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LAHORE, Pakistan — A British general will command American troops for the first time since World War II when NATO takes charge of the mission to pacify southern Afghanistan today. Lieutenant General David Richards, Britain's most experienced officer in developing world arenas, assumes control of a merged NATO and American force that will grow to 18,000 from 9,000. It is one of the largest and toughest missions that the alliance has faced, covering six southern provinces and extending its authority to almost all of the country. At a press conference in Kabul on Saturday, General Richards said NATO will bring...

German spies handed Saddam Hussein's war plans to the Americans while their government was denouncing the planned attack, it was claimed yesterday. The documents were transferred as the coalition completed its invasion plans in February 2003. A month later, American and British forces entered Iraq. The claims, in yesterday's New York Times, were swiftly denied by German officials. The paper said that a classified American military document referred to Saddam and his aides meeting in late 2002 to radically amend Iraq's war plans. They had wanted an invading army slowed and deflected by Iraq's military en route to Baghdad. But...

Inside the AOL drama Microsoft lost its bid to establish a joint venture with AOL, as Time Warner decided to keep its existing relationship with Google instead -- agreeing to a $1 billion investment from the search company. The deal reportedly awaits approval by Time Warner's board. See this morning's story for more details. In addition, here's how the New York Times describes the scene Thursday night in New York, as teams from Microsoft and Google made their final offers: Negotiations among the companies reached a fevered pitch Thursday night, executives briefed on the talks said, when teams from Google...

BOBIGNY, France (Reuters) -- French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy defended his tough crime policies on Monday after a fourth night of riots in a Paris suburb in which tear gas was fired into a mosque. Sarkozy, addressing police officers, vowed to find how tear gas had been fired into the Muslim place of worship, an incident which had helped fuel the disturbances. Youths hurled rocks and set fire to cars in the northeastern Clichy-sous-Bois suburb of the French capital, where many immigrants and poor families live in high-rise housing estates notorious for youth violence. ...snip French television said six police...

WASHINGTON - President Bush faces redoubled pressures from the left and the right as he picks another nominee to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. With White House counsel Harriet Miers' decision to withdraw her nomination Thursday, Bush's conservative supporters are more determined than ever to demand a nominee with a clear conservative record on social issues. Senate Democrats are emboldened by the unraveling of Miers' nomination, the downturn in the president's popularity and the indictment Friday of Lewis Libby, a top White House official. The handling of the next nominee is likely to be "tougher than hell," said Sen....

Anti-gun-control measure goes into effect Wednesday "If there were people with bad intentions entering into municipal buildings, the law isn't going to stop those people anyway," Dudley said. "They're going to stick a pistol down their pants anyway." The new law would allow cities to keep guns out of places beyond a restricted access point, such as a metal detector, but the chiefs say their cities can't afford to staff and equip such points. Plus, "It runs counter to the intent of public buildings to establish the checkpoints," said Juneau police chief Richard Gummow. "In municipal buildings especially, I think...

The decline in the solar radiation reaching Earth's surface in the latter half of the 20th century—a trend observed at many locations worldwide for several decades—turns out to have been primarily a regional phenomenon, new research suggests. On average, about 342 watts of solar radiation strike each square meter at the top of Earth's atmosphere. As much as one-third of that radiation immediately bounces back into space. A small amount gets absorbed within the atmosphere. The rest—about two-thirds of the total—arrives at the planet's surface. Radiation reaching the ground at many locations declined significantly from the 1950s to the 1980s,...