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For five years, the case against Tom DeLay for money laundering through his Texans for a Republican Majority PAC has been seemingly trapped in the Texas courts facing pre-trial appeals. On November 1, it finally made it to trial and today the verdict is in: guilty on both money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The slightly-less-than-humble DeLay lost his majority leadership in Congress after the indictment came down, but he has maintained his claims that this case was politically motivated throughout the entire process right up to defense attorney Dick DeGuerin's closing arguments. The jury clearly didn't buy...

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann dropped out of the race for House Republican Conference chair on Wednesday night, ensuring that the GOP’s leadership elections will go on without any serious competition. In a statement sent to a handful of reporters Wednesday evening, the tea party favorite said that Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling has her “enthusiastic support for his candidacy” for the top messaging post in the GOP. kX

NORFOLK -- Navy Lt. Cmdr. Sean Kearns' court-martial on a charge of negligence in his duties as executive officer of the ship San Antonio began Monday -- but he's not the only one on trial. The proceeding -- related to the death of a Sailor during a deployment last year -- could give the already bruised San Antonio ship program yet another black eye. Prosecutors contend that Kearns did not ensure effective training or supervision of small boat operations on Feb. 4, 2009, when the amphibious transport dock ship -- the first in its class -- was operating in the...

Democrat Stephene Moore will attempt to do what, apparently, no spouse has ever done before — succeed her still-living husband in Congress. Records show that 46 wives have won seats on the Hill after the deaths of their husbands who held the posts before. “There’s not a situation exactly like it,” said Anthony Wallis, a researcher for the U.S. House historian. But days after Rep. Dennis Moore’s wife announced her run for Kansas’ 3rd District, partisans remain split on whether she will make it into the history books Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/04/11/1871026/for-candidate-stephene-moore-congressional.html#ixzz0ktRhwf07

Stephene Moore, who has been married to Congressman Dennis Moore for 20 years, told The Star this morning that she’s running for Congress. The Democrat, who was said to be in the race a week ago, acknowledged that some will think that she has a right to the seat because of her marriage.

The end of the Civil War in the spring of 1865 began a national discussion that has not stopped 125 years later. What did the war mean? What was its significance to the nation? More momentously, what was its significance to God? Making no bones about it Such questions engaged many of those who lived through the bloody conflict. Among those who thought they knew what it meant were many clergymen, some of whom made no bones about saying so.

U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore, a Democrat who confounded the GOP by winning six consecutive elections in a heavily Republican district, will not seek re-election next year, key Democrats said Sunday. Moore, who represented Johnson, Wyandotte and a portion of Douglas counties, will issue a statement today explaining his decision and outlining his plans. Moore, 64, is expected to finish out his term, which ends in January 2011.

Al-Qaida’s new method of delivering a deadly payload — in effect a plastic explosive suppository — would make security experts nervous, you might think. It is not easily spotted by conventional detectors. But it does have some who know their explosives busting a gut. A month ago in Saudi Arabia, a terrorist named Abdullah Hassan Tali’ al-Asiri reportedly walked past palace checkpoints with a small bomb inserted in a body cavity. Judging by the al-Qaida video featuring him proudly holding a device before committing the deed, it was about 3 inches long. He wanted to blow up a Saudi prince...

Steve Rose, the longtime publisher of the Johnson County Sun and well-known civic leader, said Wednesday that he’s running for Congress. Rose, 61, said he would campaign as a Republican in Kansas’ 3rd District. If he wins the GOP nomination, he presumably would face six-term Democratic incumbent Dennis Moore. Rose acknowledged that he had endorsed Moore repeatedly over the years in his Sun column. But Rose said Moore had changed. “I think that under the current administration it’s a much further left government,” Rose said. “And Dennis Moore is voting with them. I think he’s left the mainstream of his...

You don't have to get laid off to feel the pain of this recession. Many workers lucky enough to have survived the ax are still feeling unhappy and unmotivated at work. Raises, bonuses and other incentive programs have been slashed since the downturn began, and employees saddled with additional workloads for less pay are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with their current position -- or just plain burnt out.

The general who led military relief efforts in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina is denying a report that he may challenge Louisiana Sen. David Vitter in 2010, calling it "speculation and rumors" Sunday.

BELLEVUE, Neb. | At the end of a day of performing one abortion after the next after the next, LeRoy Carhart phrases the question himself. “Do I think I’ll get shot? I hope not,” the physician says. “Is it a possibility? I think it’s a very, very good possibility.” Meantime, the potbellied military retiree, grandfather and horse lover carries on the same steady abortion business that has defined, dominated and directed his life for the last two decades. Now he stands at the most thinly manned front line in America’s abortion wars — almost daring the opposition to stop him...

The Navy took delivery of its newest aircraft carrier, USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), from Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding. George H.W. Bush is the 10th and final Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.

An advisory board that addressed racial issues in Homestead and Florida City has been dissolved, leading some residents to question whether the move was an attempt to stop their fight against the Confederate Flag. Led by Homestead Mayor Lynda Bell, all seven members of the Homestead City Council voted on April 20 to shut down the Homestead/Florida City Human Relations Board (HRB).

John Wilkes Booth shoots President Abraham Lincoln at a play at Ford's Theater in Washington. Five days earlier, Confederate General Robert E. Lee had surrendered his army to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. The war was nearly over, although there were still Confederate forces yet to surrender. The president had recently visited the captured Rebel capital of Richmond, and now Lincoln sought a relaxing evening by attending a production of Our American Cousin starring Laura Keene. Ford's Theater, seven blocks from the White House, was crammed with people trying to catch a glimpse of Grant, who...

Police in Allendale, South Carolina, are investigating whether a funeral home fit a 6-foot, 5-inch man into his coffin by severing his legs. The wife of James Hines reportedly said the funeral home told her that her husband's coffin was long enough. A former Cave Funeral Services employee has alleged since James Hines' death from skin cancer in 2004 that Hines was too tall for his coffin and that the funeral home took extreme measures to make him fit, Allendale County Coroner Hayzen Black told CNN.

After years of protest, pleading and petitions, anti-abortion groups today will get what they’ve long sought: the start of a criminal trial against Wichita abortion provider George Tiller. Jury selection begins in Sedgwick County for what’s expected to be two weeks of hearings. Tiller faces 19 misdemeanor charges that he had an illegal financial relationship with a physician who authorized late-term abortions that Tiller performed.

The case against Wichita abortion provider George Tiller will go to trial, a Sedgwick County judge ruled today. District Court Judge Clark Owens denied a motion from Tiller’s lawyers to dismiss the charges against him based on the actions of prosecutors Phill Kline and Paul Morrison.

S EATTLE | In his voluminous writings, Charles Darwin made only brief mention of a little fish called the stickleback. But 200 years after Darwin’s birth, the stickleback has become an unlikely superstar of evolutionary science. Like the finches and tortoises of the Galapagos Islands that sparked Darwin’s theory, sticklebacks have adapted to myriad habitats in an evolutionary eye-blink. Scientists in Seattle, Canada and elsewhere now are using molecular techniques to study those adaptations, and their work is yielding the clearest insights yet into the way natural selection works at the genetic level.