Pentagon brass meet secretly with Pakistanis
US hits Ugandan rebel chief with sanctions
Government warns Simplicity bassinets are deadly
Drunken driving deaths fall in 32 states
Pentagon brass meet with Pakistanis on carrier
State Dept. issues warning on Caribbean travel
Prosecutors seek to slash Abramoff prison term
Administration wants changes in workplace rules
Private contractors hold lots of US intel jobs
An Anbar province timeline

By Alaa al-Marjani (AP)

The U.S. Marine commandant says his forces in Iraq's once volatile western Anbar Province can be reduced, as the military moves to hand over control of the region to the Iraqis next week.

Gen. James Conway told Pentagon reporters Wednesday that the two Marine regimental combat teams currently in Anbar would not be needed to maintain security there once the Iraqis take over, because violence has continued to drop.

The transfer has been delayed since late June due largely to worries it could set off unrest as well.

Reducing forces in Iraq, Conway said, is necessary in...

By MATTY STERN (AP)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday there is hope for a Mideast peace deal but she offered no reason for optimism beyond the fact that the two sides are speaking.

"God willing, with the goodwill of the parties, and the tireless work of the parties, we have a good chance of succeeding," Rice said after seeing Israeli and Palestinian leaders and summoning top negotiators for a joint status report. It was her seventh peace mission since President Bush set an ambitious year-end goal for a Palestinian state. And like the others, it ended without announcement of any specific...

By MUHAMMED MUHEISEN (AP)

President Bush says the United States condemns the "irresponsible decision" by Russia to recognize two breakaway Georgian provinces as independent.

Already rebuffed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Bush issued a statement Tuesday that urged Russia to change course, although that appeared unlikely.

The president said, "We expect Russia to live up to its international commitments." He said Russia should "reconsider this irresponsible decision."

Medvedev said Tuesday that his country will grant diplomatic recognition to the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South ...

By MUHAMMED MUHEISEN (AP)

The United States said Russia is behaving "appallingly" by granting formal diplomatic recognition Tuesday to two breakaway Georgian provinces at the center of this month's conflict.

Meanwhile, the United States dispatched a military ship bearing aid to a Georgian port city still patrolled by Russian troops.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Russia has no business declaring the provinces independent of U.S.-backed Georgia while the United Nations Security Council on which Russia sits has declared that the regions are part of Georgia.

"I think it is regrettable,"...

By J. Scott Applewhite (AP)

President George W. Bush appealed to Russia's president on Monday to ignore the advice of lawmakers and refrain from recognizing Georgia's breakaway regions as independent.

The White House also announced on Monday that Vice President Dick Cheney would visit Georgia, a blast of support for an ally still reeling from its brief war with Russia.

Bush's intervention reflected the deep stakes for Georgia, and the broader U.S.-Russian relationship, as the fate of separatist Abkhazia and South Ossetia remained in flux.

Both houses of the Russian parliament voted without dissent...

By JIM ROGASH (AP)

The government on Monday recommended a speed limit for commercial ships along the Atlantic coast, where collisions with the endangered right whale threaten its existence.

About 300-400 of the whales are left in the wild, and they migrate annually between their southeastern Atlantic breeding grounds to feeding areas off the Massachusetts coast, intersecting busy shipping lanes.

The head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday the new limit, the first to be instituted on the East Coast for a marine creature, was needed to assure its survival. The rule...

By J. Scott Applewhite (AP)

President Bush says Russia's president should not recognize two breakaway regions of Georgia as independent countries despite pleas from Russian lawmakers.

Bush issued a statement from his Texas ranch criticizing Russia's parliament, which voted Monday to urge the Kremlin to recognize the independence of two separatist Georgian regions. The White House says those two regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, remain part of Georgian domain.

Bush said Russia's leadership should "not recognize these separatist regions."

He said Georgia's borders deserve the same respect as a...

By J. Scott Applewhite (AP)

President Bush is dispatching Vice President Dick Cheney to Georgia, the latest burst of political support for an ally reeling from war with Russia.

The White House announced Cheney's trip Monday as the administration blasted Russia anew for failing to fully honor a cease-fire deal with Georgia, a former Soviet republic. The administration also chided Russian lawmakers for endorsing independence of Georgia's two breakaway regions, saying its Cold War foe has no authority to make that decision on its own.

Cheney is heading abroad on Sept. 2 for stops in three former Soviet...

By Paul Sakuma (AP)

Roll back the clock to 1961: John F. Kennedy was inaugurated president. The Peace Corps was founded. The Dow Jones industrials hit 734. Gasoline reached 31 cents a gallon.

And the number of people killed in U.S. traffic accidents that year topped 36,200.

This year, gasoline climbed over $4 a gallon, and the traffic death toll _ according to one study _ appears headed to the lowest levels since Kennedy moved into the White House.

The number is being pulled down by a change in Americans' driving habits, which is fueled largely by record high gasoline prices, according to...

By Nathalie Bardou (AP)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged Monday it will be difficult to reach a year-end target for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, but said the two sides and the United States remain committed to that goal.

Flying into the region on her seventh trip since the goal was set nine months ago at a U.S.-hosted peace conference, Rice said she would press the parties to secure even small, incremental steps and not dwell on producing documents that demonstrate partial progress.

There has been speculation the Bush administration wants the Israelis and Palestinians to sign...

By Paul Sakuma (AP)

Roll back the clock to 1961: John F. Kennedy was inaugurated president. The Peace Corps was founded. The Dow Jones industrials hit 734. Gasoline reached 31 cents a gallon.

And the number of people killed in U.S. traffic accidents that year topped 36,200.

This year, gasoline climbed over $4 a gallon, and the traffic death toll _ according to one study _ appears headed to the lowest levels since Kennedy moved into the White House.

The number is being pulled down by a change in Americans' driving habits, which is fueled largely by record high gasoline prices, according to...

By David Silverman (AP)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returns to the Mideast this week amid dwindling hopes for securing an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal by a year-end target.

She was to arrive Monday in Israel on what will be her seventh trip to the region since President Bush, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert set the goal at a U.S.-hosted peace conference last November.

But negotiations have produced little tangible progress. With a deliberate lowering of expectations and political uncertainty in Israel as Olmert prepares to step down next month,...

By Denis Paquin (AP)

The Pentagon's intelligence arm is adding more polygraph studios and relying on outside contractors for the first time to conduct lie detection tests in an attempt to screen its 5,700 prospective and current employees every year.

The stepped-up effort by the Defense Intelligence Agency is part of a growing emphasis on counterintelligence, detecting and thwarting would-be spies and keeping sensitive information away from America's enemies.

A polygraph is not foolproof as a screening tool. The test gives a high rate of false positives on innocent people, and guilty subjects can...

By Ann Heisenfelt (AP)

President Bush on Saturday blamed the Democratic-led Congress for the high cost of gasoline and renewed his call for expanded offshore drilling to increase U.S. oil supplies.

"To reduce pressure on prices, we need to increase the supply of oil, especially oil produced here at home," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

Congress left for the August recess without a solution to fuel prices. In a bid to force a vote on offshore drilling, Republicans blocked Democratic proposals to use the nation's petroleum reserve, curb oil speculation and require oil companies to drill on al...

By J. Scott Applewhite (AP)

President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki consulted by phone Friday as work on a plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by 2011 continued.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said that Bush and the Iraqi leader "had a good conversation." But he added "there are a lot of details that have to be worked out."

The deal now under discussion between U.S. and Iraqi negotiators sets a course for American combat troops to pull out of major Iraqi cities by next June, with a broader exit two years later from the long and costly war that began in March 2003.

The da...

By Ali Abbas (AP)

Iraq and the U.S. pushed close to a deal Thursday setting a course for American combat troops to pull out of Iraqi cities by next June on the way to broader withdrawal from the long and costly war by 2011.

Subject to final approval by the top Iraqi leadership, the exit date for U.S. troops would be December 2011, although the Americans insist on linking that target to additional security and political progress.

President Bush has long resisted a timetable for pulling out, even under heavy pressure from a nation distressed by American deaths and discouraged by the length of...

By Roberto Borea (AP)

Federal investigators said Thursday they have solved a mystery of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: the collapse of World Trade Center building 7, a source of long-running conspiracy theories.

The 47-story trapezoid-shaped building sat north of the World Trade Center towers, across Vesey Street in lower Manhattan in New York. On Sept. 11, it was set on fire by falling debris from the burning towers, but skeptics long have argued that fire and debris alone should not have brought down such a big steel-and-concrete structure.

Scientists with the National Institute of Standards and...

By Khalid Mohammed (AP)

Iraq and the U.S. have reached preliminary agreement to withdraw American forces from Iraqi cities by next June, six years into the increasingly unpopular war, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Thursday after meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The negotiations over a withdrawal timetable follow long insistence by President Bush that setting any schedule for U.S. troops to leave would be dangerous. The draft agreement with Iraq would link troop reductions to achievement of certain security milestones, although the details have not been made public.

Time...

By (AP)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the United States and Iraq have agreed to a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the battle-scarred country.

Appearing with her Iraqi counterpart, Hoshyar Zebari (HOH'-shayr zuh-BAH'-ree), Rice acknowledged at their joint news conference Thursday that the two parties have not yet finalized the deal. She said it close at hand, however.

Rice called her talks with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki "very good and fruitful" and said an agreement is near that would "solidify the significant gains" in security in Iraq over the las...

By Mark Duncan (AP)

Tributes from political allies and even one-time enemies came pouring in for Democratic U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a trailblazer whose energy and outspokenness made her one of Congress' most dynamic leaders.

Tubbs Jones, the first black woman to represent Ohio in Congress, died Wednesday evening after suffering a brain hemorrhage. She was 58.

"She poured her heart and soul into her job," said U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio. "She worked so hard and gave everything she could. I'm devastated. Wherever we'd go, we'd speak of each other as brother and sister. It's an...

By Alik Keplicz (AP)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed Iraqi leaders Thursday to agree quickly to a U.S.-Iraq security deal that outlines the withdrawal of American troops.

Flying into Baghdad on an unannounced trip, Rice said the two sides were nearing an agreement after months of painstaking negotiations but stressed there were still unresolved issues, including when U.S. soldiers will leave and what their operations will consist of until then.

"The negotiators have taken this very, very far," she told reporters aboard her plane. "But there is no reason to believe that there is an agr...

By Mark Duncan (AP)

Several major news organizations, including The Associated Press, prematurely reported the death Wednesday of U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio, who had suffered a brain hemorrhage while driving in suburban Cleveland.

The reports were corrected after a doctor said at an afternoon news conference that Tubbs Jones was in critical condition with limited brain function. The Cleveland Clinic announced later that the 58-year-old Democrat died about 6 p.m. Wednesday.

Various Democratic officials who spoke on condition of anonymity provided the basis for most of the erroneous...

By Manuel Balce Ceneta (AP)

Sen. Ted Stevens cannot move his corruption trial from Washington to his home state of Alaska, a federal judge ruled Wednesday in a decision that could hamstring the powerful Republican's re-election bid.

The patriarch of Alaska politics, Stevens could normally expect to coast to his seventh full term in the Senate. But Democrats want to capitalize on the lengthy FBI investigation and trial to capture the once-safe Republican seat.

Stevens, 84, had hoped to stand trial by day and campaign on nights and weekends. In a state where he is known as "Uncle Ted," he could have faced...

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