Deaths fall for U.S., rise for Iraqis  —  BAGHDAD — U.S. military deaths during the past month have dropped to an average of about one a day, approaching the lowest level since the insurgency began two years ago, according to a USA TODAY analysis of U.S. military data.

GOP Struggles To Define Its Message for 2006 Elections  —  Republican efforts to craft a policy and political agenda to carry the party into the midterm elections have stumbled repeatedly as GOP leaders face widespread disaffection and disagreement within the ranks.

David Duke Claims to Be Vindicated By a Harvard Dean  —  A paper recently co-authored by the academic dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government about the allegedly far-reaching influence of an "Israel lobby" is winning praise from white supremacist David Duke.

How to spot a baby conservative  —  Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints?  Chances are he grew up to be a conservative.  —  At least, he did if he was one of 95 kids …

EU denounces Lukashenko's poll victory  —  By Neil Buckley and Stefan Wagstyl in Minsk and Daniel Dombey in Brussels  —  Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus' authoritarian president, declared on Monday that foreign-backed attempts to overthrow him had failed, claiming a crushing victory in elections …

Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn  —  BALTIMORE — Black men in the United States face a far more dire situation than is portrayed by common employment and education statistics, a flurry of new scholarly studies warn, and it has worsened in recent years even as an economic boom …

Contractor tiers swell Katrina costs  —  Normalcy eludes city as bodies are still being found  —  NEW ORLEANS — How many contractors does it take to haul a pile of tree branches?  If it's government work, at least four: a contractor, his subcontractor, the subcontractor's subcontractor …

The third anniversary...sacrifice, fear and hope.  —  It has been three years since 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' began and for three years we debated whether the decision was right or wrong and until this moment we have different feelings and opinions about where this operation brought us and where its aftermaths are going to lead us.

Spinning Operation Swarmer  — Email to a friend - Print this page - Text size: A A  —  The latest criticism of the war in Iraq has become so politically manipulative, so disingenuous, so over-the-top that it is undermining a critical cause that we cannot, for a variety of global security reasons, afford to lose.

The Volokh Conspiracy  —  About UsSubscribeFeaturesStuffBlogrollArchive sSearch  —  COURT ACCEPTING A SLIPPERY SLOPE ARGUMENT: There's an interesting example in the recent Google subpoena ruling.  The issue in this part of the opinion was whether the subpoena was likely to jeopardize Google's trade secrets …

Women at war with the mullahs  —  What drives a woman to risk a fatwa by attacking Islam.  Christopher Goodwin reports  —  It would be hard to imagine a place more remote from the violence and turmoil of the Middle East than this quiet cul-de-sac in the southern suburbs of Los Angeles.

The New New Gore  —  Five years ago, Al Gore was the much-mocked pol who blew a gimme with his stiff demeanor and know-it-all style.  Today?  C'mon, admit it: You like him again.  —  The most important speech of Al Gore's post-non-presidency was neither well-covered nor particularly dramatic.

Iraq Update  —  The Iraq operation follows a sadly predictable pattern.  We endure months of non-stop negative press caused by one thing and one thing only: horrible fascist murderers set off bombs in a few of Iraq's provinces, and some street thugs murder each other in reprisal.

Bush Approval Steady at 37%  —  Bush has averaged 38% over last four Gallup Polls  —  PRINCETON, NJ — There has been little change in George W. Bush's job approval rating in the last week.  The March 13-16 Gallup Poll pegs his approval at 37%.  This rating is virtually unchanged …

Sayed and de Man at Yale  —  The campus that ran off a Nazi propagandist today welcomes one from the Taliban.  —  Three weeks after the New York Times revealed that former Taliban official Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi is attending classes at Yale, many at the university still have little to say about the controversy.

'Iraq was awash in cash.  We played football with bricks of $100 bills'  —  At the beginning of the Iraq war, the UN entrusted $23bn of Iraqi money to the US-led coalition to redevelop the country.  With the infrastructure of the country still in ruins, where has all that money gone?

OBL Sought 'Joint Operations' with Saddam  —  An Iraqi intelligence document released last week indicates that Osama bin Laden sought to conduct "joint operations" with Saddam Hussein's regime six years before the 9/11 attacks - and was given the green light by the Iraqi dictator.