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BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s prime minister said Saturday that U.S. troops are leaving Iraq after nearly nine years of war because Baghdad rejected American demands that any U.S. military forces to stay would have to be shielded from prosecution or lawsuits. The comments by Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, made clear that it was Iraq who refused to let the U.S. military remain under the Americans’ terms. A day earlier, President Barack Obama had hailed the troops’ withdrawal as the result of his commitment — promised shortly after taking office in 2009 — to end the war that he once described...

RALEIGH, N.C. — A state lawmaker and a group of Democratic political donors with ties to Gov. Beverly Perdue are poised to sell land at a handsome profit for a tire plant that's being lured with $100 million in state and local incentives, according to public records reviewed by The Associated Press. As North Carolina's chief executive, the governor is a key decision maker in large incentives deals involving state money. She also helps appoint the board members of a foundation that's been asked to provide part of the tire plant's package. Perdue's campaign has received more than $52,000 from...

The Talk Shows Sunday, May 18th, 2008 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn.; Rick Dutrow Jr., trainer of Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown. MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va.; former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark.; Republican strategist Mike Murphy; Democratic strategist Bob Shrum. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Gov. Charlie Crist, R-Fla.; Republican strategist Ed Rollins; former Govs. Mario Cuomo, D-N.Y., and Roy Romer, D-Colo.THIS WEEK (ABC): Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., and Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio. LATE EDITION (CNN) : Commerce Secretary Carlos...

RUSH: The big news today is that George Bush is over in Israel, and in a speech at the Knesset he made some comments about how talking to tyrants is not the way to defeat them. Magic words are not going to convince your enemies to all of a sudden realize they are wrong. He said this is appeasement. The Obama campaign is erupting. They all think it's about them. Puff Daschle went, for him, what is ballistic on Fox today on the phone. I think the Puffster was actually spitting and might have shorted out his phone. Then they...

US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) (R) talks with students from Holy Cross School in Garrett Park, Maryland, as he departs after a vote at the US Capitol in Washington, May 13, 2008. Democratic Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., left, greets Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., as he leaves the Russell Senate Office Building after a workout, Tuesday, May 13, 2008, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) throws a bottle of water to the crowd during a campaign stop in Louisville, Kentucky, May 12, 2008. Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama,...

In its subtly mind-manipulating photographs conveying an alienated, leftist view of America, the New York Times is tops in the field, and its photo of the triumphant Barack Obama greeting people at the U.S. Capitol yesterday, by Doug Mills, is one of the Times' best. Note the artificially dim light, like one of those prime time TV dramas where all the scenes, including in courtrooms, hospitals, and the Oval Office, are in half darkness. Notice how virtually every person in the photo looks nonwhite. Notice how the photo centers on Obama, with all heads turned in unison toward him, giving...

We Obama girls are panicking. He’s got a “Bubba gap,” the cover of Newsweek screams. Can he ever win a white male voter again? Suddenly the biracial son of a single mother on food stamps has become the arugula-and-latte candidate, Mr. All-Organic please. The guy who just paid off his student loans has morphed into an effete Harvard philosopher king who has no clue as to how real people live. And this is before we even get into the nutty reverend mess. Meanwhile, Hillary, $109 million in the bank and 30 years of life in a taxpayer-financed glass bubble, is...

Will Obama Be Snagged By His Own Social Networking Site? By JONATHAN TILOVE   Barack Obama greets supporters at the University of Maryland's Comcast Center. The senator's social networking site, considered the best in the presidential campaign, is a source of both strength and peril. (File photo by Tyrone Turner)     WASHINGTON — Barack Obama's Web site is by most accounts the best in his business. It is critical to the campaign's record-breaking fundraising, nimble grass-roots organizing and image as a broad-based, participatory force for change. But the very virtues of this wiki-world carry peril.For the first time in...