The Democratic-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee dismissed President Bush's plans to increase troops strength in Iraq on Wednesday as "not in the national interest," an unusual wartime repudiation of the commander in chief. The vote on the nonbinding measure was 12-9 and largely along party lines.
Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts does not intend to run again in 2008, a Democratic official said Wednesday. This official said Kerry, the Democrats' losing presidential candidate in 2004, intends to seek a new six-year term in the Senate.
A hijacker seized a Sudanese passenger plane carrying 103 people on Wednesday and forced the pilot at gunpoint to fly to the Chadian capital, N'Djamena, where he surrendered. Air West airline said the man walked out of the Boeing 737 after it landed in Chad and said he wanted asylum in Britain. No one was injured, the airline said.
E. Howard Hunt, who helped organize the Watergate break-in, leading to the greatest scandal in American political history and the downfall of Richard Nixon's presidency, died Tuesday. He was 88.
The North Carolina State Bar has added ethics charges to a complaint filed against Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong. The charges accuse Nifong, who brought sexual-assault charges against three Duke lacrosse players, of withholding DNA evidence and misleading the court. The charges could lead to his removal from the state bar.
Eight men were arrested Tuesday in the 1971 slaying of a police officer that authorities say was part of a black power group's five-year campaign to kill law-enforcement officers in San Francisco and New York. Police said seven of the eight are believed to be former members of the Black Liberation Army, an offshoot of the Black Panther Party.
