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Senate Republicans Tuesday accused Democrats of reneging on deal that would give President Obama "fast track" authority to approve trade pacts. Senate Finance panel Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Democrats broke an agreement struck in committee that Trade Promotion Authority legislation would move separately from two provisions dealing with trade enforcement and preferences. "This demand materialized last week and came from the Senate Democratic leadership, virtually all of whom oppose TPA and their president outright," Hatch said, moments after Democrats voted to block the trade bill. Democrats said Tuesday they opposed the bill because they wanted the legislation to include...

The USS San Antonio's grand ambitions were dashed from Day One. Experts and the Navy's top civilian leader say the San Antonio, blasted by inspectors as unsafe for a crew to put to sea, was built in the wrong shipyard. They say it was hamstrung by a computer design system that didn't work, shoddy craftsmanship, and leaky pipes and cables installed in so many wrong places that they may never be fixed. Millions of taxpayer dollars were wasted. Precious time lost. The Navy's top civilian leader lays the blame for many of San Antonio's problems on Northrop Grumman Ship Systems,...

This image from the FBI website shows Anas al-Libi. Gunmen in a three-car convoy seizedNazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, known by his alias Anas al-Libi, an al-Qaeda leader connected to the1998 embassy bombings in eastern Africa and wanted by the U.S. for more than a decade outside hishouse Saturday in the Libyan capital, his relatives said. (AP Photo/FBI) In a time when the current administration appears to favor kills over capture as well as "catch and release", last Saturday Abu Anas al-Libi (Zawahiri's man in Libya) survived President Obama's kill list to be captured instead of droned upon: Since President Obama stepped...

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, better known as DSK, was having lunch with his daughter at the time when the sexual assault he is alleged to have committed supposedly took place, his lawyers say, according to French radio RMC. According to this item, DSK checked out of the hotel at noon, an hour before the events allegedly took place. He was scheduled to have lunch with his daughter, a graduate student at Columbia University in New York, that day. If true, it should be easy enough to check out: both the hotel check-out and the lunch (via credit card) would have...

Russia has suggested that Julian Assange should be awarded the Nobel peace prize, in an unexpected show of support from Moscow for the jailed WikiLeaks founder. In what appears to be a calculated dig at the US, the Kremlin urged non-governmental organisations to think seriously about "nominating Assange as a Nobel Prize laureate". "Public and non-governmental organisations should think of how to help him," the source from inside president Dmitry Medvedev's office told Russian news agencies. Speaking in Brussels, where Medvedev was attending a Russia-EU summit yesterday , the source went on: "Maybe, nominate him as a Nobel Prize laureate."

President Barack Obama quietly breached years of protocol on Saturday morning by leaving the White House without the press with him. About two hours before reporters were supposed to be in position to leave with the president, Obama left the grounds of the White House. Members of the press were told he was attending one of his daughter's soccer games in northwest Washington, D.C. The White House press corps traditionally travels with the president anywhere he goes, inside and outside the country, to report on the president's activities for the benefit of informing the public and for historical record.

They met in a Miami restaurant — he a handsome tennis player, she a pretty waitress — and spent the evening smooching at a nightclub. Little did they know that the kisses they exchanged would spark a controversy that has gripped France all summer amid lawsuits and wrangles before international doping tribunals. Richard Gasquet, a former Wimbledon semi-finalist, claimed that he tested positive for drugs a few hours after his encounter with the waitress because her kisses had contaminated him with cocaine. His story, greeted with derision in France at first, was given weight this week when the results of...

Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, whose real name was Ali Mohammed al-Fakheri, 46, took his own life in his prison cell, according to the Libyan newspaper Oea. Information gained from the interrogation of al-Libi was cited on several occasions by the Bush administration as justification for the war in Iraq. He told his CIA interrogators that al-Qaeda had sent two men to Iraq to seek training in chemical and biological weapons in December 2000. Classified documents added that the men did not return, so al-Libi did not know whether the training took place, and that, in any case, he was probably "intentionally...

There’s much more to the story of Obama’s amended campaign finance reports than what Obama and the Obamedia will tell you. I will fill you in on what’s missing in a moment. What we have here, essentially, is Obama using a non-profit group called Citizens Services Inc. as a front to funnel payments to ACORN for campaign advance work.

Investigation Continues as Congressman Enters Mayo Clinic May 5, 2006 — Capitol Police have taken disciplinary action against a watch commander for the handling of Rep. Patrick Kennedy's car accident, acting Capitol Police Chief Christopher McGaffin said. Lou Cannon of of the Fraternal Order of Police for the District of Columbia said there are questions about whether Rep. Patrick Kennedy received special treatment. (ABC News) McGaffin said the incident was improperly delayed due to "poor judgment" on the part of police managers and that a field sobriety test should have been administered to Kennedy after his car hit a barrier...

Boy charged with felony for carrying sugar BY JUSTINA WANG A 12-year-old Aurora boy who said he brought powdered sugar to school for a science project this week has been charged with a felony for possessing a look-alike drug, Aurora police have confirmed. The sixth-grade student at Waldo Middle School was also suspended for two weeks from school after showing the bag of powdered sugar to his friends. The boy, who is not being identified because he is a juvenile, said he brought the bag to school to ask his science teacher if he could run an experiment using sugar....

SAN FRANCISCO - Cellphones are chock-full of features like built-in cameras, personalized ring tones and text messaging. They also gave a real boost to Kenny Hall's effort to cheat on his girlfriend. Hall, a 20-year-old college student in Denver, decided in March to spend a weekend in nearby Boulder with another woman. He turned to his cellphone for help, sending out a text message to other cellphone users in an "alibi and excuse club," a network of 3,400 strangers who help one another skip work, get out of dates or give loved ones the slip. Assistance came instantly. One of...

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- A man who thought he had hatched a perfect alibi to charges that he murdered a man in a barroom shooting two years ago had his scheme foiled when a letter asking a friend to lie for him was returned and was read by jail guards. Demetrius Murrell, 24, of Pittsburgh, pleaded guilty Thursday to a charge of third-degree murder after prosecutors read the letter in court. In the letter, Murrell asked his friend for "a little alibi" during his upcoming trial on charges that he shot and killed a 19-year-old man in a Pittsburgh bar on...

NORWALK -- Michael Skakel's defense against the charge he murdered Martha Moxley began Wednesday with family members supporting his alibi and his attorney propping up the family's former tutor as the more likely killer. Skakel's oldest brother, Rushton Skakel Jr., and their cousin, James Dowdle, testified that Michael left the Skakel home with them about 9:30 p.m. the night Moxley was last seen alive, and drove about 20 minutes away to Dowdle's home to watch "Monty Python's Flying Circus." Rushton, who was 19 at the time, said they returned home about 11:15 p.m. Two factors are crucial to the success...