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BAGHDAD, Iraq - A growing number of senior American military officers in Iraq have concluded that there is no long-term military solution to an insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqis and more than 1,300 U.S. troops during the past two years. Instead, officers say, the only way to end the guerilla war is through Iraqi politics - an arena that so far has been crippled by divisions between Shiite Muslims, whose coalition dominated the January elections, and Sunni Muslims, who are a minority in Iraq but form the base of support for the insurgency.

More babies, young kids going hungry in US Sat Jun 11, 11:00 PM ET An American butcher. Increasing numbers of young American children are showing signs of serious malnourishment, fueled by a greater prevalence of hunger in the United States, while, paradoxically, two-thirds of the US population is either overweight or obese(AFP/File/Stan Honda) BALTIMORE, United States (AFP) - Increasing numbers of young American children are showing signs of serious malnourishment, fueled by a greater prevalence of hunger in the United States, while, paradoxically, two-thirds of the US population is either overweight or obese. In 2003, 11.2 percent of families in...

Dan Walters: Lawsuit dilemma redux: Once again, a real-world problem ignored By Dan Walters -- Bee Columnist Published 2:15 am PDT Monday, May 9, 2005 A melodrama that played itself out over two years in the Capitol, and eventually in the November election, reflected the polarized and unresponsive nature of California's political apparatus. A real-world problem was presented to the Legislature. Some unscrupulous attorneys were conducting ill-disguised shakedowns of small businesses - auto repair shops, cafes, nail parlors and the like - by misusing the state's "unfair business practices" law. Business owners, many of them immigrants, were receiving harshly worded...

POCATELLO - National Public Radio's award-winning talk show host, Terry Gross, took a break from interviewing political leaders and cultural icons for a speaking tour, including a stop-off at Idaho State University Wednesday. Some conservatives have tagged NPR as one of the cornerstones of the "liberal media," but Gross said that isn't completely true. The word liberal has two connotations, she said, politically left and liberal, as in the liberal arts. In the first political sense of the word, Gross said NPR has no agenda and presents unbiased, balanced coverage of national and world events. "Some people in this day...

The loo. The can. The throne. No one used to discuss how much they spent on their toilet. It wasn’t so much a part of the design, as a functional element of necessity that was a taboo topic. You can flush that old fashioned concept. Today, homeowners are spending thousands of dollars on fancy thrones fit for a king.

University Park, Pa. -- A Penn State analysis of the diets of a nationally representative sample of U.S. preschoolers, ages 2 to 5, shows that more than three-quarters of the children are not getting enough fiber. Children who consumed the most fiber also had the most nutrient-rich diets. However, all children in the study ate fewer dairy servings than recommended by the Food Guide Pyramid. "There is clinical evidence that children with low fiber intakes are at risk of chronic constipation," said Sibylle Kranz, assistant professor of nutritional sciences who led the study. "However, there are also other reasons to...

SAN DIEGO - The hunt is on for a different kind of burglar. Police in San Diego are searching for a gunman who swiped a bag of poop from a woman out walking her dog. The woman told police that she was out walking her dog, Misty, on Monday night when a man in his 20s ran up behind her and grabbed the bag she was holding. When the gunman discovered what was in it, he threw it down in disgust, pointed his gun at the 32-year-old woman and demanded money, San Diego police detective Gary Hassen said. He then...

Comedian Chris Rock says he spent an impromptu tour of the White House hiding from the president. Rock was filming a movie in Washington a year ago when, during a break, he walked past the White House. "A black security guard spotted me and took me into the White House," Rock told The Associated Press recently. "I was walking around the whole White House. It was weird because (President) Bush was there and they were hiding me from Bush."

The purpose of this lesson is to satisfy the California State Language Arts Standards for use of electronic and internet sources, reading comprehension, writing, and analysis of public debate; and Social Science Standards for democracy in action, the American political process, and participation in public debate.

Re: Robert Sanchez's letter "Patronizing minorities" (July 27): The notion that the Republican Party has done more for minorities is laughable at best. Mr. Sanchez's statement that more minorities have been elected to public office is a lie. You will not find a single African American Republican in the Legislature. In fact, the "inclusive" Republican Party does not have a single black member in its ranks in the U.S. Congress. There was a period of 56 years in which Republicans did not have a single black member in Congress. Republicans have a single Hispanic member in the Texas Legislature in...

But Supreme Court's refusal to hear appeal may not be last word. There was no doubt profound satisfaction - if not uncontrollable spontaneous merriment - in the highest councils of the Texas Republican Party this week. It was prompted by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision not to hear an appeal from Texas Democratic state senators of last year's GOP-backed congressional redistricting scheme. The Republican plan made it through to enactment only after three special sessions. Those grim sessions saw extensive behind-the-scenes maneuvering by U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, the godfather of the scheme, merciless arm-twisting, and, finally, the GOP leadership's trashing...

Texas Republicans saw a rout in the offing, but the jury's still out. Texans went to the polls Tuesday (in pathetically low numbers) to register their preferences in the Democratic and Republican primaries, and we saw the usual pratfalls and triumphs, winners and also-rans. But as we pore over the returns like so many tea-leaf readers, we would do well to put the matter in a larger context. This, after all, was payoff day for the Texas Republican leadership: Last spring and summer, the GOP - through no fewer than three special legislative sessions - bullied, bartered and bruised its...

The revealing pants, known in Chinese as "kaidangku", used to be a popular sight on the streets. But now more parents, buoyed by a more sophisticated lifestyle, are turning to disposable nappies instead. The Chinese government has also been trying to encourage an effort to spruce up its urban areas and, it says, steer people away from unclean practices. Many cities have outlawed indiscriminate rubbish dumping, public urination and street spitting. The "kaidangku" are split down the middle - in front and back - and provide what many parents say is maximum convenience with minimum coverage. Although the origins of...