The response to last week's bomb attack underscored that the 275-member body is stymied by partisan divides that undermine hopes for political progress.
John McCardell is a man on a mission. The former president of Middlebury College and founder of the nonprofit group Choose Responsibility is traveling the country this spring to drum up support among college presidents and policy experts for a counterintuitive proposal: that given the growing problem of binge drinking on campus, it's time to drop the drinking age below 21. Decriminalizing drinking by people 18 and older, McCardell says, will bring their alcohol consumption out from hiding, where parents and adults can monitor it–and model responsibility without conflict. Young adults between the ages of 18 and 20 could earn a license to buy and use alcohol by completing an alcohol education program.
AP - A nor'easter battered the East with strong wind and pouring rain Sunday, grounding hundreds of airline flights, downing power lines and threatening severe coastal flooding overnight.
AP - Vice President Dick Cheney says he is "willing to bet" that Democratic lawmakers will back down and approve a war-spending bill that doesn't call for U.S. troops to leave Iraq. Top Democratic leaders shot back that Cheney has lost all public credibility.
AP - A suicide attacker ran onto a police training field and blew himself up, killing up to 10 policemen and wounding dozens of others Monday in northern Afghanistan, officials said.
As an oncoming nor'easter dumped heavy rains along the mid-Atlantic coast, Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged New Yorkers to use mass transit Monday and take other precautions. Commuter train service between upper Manhattan and Connecticut was interrupted Sunday night because of flooding.
An off-duty Northwest Airlines pilot was suspected of driving under the influence of cocaine when he headed the wrong way on an interstate to avoid the U.S.-Canada border and led deputies on a chase, authorities said Sunday.
The BBC said Sunday it is "deeply concerned" about an unknown militant group's claim that it has killed a BBC reporter kidnapped last month in Gaza, but is treating the statement as a "rumor with no independent verification."