Rasmussen Reports - In the 2008 race for Virginia's open U.S. Senate seat, a Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds Democrat Mark Warner leading Republican Jim Gilmore 53% to 37%. Both men are former Governors of Virginia and both considered running for their party's 2008 Presidential nomination. Warner dropped out before the campaigning really began while Gilmore hung around long enough to participate in a few early GOP debates.

AP - Mitt Romney's Harvard MBA and gold-plated resume convinced many business leaders he would follow in the tradition of corporate-friendly Republicans when he was elected governor of Massachusetts in 2002.

AP - Rudy Giuliani is defending the survival rates he quotes when talking about his prostate cancer, amid criticism he understates the figures and makes unfair comparisons.

Reuters - More than 70 countries opposed to the death penalty launched a fresh bid on Thursday to have the U.N. General Assembly pass a resolution urging an end to the practice, diplomats said.

AP - President Bush hoped a face-to-face meeting Monday would persuade Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to hold back tens of thousands of Turkish troops massed on Iraq's border.

AP - Health care spending for people under 65 is growing faster than for those over that benchmark age, the government reported Tuesday.

AFP - EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini unveiled plans Tuesday to beef up the fight against terrorism, granting police new rights to check air travellers and crack down on radical Internet sites.

AFP - Mike Huckabee, a wise-cracking, guitar-strumming, Baptist pastor has leapt into a conservative void and shot into contention in the unpredictable 2008 Republican White House race.

AP - House Democrats are planning another veto showdown with President Bush on the Iraq war. And this time, they say they won't back down.

AP - After blowing a disclosure deadline, the Bush administration said Thursday it probably will keep secret many of the documents sought by a privacy group about how the U.S. shares airline passenger data with the European Union.

AP - THE RACE: The presidential race for Republicans, Democrats in New Hampshire

AP - Presidential contender John Edwards is introducing a $400 million plan Monday to help veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, including those recently returned from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

AP - Republican Fred Thompson is taking his call for expanding the military, spending more money on defense and taking better care of current and former service members before a receptive audience at a military college in a Southern state with an early presidential primary he is counting on to give his campaign a boost.

AP - First lady Laura Bush and seven others were honored Tuesday for their help in supporting the health, education and welfare of children.

AFP - The Democratic-led House of Representatives defied a White House veto threat Wednesday and inserted timelines for an immediate troop withdrawal in a 50 billion dollar Iraq war funding bill.

AP - Japan's new prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda, and President Bush are looking for mutual assurances. While Bush has a chance of getting what he wants, Fukuda's hopes could be harder to realize.

AP - Just when it appeared Julie Myers had cleared every hurdle in her quest to officially become the nation's top immigration official, a dreadlocked wig and a prisoner's outfit could cost her the job.

AFP - When her husband of 55 years began seeing another woman, former US Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor did not begin high-profile divorce proceedings or condemn his infidelity.

AP - The term of choice in political giving these days is straight out of the world of finance — donors have become 'investors.' Now, liberal California venture capitalists have come up with the natural corollary — political 'mutual funds.'

AP - THE RACE: The race for the Republican presidential nomination in New Hampshire

Reuters - United Nations Humans Rights envoy Louise Arbour criticized both Taliban insurgents and international troops in Afghanistan on Tuesday for killing civilians.

Reuters - There is a good chance of democratic change in Myanmar if the outside world keeps up pressure on its military rulers, a United Nations human rights investigator said on Wednesday.

AFP - India plans to send combat-trained camels to solve the transport headache facing a fledgling UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region, officers here say.

AP - Presidential hopeful Fred Thompson said Friday that New York City isn't a model for the rest of the country and that Rudy Giuliani should stop basing his stances on his time as that city's mayor.

AP - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday pledged to help autistic families by boosting funding for research and education to $700 million a year.

AP - Republican Rudy Giuliani said Monday the reputation of the United States has suffered globally not so much because of arrogant actions but for lack of salesmanship about benefits of democracy.

AP - It's Jan. 3 in Iowa and you decide, what the heck, I'm going to a precinct caucus.

Reuters - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe will attend a European Union-Africa summit in December in Lisbon, a spokesman said on Tuesday, triggering a boycott of the meeting by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

AP - Welcome to fight night.

AFP - The European Union and India hope to conclude a free trade agreement next year, officials of both sides said on Thursday.