Poll shows McCain in 5-point lead over Obama  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a sharp turnaround, Republican John McCain has opened a 5-point lead on Democrat Barack Obama in the U.S. presidential race and is seen as a stronger manager of the economy, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.

Stephanie Tubbs Jones has died, sources say  —  U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, the first African-American woman to represent Ohio in Congress, has died after suffering a brain aneurysm, said sources familiar with the situation.  —  She was removed from life support at 12:19 p.m. at Huron Road Hospital, the sources said.

Barack Obama's ‘lost’ brother found in Kenya  —  Senator Barack Obama's long lost brother has been tracked down for the first time living in a shanty town in Kenya, reports claimed.  —  The Italian edition of Vanity Fair said that it had found George Hussein Onyango Obama living in a hut …

Obama team to hold ‘major’ event Saturday in Bayh's Indiana  —  Campaign team gathering for possible veep announcement  —  NashvillePost.com has learned that senior campaign officials from the Barack Obama Presidential campaign are being dispatched from various locations around the country …

The Risk of the Zinger  —  It was February 2006 in Munich, and John McCain's eyes were flashing with the mischievous spark that comes when he's about to fire a verbal rocket.  “I've got a zinger coming,” he told me, referring to a speech on Russia he would give a few hours later at the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy.

Sen. Joe Lieberman to speak at GOP convention  —  WASHINGTON - Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic Party's vice presidential candidate in 2000 and now an independent who is one of John McCain's strongest supporters, will speak at the Republican National Convention, an official said.

JOHN EDWARDS BLOCKBUSTER NEW EXPOSE!  —  The NATIONAL ENQUIRER's exclusive ongoing investigation uncovers shocking new revelations about The John Edwards Scandal!  —  The day prior to Edwards bombshell admission to an affair on ABC's Nightline, Rielle Hunter and her 6 month old daughter …

Local Clinton backers, McCain adviser meet  —  A brother of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and local Democrats who backed her unsuccessful presidential campaign socialized privately Monday with a top surrogate of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain.

Obama Adviser Offers Some Advice to Damascus  —  Daniel Kurtzer Says Israel-Syria Negotiations Should Be Moved Along  —  WASHINGTON — The next president, whether Republican or Democrat, will make a Syrian-Israeli peace agreement a priority only if the two sides, meeting now in Turkey …

Yglesias Award Nominee  —  “At the risk of heresy, let it be said that setting up the two presidential candidates for religious interrogation by an evangelical minister — no matter how beloved — is supremely wrong.  It is also un-American.  —  For the past several days …

Two Against The One  —  In the dead of night in a small hideaway office in the deserted Capitol, a clandestine meeting takes place between two senators with one goal.  —  They grin at each other as they lift their celebratory shots of brutally cold Stolichnaya.