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MILWAUKEE – A combative President Barack Obama rolled out a long-term jobs program Monday that will exceed $50 billion to rebuild roads, railways and runways, and coupled it with a blunt campaign-season assault on Republicans for causing Americans' hard economic times. GOP leaders instantly assailed Obama's proposal, which is also likely to be met with reluctance by many Democrats to approve additional spending and higher federal deficits just weeks before elections that will determine control of Congress. That means the plan has low odds of becoming law this year. Administration officials said that even quick congressional approval would not produce...

WASHINGTON - In a spirited attack, the State Department's spokesman on Friday accused Syria of making trouble not only for Iraq, by allowing foreign fighters to infiltrate the country, but also for Lebanon and the Palestinians. "Syria, more and more, is being recognized as a destabilizing element in the region," Adam Ereli said Friday. "It's not just about Iraq; it's about Iraq, it's about Lebanon, it's about the Palestinian Authority. Because there's a connection between Syria and terrorism and murder and mayhem in each of these three different areas." Syrian President Bashar Assad's government insists it is doing what it...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The general responsible for the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said on Friday Amnesty International's "shrill" criticism of the detention of foreign terrorism suspects was uninformed. U.S. Army Gen. John Craddock, head of Miami-based Southern Command, added that he did not expect a military inquiry into whether U.S. personnel at the jail had mishandled the Koran would show more than the five cases acknowledged on Thursday. In its annual report on human rights worldwide, Amnesty International said the detention facility had become "the gulag of our times," equating it to the vast, brutal Soviet...

PENDLETON, Ore. - Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) told supporters Friday that Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites), a senator from the Northeast, doesn't understand their needs. "He says he's in touch with the West. He must mean western Massachusetts," Cheney said. The vice president criticized Kerry for his position on a bill Cheney said was aimed at "keeping forests healthier and communities safer." Neither Kerry nor running mate John Edwards (news - web sites) were present for the vote. Bush signed the measure into law in December. "Sen. Kerry did not support the Healthy Forests...

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) assails rival Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) on intelligence reform, arguing in a new television ad that the Democrat's pledge to fix the system is at odds with his record and concluding, "There's what Kerry says, and then there's what Kerry does." The commercial, which begins airing Monday, claims that Kerry promises to "immediately reform the intelligence system" but was absent for many of the intelligence committee's public hearings and proposed cuts in the intelligence budget after the first World Trade Center attack in 1993. Kerry, like other Senate Republicans...

WASHINGTON - After months of attacking President Bush (news - web sites)'s policy on Iraq (news - web sites), Sen. Edward M. Kennedy turned his focus to domestic issues, saying the administration has misled the public about the economy, health care and education. "As a result, this president has now created the largest credibility gap since Richard Nixon," Kennedy said in a speech Monday at the Brookings Institution, a think tank. "He has broken the basic bond of trust with the American people." The senator said the government has cut unemployment benefits, failed to pay for education overhaul and is...

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Syrian President Bashar Assad on Wednesday accused the Israeli government of following "the policies of escalation and extremism," making the Middle East a more dangerous place.In a speech at a banquet honoring Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Assad turned to Syria's recurring theme that Israel and its occupation of war-conquered Arab lands were at the core of Palestinian-Israeli violence and turmoil throughout the region. Assad accused Israel of rejecting an Arab willingness to make peace. He claimed that tension throughout the region was due to "the policies of escalation and extremism the Israeli government...

<p>Using its clout as the nation's biggest public pension fund, CalPERS said Tuesday that it plans to identify companies that dole out fat paychecks to executives -- and it will either shame them into changing or oppose them at the ballot box at annual shareholder meetings.</p>

Iraq Assails 'Little Bush,' Markets Jittery Reuters to My Yahoo! By Hassan Hafidh BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq blasted on Monday what it called the mad campaign of "little Bush," the U.S. president threatening to go to war if Baghdad fails to give up alleged weapons of mass destruction. War jitters worldwide pushed up the price of oil and gold. Around Baghdad, U.N. experts looking for weapons visited three sites while Iraq said it would soon receive a first batch of Arab and European volunteers ready to act as human shields to try to stave off a U.S. attack. "The administration...

Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) yesterday offered an unusually pointed critique of President Bush for his handling of the economy and other domestic concerns and accused him of being perhaps the most political chief executive in history. "Almost on every one of the issues involving domestic policy, he has been a source of great disappointment," Daschle said yesterday during a lunch with Washington Post reporters and editors. "I think his record on the economy is a disaster. I think his record on fiscal policy is a disaster. I think his position on education has fallen far short of...