 In a burst of activity that ended 16 months of inaction, the House ethics committee on Wednesday opened investigations of a Republican and a Democrat who are subjects of federal bribery inquiries. One lawmaker is connected to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, who had strong ties to Abramoff and accepted favors from him, will be investigated along with Rep. William Jefferson, D-La. A former aide to Ney pleaded guilty last week, admitting he tried to corrupt the congressman. Two businessmen have pleaded guilty to bribing Jefferson. The committee also will conduct a preliminary inquiry into whether other lawmakers were involved in a bribery scandal that led to the conviction of former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif. He is now serving an eight-year sentence in federal prison. ...
http://www.cbsnews.com
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Editor - 00:20:00 05-18-06
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 Rumsfeld Seeks Extra Funds for War Bills |
With war bills to pay, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is calling on Congress to pass President Bush's request for an extra $65 billion to cover costs in Iraq and Afghanistan this year.His scheduled appearance Wednesday before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee was his first public testimony on Capitol Hill since retired generals issued a series of calls for Rumsfeld to resign earlier this spring. Rumsfeld, with strong public backing by Bush, appears to have weathered that storm.It also was Rumsfeld's first opportunity to comment on Bush's announcement Monday that he is sending 6,000 National Guard troops to the U.S. southern border to support the federal Border Patrol. The administration has not said how much it expects that to cost, nor has it set a hard time limit on the assistance.Although the Guard troops will be operating under state governors' control, the cost will be paid by the federal government....
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/05/17/national/w011357D23.DTL
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Editor - 00:14:00 05-18-06
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| House FY07 budget sees $348 bln deficit |
The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday narrowly passed a fiscal 2007 wartime budget that would continue a string of large deficits and trigger an increase in government borrowing authority. By a vote of 218-210, the House passed the $2.7 trillion budget blueprint more than a month after Congress was supposed to have finished its work on the nonbinding measure. No Democrats voted for the Republican budget, which sets broad outlines for spending throughout the government. House Majority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, addressed conservatives' concerns about deficits saying, "With revenues rising and holding the line on spending we can in fact balance the budget in the next four or five years." ...
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1975266
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Editor - 00:12:00 05-18-06
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| Rumsfeld won't promise US troop cut in Iraq |
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Wednesday he could not promise that the United States would withdraw some of its 133,000 troops from Iraq this year, although he hoped it would be able to do so.Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he did not believe U.S. troops could pull out of any of Iraq's provinces in the next three months and leave security duties to U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces.Rumsfeld and Pace, testifying before a Senate appropriations subcommittee, faced questions from senators about when the Pentagon planned to reduce the U.S. military presence in Iraq more than 3 years into a war in which about 2,450 U.S. troops have died. Rumsfeld said Iraq, in the grips of a relentless insurgency, had "entered a hopeful new phase in what has been a long and difficult journey," with Shi'ite politician Nuri al-Maliki, the prime minister-designate, due in the coming days to unveil a new cabinet....
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-05-17T193446Z_01_N17304501_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-USA-RUMSFELD.xml
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Editor - 23:59:00 05-17-06
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| Canada's Afghan mission extended |
Canadian legislators have narrowly voted to extend the country's combat mission in Afghanistan by two years, until February 2009. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's motion passed by 149 votes to 145, despite opposition complaints of being rushed. Canada currently has 2,300 soldiers in Afghanistan, mainly in the south where the Taleban-led resistance is strong. The vote came after news that a female Canadian soldier had been killed in combat in the war-torn country. Public opinion polls suggest that popular backing for the deployment, which had been due to expire in February 2007, is slipping. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4992380.stm
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Editor - 23:56:00 05-17-06
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| 'Da Vinci Code' Trigggers Tourist Boom Small French Village Prepares For Huge Influx Of Visitors |
Perched on a hilltop high above the Valley of God sits the tiny village (population 26) of Rennes-le-Chateau. There is not much of note: one single-laned main street, a restaurant with no stars. A four-minute stroll will take you from one end of the village to the other. What brings tourists here in droves is an enduring mystery, and now, an association with one of the biggest selling novels of all time, "The Da Vinci Code." You won’t find the name of the village in Dan Brown’s book, but the village and the novel share a central idea — that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had a child, and the proof of their relationship was somehow concealed in this ancient village. It was a local fable — a kind of ghost story told about some of the weird goings-on in the town — until a book, published in 1967 by a noted French prankster, brought the tale to historians and conspiracists intrigued by the question of the Holy Grail. ...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/17/eveningnews/main1626486.shtml?source=RSS&attr=World_1626486
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Editor - 23:52:00 05-17-06
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