Now that the Democrats have completed their first presidential debate, it will be the Republicans' turn next Thursday when they convene at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., for their own nationally televised encounter.
Two weeks after North Korea missed a deadline to begin verifiably stopping its nuclear work, pressure is building on the Bush administration–and other countries in the six-nation Korean nuclear talks–either to prod the unpredictable regime into getting on with the process of disarmament or to reassess the deal.
There was a time when America's wars came with a more simple, dramatic narrative, clear-cut battles, and identifiable victories. Today, war has changed. There are no front lines; convenient made-for-tv tales of stirring bravery are rare. While there is no shortage of valor among U.S. soldiers, tales of true heroes, it seems, largely go untold. For a government that must sustain public support, it makes the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan even harder to sell.
AP - Wooing influential California Democrats, presidential contender Barack Obama vowed to "turn the page on this Iraq disaster" while Hillary Rodham Clinton denounced President Bush's conduct of the war as "one of the darkest blots on leadership we've ever had."
AP - A car bomb exploded Saturday in the Shiite holy city of Karbala as the streets were packed with people heading for evening prayers, killing at least 58 and wounding scores near some of the country's most sacred shrines. Separately, the U.S. military announced the deaths of nine American troops, including three killed Saturday in a single roadside bombing outside Baghdad.
AP - A leader of the militant Hamas justified recent rockets attacks on Israel as "self defense," while the camp of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday urged the preservation of a 5-month-old truce with the Israelis.
The Tamil Tiger rebel group has claimed responsibility for the Saturday bombing of two fuel installations that prompted heavy security, a two-hour blackout in Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, and disrupted activity at its airport.