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LONDON -- Across the English Channel, young men are massing near the beaches of Dunkirk, desperately seeking boats and boatmen to carry them across to England before it is too late. This is not 1940, when British boats large and small bravely crossed the choppy channel to rescue more than 300,000 of their own soldiers trapped by Hitler's army. This is now, and the brave young men are refugees, from Asia and Africa and the poorer parts of southern Europe, who want asylum and, more important, work in Britain. And back home in the United States, along the borders ...

<p>LOU WATERS, CNN ANCHOR: We begin this hour in Washington, where Congressman Gary Condit's two top aides tell CNN he has not decided whether to run for reelection.</p> <p>CNN national correspondent Bob Franken is closely following today's developments. He joins us from Washington with the latest on this -- Bob.</p>

<p>LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's go to Capitol Kill. Kate Snow is standing by there. She's got some news for us this morning on Gary Condit.</p> <p>What's going on, Kate?</p> <p>KATE SNOW, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Leon, I have talked to two sources who are close to Gary Condit. These are folks who are aides here on Capitol Hill and work very closely with the congressman.</p>

<p>JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: Congressman Gary Condit is said to be telling his colleagues he is leaning toward retirement. Today's "Washington Post" reports Condit wants to make a final decision on his own timetable.</p> <p>CNN national correspondent Bob Franken is watching the Condit story in Washington.</p>

<p>Chip Langman, a Modesto native and legislative assistant to Ceres Rep. Gary Condit in Washington, D.C., recently resigned for reasons unrelated to the congressman's troubles.</p> <p>"I'm sorry about the timing," Langman said Thursday. "I'm sorry if it appears as if I'm jumping ship. Let me be clear: This has absolutely nothing to do with Congressman Condit."</p>

Induced Abortion: The Number One Cause of Death In The United States As hard as it may be to believe, abortion is the number one cause of death in the United States. The following figures for causes of death were taken from Table 250A, "Deaths from 72 selected causes, 1993" published by the Division of Vital Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics. The URL of the document is http://www.cdc.gov/nchswww/tab250a.htm. 1993 is the last year for which full statistics are available. Of course, our government doesn't consider abortion to be "death", so the abortion figure is taken from page 1 of ...

<p>Smith said she told the FBI that about a month before Levy disappeared, the congressman tried to get her to participate in a sexual scenario. She said he had mentioned it often, and she initially thought it was a joke.</p>

ERUSALEM, Sept. 7 — Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel said today that even though he had authorized high-level talks with Yasir Arafat to try bringing about a cease-fire in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he doubted they would amount to anything. The problem, Mr. Sharon said in an interview, lay with Mr. Arafat, whose Palestinian Authority, he said, is "a kingdom of terror." Mr. Sharon also endorsed the creation of a military buffer zone along the unmarked boundary separating Israel and the West Bank. That idea has emerged in recent days, and it seems destined to cause an uproar among ...

from the transcript:But as you know, Congress is bound by CBO numbers. But after the budget is passed, then it's the OMB numbers that prevail. And so it's a very complicated budget process -- it always has been -- where Congress has to use CBO numbers as the process moves through the Congress, but after a matter is signed into law and becomes a matter of administration, the courts have recognized that OMB numbers prevail. Q I didn't think there was a set rule for that. MR. FLEISCHER: Yes, there is. There's a court case that settled it. Q One ...

ASHINGTON, Sept. 7 — A Senate Republican ally of President Bush's said today that he would introduce a bill that would let the administration promote a Medicare prescription drug card program that has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge. The senator, Bill Frist of Tennessee, said he supported Mr. Bush's plan to give what amounts to a government seal of approval to the discount cards. The plan, federal officials say, will help older Americans afford essential but expensive medicines as Congress grapples with adding prescription drug coverage to Medicare. An injunction filed on Thursday by Judge Paul Friedman ...

<p>Will Condit Retire?</p> <p>Some people think Gary Condit should be running from Congress; now there are indications that at least he won't be running for Congress again. The debauched Democrat "has privately informed colleagues that he is leaning toward retiring from Congress at the end of his current term," the Washington Post reports, attributing the information to "several Democrats." Says the Post: "Democratic leaders increasingly view Condit as unelectable and a political liability because of questions about his relationship with missing intern Chandra Levy. At the same time, they are not eager to punish him or have him resign suddenly and prompt a special election they could lose."</p>

Some lawmakers are eventually turned into concrete busts in the Capitol. But ever since Rep. Gary Condit’s (D-Calif.) TV interview with ABC’s Connie Chung, Buycostumes.com, a Milwaukee-based retailer of Halloween costumes, has been deluged with inquiries for a Condit Halloween mask. To determine if Buycostumes.com should make a Condit mask for Halloween 2001, the company is running a poll at www.buycostumes.com. Other top mask inquiries aside from Condit: Rock music stars Alice Cooper and Gene Simmons — both of whom Condit beat out in the poll. For Education And Discussion Only. Not For Commercial Use.

A county official said Friday that a grand jury has reached a decision on whether it will investigate claims that Rep. Gary Condit obstructed justice by asking a flight attendant to deny they had an affair.The results of the secret vote of Stanislaus County's 19-member civil grand jury Thursday night won't be made public, said Marnie Ardis, the county employee who oversees the panel.She said the decision was being relayed in a letter sent Friday to the attorney of flight attendant Anne Marie Smith.The unusual hearing came after Smith's attorney, James Robinson, said last week he was going directly ...

<p>MODESTO, Calif.  — A county grand jury reached a decision on whether to investigate allegations that Rep. Gary Condit obstructed justice when he asked flight attendant Anne Marie Smith to sign an affidavit stating they didn't have an affair.</p> <p>The results of the secret vote of Stanislaus County's 19-member civil grand jury Thursday night won't be made public except by way of a letter being sent Friday to Smith's lawyer, said Marnie Ardis, the county employee who oversees the grand jury.</p>

federal appeals court declared this week that male prisoners have a constitutional right to procreate. Yesterday, that ruling drew criticism around the country, with some lawyers predicting it would be overturned by the United States Supreme Court. The ruling, issued on Wednesday by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, came in the case of an inmate serving a life sentence who argued that he should be able to ship semen out of prison for the artificial insemination of his 46-year-old wife. No federal appeals court had previously recognized a prisoner's right to ...

<p>LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's go check and see what's happening on Capitol Hill.</p> <p>Kate Snow is checking in, and she's got an update for us on Congressman Condit.</p> <p>Kate, what's going on?</p> <p>KATE SNOW, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Leon, this morning we've been reporting that there was a published report in "The Washington Post" to indicate that Gary Condit had been talking to, quote/unquote, "colleagues" about his political future. CNN has learned from two separate sources closed to Gary Condit that he has not spoken with any other House members, any of his colleagues here in the House on Capitol Hill about whether or not to run for reelection in 2002.</p>

<p>The U.S. Forest Service spends about $10 million a year in California studying fire. So far this year the agency has spent $140 million putting out fires in the state. By the time the current 12,000-acre blaze burns out in two American River canyons, it will have cost more than Congress annually budgets to manage the 849,000-acre Tahoe National Forest.</p>

NA tests on a strand of hair provide new evidence in the 1975 disappearance of the former Teamster president James R. Hoffa, placing him in a car used by a friend who has long been suspected of a role in the case, federal law enforcement officials said yesterday. The officials said that with the DNA testing, not available decades ago, the Federal Bureau of Investigation had matched a hair taken from Mr. Hoffa's hairbrush with one found in a borrowed car that the friend, Charles O'Brien, drove on July 30, 1975, the day Mr. Hoffa was last seen. Mr. ...

URBAN, South Africa, Sept. 7 — Negotiators at the United Nations conference on racism remained deadlocked tonight over the issues of the Middle East and slavery despite a new offer from European diplomats that edged ever so slightly toward an apology for their countries' past involvement in slavery and colonialism. Although the conference was to have ended today, diplomats vowed to continue negotiating through the night in an attempt to reach consensus on the final declarations. The European Union agreed to call on nations to take actions "restoring the dignity" of the descendants of slaves, noting that some countries ...

<p>ANNOUNCER: THE POINT WITH GRETA VAN SUSTEREN. A congressman's future hangs in the balance.</p> <p>REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT (D-MO), MINORITY LEADER: I've talked to other members, as I will in the days ahead.</p> <p>ANNOUNCER: Secret meetings, anonymous sources and leaked drafts of denials. Tonight's POINT, is Gary Condit staying or going?</p>