Independence Day liftoff for Discovery  —  KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida (CNN) — The space shuttle Discovery and its seven-member crew roared into space Tuesday afternoon — NASA's first manned launch on Independence Day and its second shuttle flight since the Columbia accident of 2003.

Christopher Hitchens: This July Fourth, ignore polls on America's image  —  WASHINGTON - Here's what I want to know, and here's why I want to know it.  At what point in history, exactly, did the Pew Center decide that it knew how to measure world opinion?  —  I ask this because almost every week …

A Dissident's Holiday  —  Have you ever noticed a certain hesitant quality to the expressions of patriotism by progressives or left-wingers?  —  The patriotism of the conservative goes unquestioned.  It's assumed that every politician on the right will wear a flag on his lapel …

US stars align in anti-Iraq war hunger strike  —  Star Hollywood actor-activists including Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon and anti-war campaigners led by bereaved mother Cindy Sheehan plan to launch a hunger strike, demanding the immediate return of US troops from Iraq.

Ex-Soldier Charged in Killing of Iraqi Family  —  Coverup Is Alleged; Four Others Implicated  —  A former U.S. Army soldier was charged yesterday with the rape and murder of a young Iraqi woman and the slayings of three of her family members in their home south of Baghdad in March, federal prosecutors said.

CIA: Osama Helped Bush in '04  —  The implications of this new evidence are troubling, too, for the American people as they head toward another election in November 2006 that also is viewed as a referendum on Bush's prosecution of the "war on terror."  —  As we have reported previously …

House GOP leaders say vote on minimum wage now likely  —  Cite the pressure of Nov. elections  —  WASHINGTON — With Democrats plotting to make the minimum wage a major issue in this fall's congressional races, House Republican leaders are conceding that they may have to yield to pressure …

Sources: North Korea tests missiles  —  Western concerns focused on preparation of long-range rocket  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — North Korea tested at least two missiles early Wednesday but has not fired the long-range Taepodong-2 rocket Western observers suspect has been readied for launch, U.S. sources told CNN.

Senator's Plan B Creates Quandary for Democrats  —  Six years ago Joseph I. Lieberman came within a hairbreadth of the vice presidency after the Democratic Party chose him as a moderate face whose support for family values and a stronger military might attract Reagan Democrats and independents.

Ulysses Grant: Our Greatest President?  —  In 1854, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison led a crowd celebrating Independence Day by burning the Constitution, denouncing it as "A Convenant With Death and an Agreement with Hell."  His worthy point was that the founding fathers of the nation …

Al-Qaeda 'bid to infiltrate MI5'  —  Al-Qaeda sympathisers have been trying to infiltrate the British security service MI5, the BBC has learned.  —  Whitehall officials confirmed what some had long suspected, says BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner.  —  But those with al-Qaeda sympathies …

Bush's foreign friends fading fast  —  WASHINGTON - President Bush's stalwart foreign friends are fading fast.  —  Most of the leaders who defied criticism at home to stand with him on Iraq and win his friendship are no longer players on the world stage, or are on their way out.

World Cup Brings Little Pleasure to German Brothels  —  BERLIN, June 30 — On the night before Germany was to play Argentina in the quarterfinals of the World Cup, the prostitutes who work at the Artemis Sauna Club here were putting on their game faces.  —  With tens of thousands …