NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls  —  The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

Hard-Core Republicans Are Fleeing President  —  Conservatives Point to Spending, Immigration  —  Disaffection over spending and immigration have caused conservatives to take flight from President Bush and the Republican Congress at a rapid pace in recent weeks, sending Bush's approval ratings …

Democrats Are Fractured Over Strategy, Funds  —  Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and the leader of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have clashed angrily in recent days in a dispute about how the party should spend its money in advance of this fall's midterm elections.

Brother Jeb would make 'great' US president: Bush  —  President George W. Bush praised his brother, Florida governor Jeb Bush, as an "excellent" leader who would make a "great president" of the United States, according to news accounts.  —  "I think Jeb would be a great president.

47 nations gain seats on U.N.'s rights council  —  New body manages to keep worst abusers from even daring to run in the election  —  United Nations — U.N. members elected 47 countries to a new Human Rights Council on Tuesday, choosing several that have been criticized for their poor records …

Abramoff Visits in White House Logs Are Linked to Rove and a Budget Aide  —  WASHINGTON, May 10 — Newly disclosed White House visitor logs involving the lobbyist Jack Abramoff refer to a 2001 visit in which Mr. Abramoff talked with Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser …

A. M. Rosenthal Is Dead at 84; Innovative Editor of The Times  —  A. M. Rosenthal, a Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent who became the executive editor of The New York Times and led the paper's global news operations through 17 years of record growth, modernization and major journalistic change, died yesterday in Manhattan.

Lewis Surfaces in Probe of Cunningham  —  Federal prosecutors have begun an investigation into Rep. Jerry Lewis, the Californian who chairs the powerful House Appropriations Committee, government officials and others said, signaling the spread of a San Diego corruption probe.

April Tax Revenue 2nd-Highest in History  —  A flood of income tax payments pushed up government receipts to the second-highest level in history in April, giving the country a sizable surplus for the month.  —  In its monthly accounting of the government's books, the Treasury Department …

Plan to Give D.C. a Vote In Congress Advances  —  Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) is teaming up with U.S. Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) to introduce a bill that would for the first time give the District a full vote in Congress, a sign of bipartisan cooperation that advocates of D.C. voting rights hailed as a breakthrough.

Leaving the Wild, and Rather Liking the Change  —  SAN JOSÉ DEL GUAVIARE, Colombia — Since time immemorial the Nukak-Makú have lived a Stone Age life, roaming across hundreds of miles of isolated and pristine Amazon jungle, killing monkeys with blowguns and scouring the forest floor for berries.

Alaa blogging from his Prison  —  Today it hit me, I am really an idiot.  I'm not sure how I feel.  I thought I was OK but I took forever to wake up.  The way fellow prisoners look at me tells me I do not feel well but I can't really feel it.  —  I'd say prison is not like I expected, but I had no expectations.