NATIONAL & WORLD NEWS May 9, 2008

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New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Op-Ed Columnist: Thinking About November
The fight for the Democratic nomination seems to be winding down. It's notcompletely over, but the odds now overwhelmingly favor Barack Obama.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/09/opinion/09krugman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

-Editorial: The Lucrative Art of War
Congress is finally moving to shut one of the more egregious forms of Iraqwar profiteering: defense contractors using offshore shell companies toavoid paying their fair share of payroll taxes. The practice is widespreadand Congressional investigators have been dispatched to one of the prime taxrefuges, the Cayman Islands, to seek a firsthand estimate of how much theTreasury is being shorted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/09/opinion/09fri2.html?ref=opinion

-Obama Pulls Even With Clinton in Superdelegates
Senator Barack Obama has caught up to his opponent, Senator Hillary RodhamClinton, in the count of superdelegates, one of the few mathematical areaswhere Mrs. Clinton still maintained an advantage in the race.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/us/politics/09cnd-campaign.html?hp

-Shiite Militias Seize Beirut Neighborhoods
Heavily armed Hezbollah fighters seized control of large parts of westernBeirut on Friday, patrolling the deserted streets in a raw show of forcethat underscored the Shiite militia's refusal to back down in its latestconfrontation with the American-backed government.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/world/middleeast/10lebanon.html?hp


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Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Too Late to the Duck Hunt
A Farewell to Hillary
By the time Hillary Clinton figured out how to beat Barack Obama, it was toolate. When she began the race in 2007 thinking she was in for a coronation,she claimed the center in order to position herself for the real fight, thegeneral election. She simply assumed the party activists and loony leftwould fall in behind her.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/08/AR2008050802809.html

-The Card Clinton Is Playing
From the beginning, Hillary Clinton has campaigned as if the Democraticnomination were hers by divine right. That's why she is falling short -- andthat's why she should be persuaded to quit now, rather than later, beforeher majestic sense of entitlement splits the party along racial lines.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/08/AR2008050802807.html

-A Transportation Crossroads
All the gas tax talk has stirred up a storm. Whatever you think about thecandidates' proposals, however, their debate has illuminated an urgentreality: If the U.S. government continues with its current transportationpolicies, it will undermine the social and economic security of ourworkforce and accelerate global climate change. We must chart a new course,rebuilding America's overburdened and, in many cases, obsoletetransportation infrastructure while addressing these two 21st-centuryimperatives.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/08/AR2008050802810.html

-Mexico's Police Chief Is Killed In Brazen Attack by Gunmen
Gunmen assassinated Mexico's national police chief Thursday, blasting himwith nine bullets outside his home in the capital and dealing a significantsetback to the government's campaign against drug cartels.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/08/AR2008050803242.html?hpid=moreheadlines

-39 Republicans Join Democrats As Mortgage Bill Passes House
The House yesterday approved an ambitious plan to rescue hundreds ofthousands of homeowners at risk of foreclosure by helping them trade exoticloans with rapidly rising monthly payments for more affordable mortgagesbacked by the federal government.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/08/AR2008050803482.html?hpid=moreheadlines

-N.Y. Congressman Acknowledges Affair, Child
After Drunken-Driving Charge, Republican Already Was Seen as Vulnerable
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/08/AR2008050803268.html?hpid=moreheadlines


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Fort Report
http://www.fortreport.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Clinton's future depends on graceful exit
IT'S EASY to get seduced by delusion when real hope has faded, as it now hasfor Hillary Clinton.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/05/09/clintons_future_depends_on_graceful_exit/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+Today%27s+paper+A+to+Z

-Our view on the judiciary: Send in the clones?
Judges should be independent thinkers, not political partisans.
John McCain has a record of reasonableness on judicial politics. He voted toconfirm Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, the two Supreme Courtjustices nominated by a Democrat. And, in 2005, he joined a bipartisan groupof senators known as the "Gang of 14" that cut a deadlock-breaking deal onjudicial nominees.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/05/our-view-on-the.html


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Pew Research center
http://pewresearch.org/
Go to this link for the following articles:

-An Increase in GOP Doubt About Global Warming Deepens Partisan DivideThe proportion of Americans who say that the earth is getting warmer has decreased modestly since January 2007, mostly because of a decline among Republicans. Read more

-Voting My Generation - The Widening Gap
While Barack Obama's appeal to young people coincides with their greater inclination to support Democrats in recent years, older voters, who seem reluctant to support Obama, do not show a greater allegiance to the Republican Party that might explain their current voting intentions. Read more

-Joke Journalism - The Daily Show: Journalism, Satire or Just Laughs?
An examination of whether America's fourth most-admired journalist, Jon Stewart, is really the host of a news program. Read more

-Judging Jobs - Hard Hats See Hard Times
While the latest statistics reported fewer job losses than analysts expected, the public is expressing increasing concern about job availability; but unlike in the 1992 downturn, such worries are concentrated in the lower portions of the income spectrum. Read more

-World Worship - Religion in China on the Eve of the 2008 Olympics
A watching world may find religious belief unexpectedly widespread in a communist country. Read more

-Primary Colors - The Race Factor Redux
While the outcome of the North Carolina primary fit into a racial pattern observed in earlier primaries this year, Clinton's showing in Indiana was less strong than would have been expected. Read more

-Demographic Trends - A Statistical Portrait of Hispanic Women in the U.S.Annual births to Hispanic women in the U.S. exceeded one million in 2006, and one-in-four children in the U.S. under age 5 is Hispanic. Find out more about America's largest minority in a new Pew Hispanic Center fact sheet.
Read more

-Daily Number - 66% - Mom's Toughest Critics
Two of every three women ages 50-64 say today's mothers are doing a worse job as parents than mothers did 20 or 30 years ago -- the highest level of criticism among any age-sex group in the U.S. population. Check back every weekday for another number in the news. Read more

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