “need to make sure your child can speak Spanish.”  A national telephone survey conducted last month by Rasmussen Reports found …

Gramm calls slowdown ‘mental’  —  Former Sen. Phil Gramm, a top economic adviser to presumptive GOP nominee John McCain, referred to the economic slowdown as “a mental recession” and called the United States “a nation of whiners.”  —  The comments, in an interview with The Washington Times …

U.S. Troops in Iraq Face A Powerful New Weapon  —  Suspected Shiite militiamen have begun using powerful rocket-propelled bombs to attack U.S. military outposts in recent months, broadening the array of weapons used against American troops.  —  U.S. military officials call the devices Improvised Rocket Assisted Munitions, or IRAMs.

Build a Wiffle Ball Field and Lawyers Will Come  —  Some town-owned land in Greenwich, Conn., has been turned into a Wiffle ball field by teenagers.  Neighbors are complaining.  Jeff Currivan, 17, shown at bat, said, “They think we're a cult.”  —  GREENWICH, Conn.

U.S. General: Iraqi Forces to Be Fully Ready in '09  —  Iraq's army and police will be fully manned and operational by mid-2009, possibly as early as April, the top U.S. general in charge of building Iraqi security forces said yesterday, signaling the prospect that Iraqi forces …

Officials Investigate 3 Alabama Counties in Voter Fraud Accusations  —  MARION, Ala. — Federal and state authorities are looking into accusations of voting fraud in three largely black counties of Alabama, including Perry and Lowndes Counties, which played a historic role in the struggle for black voting rights in the 1960s.