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State transportation officials are poised to issue billions of dollars in debt to help speed road construction, a move that will keep Dallas-area projects on schedule for now but will do little to shore up the state's long-term road-funding crisis. The Texas Department of Transportation will likely begin issuing $1.5 billion in bonds within 60 days, pending the recovery of the nation's upended credit markets, and is taking steps to borrow another $6.4 billion over the next few years. Historic turmoil in the credit markets is already costing the department hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra interest payments each...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) - NASA has abandoned plans to get its replacement for the retiring U.S. space shuttles into service by 2013 because of a lack of additional funds and technical issues, officials said on Monday. The U.S. space agency had hoped to fly astronauts to the International Space Station aboard a new spaceship called Orion as early as September 2013, well before its formal deadline or goal of March 2015. "The window of opportunity for us to accelerate Orion has closed," program manager Jeff Hanley at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston told reporters during a conference call....

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, June 23 (UPI) -- Thousands of people in the Netherlands say they expect the world to end in 2012, and many say they are taking precautions to prepare for the apocalypse. The Dutch-language de Volkskrant newspaper said it spoke to thousands of believers in the impending end of civilization, and while theories on the supposed catastrophe varied, most tied the 2012 date to the end of the Mayan calendar, Radio Netherlands reported Monday.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Republican John McCain declared for the first time Thursday he believes the Iraq war can be won by 2013, although he rejected suggestions that his talk of a timetable put him on the same side as Democrats clamoring for full-scale troop withdrawals. The Republican presidential contender, in a mystical speech that also envisioned Osama bin Laden dead or captured, and Americans with the choice of paying a simple flat tax or following their standard 1040 form, said only a small number of troops would remain in Iraq by the end of a prospective first term because al-Qaida...

Webb, Landrieu Side With Clinton, Obama: Troops May Stay in Iraq Through 2013Nathan Burchfiel Staff Writer (CNSNews.com) - Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said during the Democratic presidential debate Wednesday that combat troops may have to continue fighting in Iraq throughout the next president's first term. When asked by debate moderator Tim Russert if they would have combat troops out of Iraq by the end of their first term, both Clinton and Obama avoided commitment, arguing that troops may remain in a fighting capacity through 2013. "It is my goal to have all troops out by the...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Those of you that were listening to this program yesterday, do you remember the call from Jill in Ithaca, in the first hour, calling me a liar because I was interpreting correctly what Mrs. Clinton said Sunday on Stephanopoulos's show in which she made it plain: (paraphrasing) "There's no way I'm going to get out of Iraq if I'm president. I don't know what I'm going to inherit there. It would be irresponsible to get out of there." "You lie," she said. I said, "Jill, not only that, no Democrat who's elected president is going to pull...

The End of the World By Daren Bakst May 26, 2006 This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Daren Bakst, Legal and Regulatory Policy Analyst for the John Locke Foundation. The world is about to end. It may even end the day after tomorrow. There will be tidal waves, earthquakes, and burning temperatures (or freezing temperatures, one or the other). I know how to stop this from happening, though. If you believed me, and you thought I could stop the end from happening, you’d let me do what I wanted in order to prevent it. I could raise your taxes,...

Identity cards for all Britons 'by 2013' PA News 11 November 2003 The cost of a passport will increase to £77 under plans for a compulsory national identity card, ministers said today. The controversial new cards will be held by everyone in Britain by 2013 and will be based on existing passports and possibly on driving licences in a £3 billion project. Home Secretary David Blunkett said the scheme would include "biometric" details such as someone's fingerprints or an image of their eye, stored on a microchip in each card. They will have to be produced to see a doctor,...