Despite its spruced-up look and high-tech improvements, the White House briefing room, which reopens Wednesday morning, isn't returning to its glory days anytime soon.
Over four summers, Akiko Busch, 53, of Unionville, N.Y., swam across nine rivers, including the Hudson and Delaware in New York; the Connecticut in Massachusetts; the Susquehanna, Cheat, and Monongahela in Pennsylvania; the Mississippi and Current in Missouri; and the Ohio in Kentucky. Her crossings began in August 2001, a few weeks before the 9/11 attacks, when she impulsively tackled the Hudson at a half-mile crossing near New Hamburg, N.Y. As she saw the world grow ever more divided, pondered middle age, and encountered fears about the health of America's rivers, the swims took on enough significance for her to pen a book, released July 10, about the experience. U.S. News spoke to Busch about "Nine Ways to Cross a River: Midstream Reflections on Swimming and Getting There From Here."
What is eBay, anyway? That is the question investors are asking after the world's largest online auction site announced last month that it was launching its own free classified advertising site in the United States—daring to tread into territory that craigslist has dominated for years.
AP - As the Senate debates taking a new course in Iraq, President Bush's national security adviser scheduled a meeting with more than a dozen Republican senators in a bid to shore up eroding support for the war.
AP - Pakistani troops cornered the last remaining militants and combed the warren-like Red Mosque complex for booby traps Wednesday after assaulting the compound and killing its pro-Taliban cleric, the army spokesman said.
AP - President Bush's former political director says she intends to follow his directive and not answer questions about her role in the administration's firing of federal prosecutors — unless a court directs her to defy her former boss.
A small plane crashed into two homes near Orlando, Florida, killing five people including the husband of a top NASCAR executive and a small child. "A boy jumped out of the second story. He was on fire and extinguished himself," a witness told CNN affiliate WESH 2 News.
Facing calls by lawmakers in President Bush's own party to change Iraq war strategy, the White House announced Tuesday it is "beginning a retooled mission in Iraq" after a disappointing interim report on Iraqi benchmarks.
Cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the leader at the center of the days-long Red Mosque siege in Islamabad, was killed in crossfire at the sacred site today, Pakistan intelligence sources said. Eight commandos and 50 militants also were killed in fighting between security forces and militants holed up in the mosque.
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