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The House Judiciary Committee, in a straight party-line vote, approved a contempt resolution against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, setting up a constitutional battle between the Bush administration and Congress over executive privilege. After several hours of skirmishing over whether to send a contempt resolution to the House floor, the committee voted by a 22-17 margin to approve the measure. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic leaders will now have to decide if and when to hold a vote by the full House on the resolution. A vote could take...

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) plans to review the Senate testimony of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito to determine if their reversal of several long-standing opinions conflicts with promises they made to senators to win confirmation. Specter, who championed their confirmation, said Tuesday he will personally re-examine the testimony to see if their actions in court match what they told the Senate. "There are things he has said, and I want to see how well he has complied with it," Specter said, singling out Roberts.The Specter inquiry poses a potential political problem for the GOP...

WASHINGTON - House Democrats proposed a contempt citation Wednesday against two White House aides who have refused to comply with subpoenas on the firings of federal prosecutors.Democrats argued that Congress has nothing to lose by forcing a constitutional showdown with the Bush administration over the protracted controversy that has engulfed the Justice Department and jeopardized Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' job. "If we countenance a process where our subpoenas can be readily ignored, where a witness under a duly authorized subpoena doesn't even have to bother to show up, where privilege can be asserted on the thinnest basis and in the...

KABUL, Afghanistan - The bullet-riddled body of a South Korean hostage was found by police Wednesday in central Afghanistan after a purported Taliban spokesman said the militants had killed one of the captives.The male victim had 10 bullet holes in his head, chest and stomach, and was discovered in the Mushaki area of Qarabagh district in Ghazni province, said police officer Abdul Rahman. The Taliban spokesman said earlier that the hostage was was killed because Afghan authorities hadn't met their demands to release other militants from prison.THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier...

Like gluttonous piranhas, supermassive black holes in young galaxy clusters gorge on bountiful gas until little fuel is left, and then they fade away, a new study suggests.Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers tallied the number of rapidly growing supermassive black holes, called active galactic nuclei, or AGN, in two populations of galaxy clusters. One group consisted of young-looking clusters located very far from Earth, and the other consisted of an older group located closer to us. The results of the survey, detailed in the July 20 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters, showed that the more distant, younger clusters...

Romney also once backed "age-appropriate" sex ed Former Gov. Mitt Romney attacked Sen. Barack Obama yesterday for purportedly wanting sex education in kindergarten. It turns out, Romney himself once indicated support for the same sort of sex-ed approach -- "age-appropriate" -- that Obama backs. In a Planned Parenthood questionnaire he filled out during his 2002 gubernatorial run, Romney checked 'yes' to a question asking, "Do you support the teaching of responsible, age-appropriate, factually accurate health and sexuality education, including information about both abstinence and contraception, in public schools?" The answer, pointed out by a rival campaign, was resurrected in 2005...

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee outraised the National Republican Congressional Committee for the second straight quarter, and has nearly 10 times the cash on hand of its Republican counterpart. NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) announced Thursday that the committee raised between $13 million and $14 million for the second quarter, and had around $2 million cash on hand at the end of June. Meanwhile, the DCCC raised about $17 million for the quarter, and banked $19 million at the end of June. The sizable cash-on-hand gap between the two committees partially reflects the NRCC’s desire to pay off a sizable...

Fla. State Representative Accused Of Soliciting Sex In Men's RoomPolice: Allen Offered To Perform Act For $20TITUSVILLE, Fla. -- Florida state Rep. Robert "Bob" Allen, R-Merritt Island, was arrested Wednesday and charged with soliciting an undercover male officer for sex at a park in Central Florida, according to police. Investigators said Allen was acting suspicious and went in and out of the men's restroom at Veteran's Memorial Park, located on East Broad Street. Minutes later, authorities said, Allen solicited the male officer inside the restroom, offering to perform oral sex for $20.Click here to find out more! Allen was then...

PRINCETON, NJ -- The majority of Republicans in the United States do not believe the theory of evolution is true and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. This suggests that when three Republican presidential candidates at a May debate stated they did not believe in evolution, they were generally in sync with the bulk of the rank-and-file Republicans whose nomination they are seeking to obtain. Independents and Democrats are more likely than Republicans to believe in the theory of evolution. But even among non-Republicans there appears to be a significant...

• President Bush helps gala bring in $10.5 million for national Republican Party • Annual event raised $17 million last year, $15 million in 2005 • Bush defends Iraq war policy, doesn't directly criticize Democrats • Reception drew about 800 people; tickets cost $1,500 per person WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush helped raise $10.5 million for the national Republican Party at its annual gala on Thursday night, the smallest take in years for the event that came only months after the GOP lost control of both houses of Congress. The Republican National Committee's spring fundraising gala hosted by the president...

BAGHDAD - Students in Baghdad, where universities have been hard hit by violence, said Monday they were saddened by last week's massacre at Virginia Tech and hung up a banner to express their solidarity with "our brothers in humanity and in pursuing knowledge." "We want to let the whole world know that we do not support terrorism anywhere," said Yassir Nazar, head of the student union at Baghdad Technology University, who organized the hanging of the banner near the campus gate. It reads, "We, the students of Technology University, denounce the attack at Virginia Tech. We extend our condolences to...

In a second blow to House Republicans this week, the FBI raided a business tied to the family of Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) Thursday afternoon as part of an ongoing investigation into the three-term lawmaker.

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales confronted a fresh call for his resignation from a fellow Republican Thursday as he struggled to survive a bipartisan Senate challenge to his credibility in the case of eight fired prosecutors. Gonzales told the Oklahoma Republican he disagreed, and said he didn‘t think resigning would put the controversy to rest. Gonzales sat alone at the witness table in a crowded hearing room for the widely anticipated hearing. There was no doubt about the stakes involved for a member of President Bush ‘s inner circle, under pressure to resign since the dismissals of the prosecutors....

FBI Raids Doolittle's Home: The FBI has raided the Northern Virginia home of Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.), according to Congressional sources. No details are publicly available yet about the circumstances of the raid, but Doolittle and his wife, Julie, have been under federal investigation for their ties to the scandal surrounding imprisoned former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Here's a little nugget from the past, a tale that may offer some insights into the next stage of the GOP presidential race, and the fortunes of front-runner Rudy Giuliani: The date is the mid-1990s, and Republicans have swept Congress with their Contract with America. A top promise is greater fiscal responsibility, and a crucial element of that is a vow to pass a line-item veto and give the president the power to weed out pork. In 1996 Republicans are as good as their word, and grant the opposition's Bill Clinton a broad new power to strip wasteful spending. Mr....

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani hasn't done a lot of grocery shopping lately — at least based on his answers about the cost of milk and bread. Campaigning in Alabama on Tuesday, the former New York City mayor portrayed himself as a fiscal conservative and an aggressive fighter of terrorism who has a lot in common with the Deep South state. But when asked about more mundane matters — like the price of some basic staples — Giuliani had trouble with a reporter's question."A gallon of milk is probably about a $1.50, a loaf of bread...

A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News. The group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran. It has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials. U.S. officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group,...

This speaks for itself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVieg3vJG0I

The Gulf state of Qatar is set to purchase 80 of the new Airbus A350 long-haul jets at a cost of 16 billion dollars, the Financial Times in London reported Thursday. The Middle East airline would be the launch customer for the new family of the wide-body jets. The heavily discounted order would be finalized at the Paris Airshow in June, the paper said. A declaration of intent would be signed shortly, Qatar Airways chief Akbar al-Baker told the Financial Times. The order would boost confidence in the ability of the troubled European aircraft maker following the costly debacle over...

MOSCOW - OAO Aeroflot, eastern Europe's largest airline, plans to buy 22 Airbus SAS A350 XWB planes valued at $4.4 billion to renew and expand its fleet, picking jets from the European planemaker over Boeing Co.'s 787 Dreamliner. State-controlled Aeroflot plans to sign a firm order in the next few weeks, Deputy Chief Executive Officer Lev Koshlyakov said today. The $4.4 billion figure is based on list prices. The A350 XWB is Airbus' sixth attempt to come up with a rival to Boeing's 787. Airbus' difficulties in developing a competing model has put the plane five years behind the 787...