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TOLEDO, Ohio — A report says a Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Ohio dressed up in a German SS uniform to participate in Nazi reenactments. Excerpted per FR posting rules.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, President Barack Obama's controversial former pastor, accused people who wrongly believe Obama is Muslim of catering to political enemies during a fiery speech Sunday in Arkansas. In his sermon at New Millennium Church in Little Rock, Wright criticized supporters of the Iraq war and defended former state Court of Appeals Judge Wendell Griffen for speaking out against it. Griffen serves as the church's pastor. Wright's only reference to Obama came when he compared Griffen's opponents to those who incorrectly think Obama is Muslim....

Congress: Charlie Rangel's world The AP takes a long look at the personal side of Charlie Rangel and his relationship with other members of Congress: "His wife, Alma, warns him not to be naive about the glad-handling. 'You know,' she tells him, 'they're putting you on.' ... 'She says it's unseemly,' Rangel says of his wife's advice. 'I say, 'Suppose it's not real. As long as they keep saying these things until I die, what difference does it make?' But he admits, 'It's still painful. It's times like this when I have to reinforce the facts: I'm alive, I'm well,...

There are glimmers of hope for Democrats battling to retain control of Congress in this fall's elections, with the party holding a slender edge in public trust for shepherding the economy and small gains in those saying their finances are healthy, according to a new poll. The reeling economy remains the American public's top concern, according to an Associated Press-GfK Poll conducted earlier this month, making public attitudes about it crucial for both parties' hopes in November. The good news for Democrats: By a slim margin (47% to 42%), people trust them more than Republicans to guide the economy. And...

How much stupid can you squeeze into one liberal’s head? Three weeks ago American veterans won their long hard court battle to save their memorial cross honoring American soldiers killed in World War I. The case went to the Supreme Court and was finally won by a slim 5 to 4 majority. Anthony Kennedy wrote: “Here one Latin cross in the desert evokes far more than religion. It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies are compounded if the fallen are forgotten.” This week we heard the...

Not long ago, Faisal Shahzad had a pretty enviable life: He became an American citizen after emigrating from Pakistan, where he came from a wealthy family. He earned an MBA. He had a well-educated wife and two kids and owned a house in a middle-class Connecticut suburb. In the past couple of years, though, his life seemed to unravel: He left a job at a global marketing firm he'd held for three years, lost his home to foreclosure and moved into an apartment in an impoverished neighborhood in Bridgeport. And last weekend, authorities say, he drove an SUV loaded with...

...Beaverton Middle School teacher Jason Levin's group wants to infiltrate the Tea Party to discredit the organization. But since Levin's name has been associated with the "Crash the Tea Party" Web site, he has been harassed by people who say they belong to that group. Levin told KATU-TV that his phone has been ringing around the clock and his answering machine is recording threats...

"I refuse to accept the notion that the United States of America is not going to lead the world economically throughout the 20th Century." The AP article covering Vice President Joe Biden's remarks does not reflect the error: "I absolutely refuse to accept the notion that the United States of America is not going to lead the world economically throughout the 21st Century," Biden said during remarks to supporters on the Delta campus

Uninsured patients with traumatic injuries, such as car crashes, falls and gunshot wounds, were almost twice as likely to die in the hospital as similarly injured patients with health insurance, according to a troubling new study. The findings by Harvard University researchers surprised doctors and health experts who have believed emergency room care was equitable. "This is another drop in a sea of evidence that the uninsured fare much worse in their health in the United States," said senior author Dr. Atul Gawande, a Harvard surgeon and medical journalist. The study, appearing in the November issue of Archives of Surgery,...

Dan Calabrese notices a scolding tone coming from the Associated Press in reporting its latest polling. It headlines the report by noting that “a grouchy public [is] sticking with Obama,” having seen a 54% job approval rating in its survey — but some bad numbers on the issues. Does the AP report those falling levels of support as a consequence of Barack Obama doing a poor job? No, as emphases from Dan and myself show: The public grew slightly more dispirited on a range of matters over the past month, including war and the economy, continuing the slippage that has...

HAMMOND, La. (AP) - A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long. Neither Bardwell nor the couple immediately returned phone calls from The Associated Press. But Bardwell told the Daily Star of Hammond that he was not a racist.

Supporters of ousted Honduras' President Manuel Zelaya protest outside the site of talks to resolve the leadership crisis in Honduras in San Jose, Saturday, July 18, 2009. Zelaya, who was forced into exile in a June 28 military coup, gave negotiators meeting in Costa Rica until midnight to restore him to office, threatening to return to Honduras in secret and attempt to retake power on his own if no agreement is reached. He indicated he would reject any power-sharing agreement, a proposal to be discussed at the talks.

The Associated Press is proposing that publishers attach descriptive tags to news articles online in hopes of taming the free-for-all of news and information on the Web and generating more traffic for established media brands. Tags identifying the author, publisher and other information — as well as any usage restrictions publishers hope to place on copyright-protected materials — would be packaged with each news article in a way that search engines can more easily identify. By doing so, the AP hopes to make it easier for readers to find articles from more established news providers amid the ever-expanding pool of...

...snip....TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Already volatile Honduras slid toward greater instability after soldiers blocked an airport runway to keep ousted President Manuel Zelaya from returning, and protests that had remained largely peaceful yielded their first death. ...snip...Critics feared Zelaya might try to extend his rule and cement presidential power in ways similar to what his ally Chavez has done in Venezuela — though Zelaya denied that. But instead of prosecuting him or trying to defeat him at the ballot box, masked soldiers flew the president out of the country at gunpoint, and Congress installed Micheletti in his place. ...snip..."This is a...

WASHINGTON – On both economic and national-security fronts, President Barack Obama is giving ground and crossing swords with political allies. Caught in the worst economic downturn in generations, Obama has had to temper his stance on trade and lower his expectations for trimming charitable tax breaks for the wealthy and for taxing greenhouse-gas polluters. He's not the first president to be pulled toward the political center after being elected. But the recession and two wars abroad put him in a particularly tough spot — with smaller margins for error. With the deficit mushrooming, lawmakers in both parties are worrying more...

We knew they would come. The lies and half truths about Barack Obama’s planned speech at next Sunday’s graduation ceremony at Notre Dame are intensifying. Beth Fouhy of the AP brings us the latest pack of lies half truths and omissions. She has produced yet another lock step bouquet to be placed on the alter of secular humanism which can not be allowed to stand unchallenged. Fouhy writes Catholics and pro-lifers are angry at Notre Dame’s invitation to Obama because; “They cite his support for abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research, and his repeal of a policy that denied...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Millions of people jobless. Billions of dollars in bailouts. Trillions of dollars in U.S. debt. And yet, for the first time in years, more Americans than not say the country is on the right track. In a sign that Barack Obama has inspired hopes for a brighter future in the first 100 days of his presidency, an Associated Press-GfK poll shows that 48 percent of Americans believe the United States is headed in the right direction — compared with 44 percent who disagree. The "right direction" number is up 8 points since February and a remarkable 31...

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - President Barack Obama promised Monday to work with other nations "to halt the rise of piracy," while Somali pirates vowed revenge for the deaths of three colleagues shot by snipers during the daring high-seas rescue of an American sea captain. The pirates' threat raised fears for the safety of some 230 foreign sailors still held hostage in more than a dozen ships anchored off lawless Somalia.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama went for the defining television shot in Iraq and got it — pictures of hundreds of U.S. troops cheering wildly as he told them it was time for the Iraqis to take charge of their own future. The war zone photo opportunity produced a stunning show of appreciation for Obama from military men and women who have made great sacrifices, many serving repeated tours in a highly unpopular war.

Taking aim at the way news is spread across the Internet, The Associated Press said on Monday that Web sites that used the work of news organizations must obtain permission and share revenue with them, and that it would take legal action against those that did not. A.P. executives said they were concerned about a variety of news forums around the Web, including major search engines like Google and Yahoo and aggregators like the Drudge Report that link to news articles, smaller sites that sometimes reproduce articles whole, and companies that sell packaged news feeds. They said they did not...