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NEW YORK (CNN) -- President Bush's assurances that we'll all be "just fine" if he and Congress can work out an economic stimulus package seem a little hollow this morning. Much like Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke's assurances last May that the subprime mortgage meltdown would be contained and not affect the broader economy. And it seems Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has spent most of the past year trying to influence Chinese economic policy rather than setting the direction of U.S. economic policy. There is no question that Bush, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Former President Carter says President Bush's administration is "the worst in history" in international relations, taking aim at the White House's policy of pre-emptive war and its Middle East diplomacy. The criticism from Carter, which a biographer says is unprecedented for the 39th president, also took aim at Bush's environmental policies and the administration's "quite disturbing" faith-based initiative funding. "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history," Carter told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in a story that appeared in the newspaper's Saturday...

Here is a key piece of evidence in the case against American-born Jose Padilla, whose federal trial begins Monday in Miami — an Al Qaeda job application form. The application — obtained by ABC News' Law & Justice Unit — provides a window into a highly sophisticated organization with a corporate structure that resembles that of large American companies. "It's a membership application — just the way you or I would fill out an application for a credit card company,'' said Jack Cloonan, former head of the FBI's Osama bin Laden squad in New York and now an ABC News...

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held talks with Syria's president Wednesday despite White House objections, saying she pressed Bashar al-Assad over Syrian support for militant groups and passed him a peace message from Israel's prime minister. The meeting was an attempt to push the Bush administration to open a direct dialogue with Syria, a step that the White House has rejected. Congressional Democrats insist the U.S. attempts to isolate Syria have failed to force the al-Assad government to change its policies. Rep. Tom Lantos, the head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who was in Pelosi's delegation,...

DAMASCUS, Syria (CNN) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived Tuesday in the Syrian capital, where she is expected to tackle an issue complicating the U.S. mission in the Middle East -- Damascus' alleged support for militants in Iraq and Lebanon. Though her visit conjured a strong rebuke by the White House, Syria seemed to welcome the 67-year-old California Democrat. After arriving in Damascus, Pelosi visited a centuries-old market district, where she mingled with Syrians. She also visited the Omayyad mosque in Old Damascus, which is considered one of the most sacred sites in the capital. (Watch what the White House...

NEW YORK (CNN) -- An incompetent attorney general, who says he wasn't fully aware that nearly 10 percent of the U.S. attorneys who work for him throughout the country were being fired and permitted the 110,000-person Justice Department that he leads to give inaccurate information at best, or simply lie about it at worst, to the Congress and the American people, has the full confidence of the president who's lost the confidence of most people. And this is what passes for a big-time, dramatic, historic constitutional crisis in 21st century America? You've got to be kidding. This is the most...

Former President Jimmy Carter said Sunday he hopes to be buried in front of his home in Plains, the southwest Georgia town where he and his wife were born. "Plains is special to us," the 82-year-old said during a three-hour live C-SPAN2 interview. "I could be buried in Arlington Cemetery or wherever I want, but my wife was born here and I was born here." As a child, Carter briefly lived next door to Rosalynn, and the two began dating in 1945. The couple married the next year and in July celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. "Plains is where our...

LOS ANGELES — FOX plans to broadcast an interview with O.J. Simpson in which the former football star discusses "how he would have committed" the slayings of his ex-wife and her friend, for which he was acquitted in a widely-watched trial, the network said. The two-part interview, titled "O.J. Simpson: If I Did It, Here's How It Happened," will air Nov. 27 and Nov. 29, the TV network said. Simpson has agreed to an "unrestricted" interview with book publisher Judith Regan, FOX said. "O.J. Simpson, in his own words, tells for the first time how he would have committed the...

RENO, Nev. Former President Carter is urging northern Nevadans to elect his son, Jack, to the Senate to help combat a Bush administration he says has brought "international disgrace" to the country. The former president told a crowd of about 300 on the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno today that the nation is more sharply divided that it has ever been as a result of Bush's policies. The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, he says he's deeply embarrassed that the American government now stands convicted around the world as one of the greatest abusers of...