AP - In April 28-29 stories about allegations against former NAACP president Kweisi Mfume, The Associated Press erroneously reported there had been a settlement with a woman threatening to sue the NAACP for Mfume's allegedly showing favoritism to another employee. Mfume said he didn't know whether a settlement had been reached or any terms. Lawyers involved in the case also declined to comment.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, a chief architect of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies, is going into the security business.

AP - Gov. Jon Huntsman signed a measure Monday defying the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act despite a warning from the federal education secretary that it could cost $76 million in federal aid.

AP - Time was, Republicans buried Bill Clinton's judicial picks by the dozen in the Senate Judiciary Committee and Democrats indignantly demanded a yes-or-no vote for each.

STAFFORD, Texas (Reuters) - Former U.S. Congressman Nick Lampson said on Wednesday he would seek the Democratic nomination to run against Republican Tom Delay in 2006 in what could be the most serious political challenge the embattled U.S. House Majority Leader has faced.

AP - A year after federal agents raided his home in a terrorism investigation, Muslim businessman Syed Maswood is lucky to get on an airplane without being detained and searched. But that didn't stop him from getting an invitation to dine with President Bush.

MAASTRICHT, Netherlands (Reuters) - President Bush will pay tribute on Sunday to the Americans who died to free Europe from Nazi Germany before heading to Moscow to urge Russia to uphold democratic values at home and abroad.

AP - The state attorney general plans to file paperwork this week to seek the Republican nomination for Florida governor, sources close to the attorney general said Sunday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United Nations won the firstround of a skirmish against the U.S. Congress on Monday when a federal judge temporarily blocked a former investigator from distributing documents on the oil-for-food program for Iraq.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A son-in-law of the late President Richard Nixon, Edward Cox, plans to run for the U.S. Senate seat held by Hillary Clinton, Newsweek reported in its Web edition on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate defied the White House on Wednesday by voting to add more than $11 billion to long-delayed highway and transit funding legislation.

AP - The state of Washington will defer to the FBI in an initial investigation of Mayor James West, who has been accused of using his office to seek sexual favors from other men, the attorney general said Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congress should impose a six-month moratorium keeping bankrupt companies such as United Airlines from dumping their workers' pension plans onto a federal agency, a Democratic lawmaker said on Friday.

AP - A Senate committee approved a $441.6 billion defense bill for fiscal 2006 that envisions spending an additional $50 billion next year for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

AP - With the countdown to Tuesday's election under way, the city's two mayoral candidates campaigned Sunday in South Los Angeles, seeking support among a group that could swing the election — black voters.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Talks by the Senate's top two leaders to try to avert a showdown over President Bush's judicial nominees broke down on Monday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Wednesday begins a showdown over President Bush's stalled judicial nominees, with the majority Republicans threatening to change Senate rules in a move that could shift the balance of power between Congress and the White House.

AP - President Bush, seeking to put muscle behind a promise to support young democracies, said Wednesday the administration is creating a special corps of federal workers that will deploy quickly to help foreign governments in crisis.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A U.S. judge extended for a further 10 days an order barring a former investigator for the U.N. oil-for-food probe from turning over documents to two U.S. congressional committees.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Secretary-General Kofi Annan believes congressional proposals to withhold U.S. dues to the United Nations unless certain reforms are enacted would be counter-productive and hinder his ability to bring about changes, a U.N. spokesman said on Friday.

AP - Allegations of corruption at City Hall have sent Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's job approval rating to its lowest level since he became mayor in 1989, according to a new poll.

AP - Secretary General Kofi Annan's chief of staff called the United States an 'ungainly giant' that only plays by its own rules, criticizing the U.N.'s largest donor in unusually strong terms Sunday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fourteen Senate moderates struck a deal across party lines on Monday to avert a historic confrontation and pave the way for confirmation of several of President Bush's stalled judicial nominees.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. and NATO nuclear policies are immoral, dangerous and destructive for the global nuclear non-proliferation regime, a former Defense Secretary from the Vietnam War era, Robert McNamara, said on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush will pick judges who have a 'conservative judicial philosophy,' the White House said on Wednesday, in a sign that a bitter fight in the Senate over judicial appointments will erupt again over the selection of new members of the Supreme Court.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Legislation to create a $140 billion asbestos compensation fund was approved by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, but there were immediate warnings it could face trouble on the Senate floor.

AP - House Republicans are accused of failing to support National Guard and Reserve troops in an advertising campaign the House Democratic campaign committee is rolling out this weekend.

AP - A top State Department official predicted on Thursday that North Korea's decision to remain isolated internationally will eventually lead to the collapse of its communist government.

AP - A two-year FBI sting operation nicknamed the 'Tennessee Waltz' has led to the arrest of several lawmakers. But the probe isn't the state's first dance with scandal. Government corruption cases dot the past three decades of Tennessee history. In the 1970s, the 'TennPar' investigation found that associates of then-Gov. Ray Blanton were selling pardons, while another corruption probe in the late '80s and early '90s broke up illegal gambling rings run by bingo operators.

AP - Embattled Mayor Jim West plans to appear on Tuesday's 'Today Show,' one of his lawyers says.