Politics News

WASHINGTON - Sorry, Sen. Clinton. Michigan and Florida can't save your campaign. Interviews with those considering how to handle the two states' banished convention delegates found little interest in the former first lady's best-case scenario.

CHICAGO - Perhaps no one took greater comfort in the Republican Party's third straight loss of a long-held House seat this week than Barack Obama, who says the results point to clear limits in the effectiveness of attack ads he expects this fall.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Republican John McCain declared for the first time Thursday he believes the Iraq war can be won by 2013, although he rejected suggestions that his talk of a timetable put him on the same side as Democrats clamoring for full-scale troop withdrawals.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The Tennessee Republican Party "welcomed" Michelle Obama's visit for a fundraiser Thursday night with an online video that takes the Democratic presidential front-runner's wife to task for a comment some considered unpatriotic.

With her deep party ties, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was supposed to own the superdelegate primary.

JERUSALEM - President Bush put the finishing touch on his celebrate-and-be-celebrated Israel stay, leaving the Holy Land Friday with no movement on Mideast peace but hoping to fare better in Saudi Arabia at obtaining help for soaring gas prices at home.

WASHINGTON - The millions of dollars in assets reported by Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynn, nearly triple those held by President Bush and the first lady, Laura Bush, according to newly released financial disclosure forms.

JERUSALEM - On a sun-baked tour Thursday of an ancient Israeli fortress overlooking the Dead Sea, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert took a sip of water from a silver cup, then handed it to President Bush.

JERUSALEM - Text of President Bush's speech to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, as provided by the White House.

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Tuesday he was disappointed in "flawed intelligence" before the Iraq war and was concerned that if a Democrat wins the presidency in November and withdrew troops prematurely it could "eventually lead to another attack on the United States."

WASHINGTON - The Senate Thursday night voted to nullify a Federal Communications Commission rule that allows media companies to own a newspaper and a television station in the same market.

WASHINGTON - A key senator postponed action Thursday on a homeowner rescue package that could help half a million strapped borrowers get government-backed mortgages, as negotiators inched toward a bipartisan deal.

WASHINGTON - President Bush's Iraq war funding request collapsed in the House Thursday as anti-war Democrats and Republicans unhappy about added domestic funding combined to kill — for now — $163 billion to support U.S. troops overseas.

The head of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) appears to have kept his footing -- at least for now -- despite a push by some colleagues to sack him after the latest in a string of special election losses for the GOP.

WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats on Thursday dropped a bill allowing all police, firefighters and other first responders to unionize after Republicans complained they didn't get enough time to offer amendments.

WASHINGTON - A federal jury has found an Afghan enemy combatant guilty of drug charges in what the Justice Department calls the first convictions under new narco-terrorism laws.

WASHINGTON - An internal e-mail written by a Veterans Affairs Department employee suggested avoiding a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder for veterans and instead considering a diagnosis that might result in a lower disability payment.

WASHINGTON - The Federal Communications Commission agreed unanimously Wednesday to try again to create a nationwide emergency communications network after an earlier plan failed to attract sufficient support from private investors.

The 25 recordings added Wednesday to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress:

WASHINGTON - The best-selling pop album on planet Earth and a disc sent hurtling into deep space are among recordings the Library of Congress will preserve for their cultural significance.

YANGON (AFP) - The European Union's aid chief said Friday he had made no breakthroughs on a trip to Myanmar aimed at pushing the ruling generals to open up to foreign assistance, two weeks after the cyclone tragedy.

LIMA (Reuters) - Political differences loomed over a summit of European and Latin American leaders in Peru on Friday, threatening to undermine their efforts to fight poverty and global warming.

UNITED NATIONS - The world economy is "teetering on the brink" of a severe downturn and is expected to grow only 1.8 percent in 2008, the United Nations said in its mid-year economic projections Thursday.

LIMA (AFP) - Lingering disputes and personality clashes were expected to add friction to a Latin America-European Union summit in Peru Friday that is aimed at addressing climate change and poverty.

UNITED NATIONS - The Security Council unanimously approved a resolution on Thursday calling for a U.N. political presence in conflict-wracked Somalia for the first time in years and setting conditions for the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers.

CLEVELAND - A man pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to writing racially hateful letters and e-mails to black or mixed-race people, including Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter.

SAN FRANCISCO - California's Supreme Court declared gay couples in the nation's biggest state can marry — a monumental but perhaps short-lived victory for the gay rights movement Thursday that was greeted with tears, hugs, kisses and at least one instant proposal of matrimony.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Retired U.S. Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor made a rare public appearance on Wednesday with emotional testimony in Congress in which she told how Alzheimer's disease had forced her to bring her husband to work with her.

WASHINGTON - Retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor took her family's private battle with Alzheimer's disease public Wednesday as she urged Congress to speed research and aid to fight the coming epidemic of the mind-destroying illness.

The US Supreme Court has affirmed a lower court ruling that multinational companies can be sued in a US court for allegedly aiding and abetting the former apartheid government in South Africa.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The Tennessee Republican Party "welcomed" Michelle Obama's visit for a fundraiser Thursday night with an online video that takes the Democratic presidential front-runner's wife to task for a comment some considered unpatriotic.

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama accused President Bush of "a false political attack" Thursday after Bush warned in Israel against appeasing terrorists — early salvos in a general election campaign that's already blazing even as the Democratic front-runner tries to sew up his party's nomination.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Republican John McCain declared for the first time Thursday he believes the Iraq war can be won by 2013, although he rejected suggestions that his talk of a timetable put him on the same side as Democrats clamoring for full-scale troop withdrawals.

WASHINGTON - Sorry, Sen. Clinton. Michigan and Florida can't save your campaign. Interviews with those considering how to handle the two states' banished convention delegates found little interest in the former first lady's best-case scenario.

BATH, South Dakota (Reuters) - Sitting on board Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign plane are the remnants of a colorful balloon replica of the candidate, once nearly life-size but now almost deflated and shriveled.