Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezbollah  —  DAMASCUS, Syria, July 27 — At the onset of the Lebanese crisis, Arab governments, starting with Saudi Arabia, slammed Hezbollah for recklessly provoking a war, providing what the United States and Israel took as a wink and a nod to continue the fight.

Pander and Run  —  After years of struggling to define their own approach to post-Sept. 11 foreign policy, Democrats seem finally to have hit on one.  It's called pandering.  In those rare cases when George W. Bush shows genuine sensitivity to America's allies and propounds a broader …

For Some Jews, Israel and Iraq Cloud View on Lieberman  —  HARTFORD, July 26 — Lesley Korzennik walked into a diner in Norwalk recently hoping to vent her frustrations with Senator Joseph I. Lieberman — over his continued support for the war, among a litany of other things.  "I'm furious at him," she said.

Simmering Rage Within the GOP  —  My weekend visitor was one of the founders of the postwar Republican Party in the South, one of those stubborn men who challenged the Democratic rule in his one-party state.  He was conservative enough that in the great struggle for the 1952 nomination …

Wal-Mart focus on close-in suburbs  —  Passage of city bill requiring big-box stores to pay `living wage' likely to cause retail giant to turn to strategy of ringing city with Supercenters  —  The world's largest retailer suffered a blow on Wednesday when Chicago aldermen passed a bill …

Detainee Abuse Charges Feared  —  An obscure law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress a decade ago has made the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes, and prosecuted at some point in U.S. courts.

How critical is the Los Angeles Times' condition?  —  A picture, or better yet, a graph, is worth a thousand words.  —  As you can see, in 1970, nearly 1 out of 6 people living in the L.A. basin subscribed to the Los Angeles Times everyday.  While the population has multiplied almost 70% in the 35 years …

A Blight Unto the Nations  —  I've felt many emotions about the Israelis before.  I've admired them for their accomplishments — building a flourishing state out of almost nothing.  I've hated them for their systematic dispossession of the Palestinians — even as they smugly congratulated themselves …

Conrad Burns chastises Hotshots over Billings fire  —  HELENA - Republican Sen. Conrad Burns chastised a group of firefighters over the weekend for doing a "poor job" of squelching a 92,000-acre blaze near Billings, a state report shows.  —  Burns and the firefighters …

Cindy Sheehan Buys Property in Crawford  —  War protester Cindy Sheehan has purchased a 5-acre plot in Crawford with some of the insurance money she received after her son was killed in Iraq.  —  The group she helps lead, Gold Star Families for Peace, says on its Web site that it will return next month …

Rice has Mideast on her mind at Asian summit  —  KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took a day off from her bid to untangle the Middle East crisis, but fallout from the fighting trailed her to an East Asia security summit.  —  Rice flew all night from Europe to Malaysia …