The outcome of U.S. asylum cases can be influenced by things like the location of the court and the sex and professional background of judges, a study has found.
"Just specimens is all New Hampshire has," Robert Frost once wrote. "One each of everything as in a showcase, which naturally she doesn't care to sell."
Whispers Editor Paul Bedard reports today that former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson has decided to toss his hat in the ring and run for the Republican nomination for president and will make the first formal moves next week, which will allow him to begin raising money.
AP - Five Americans and two other soldiers died when a Chinook helicopter was apparently shot down Wednesday evening in Afghanistan's most volatile province, a U.S. military official said. The Taliban claimed responsibility.
AP - A Saudi Arabian detainee died Wednesday at Guantanamo Bay prison and the U.S. military said he apparently committed suicide. Critics of the detention center said the death showed the level of desperation among prisoners.
AP - President Bush envisions a long-term U.S. troop presence in Iraq similar to the one in South Korea where American forces have helped keep an uneasy peace for more than 50 years, the White House said Wednesday.
A U.S. CH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot down Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, U.S. and NATO officials said. Seven people -- five military crew and two military passengers -- were killed. NATO officials said the team that responded to the crash was ambushed. There was no immediate word on casualties during that attack.
A man infected with a drug-resistant form of TB knew he was not supposed to travel overseas but did so anyway, the CDC said today, potentially exposing others to the disease. The man who is quarantined in an Atlanta hospital, however, told a newspaper that health officials who informed him he was infected said they "preferred" he not travel.
Stocks rallied Wednesday, with the Dow industrials and the S&P 500 closing at new all-time highs, as investors found momentum at the end of a tumultuous session on Wall Street.