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A source close to Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said he has decided not to seek re-election as governor in 2006. The decision is seen as increasing the likelihood that Romney will seek the Republican nomination for president in 2008. The source said Romney will make the announcement this evening. With Romney out of the race, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey is expected to seek the Republican nomination for governor next year. Romney has made numerous appearances at GOP events across the country in recent months, raising his national profile for a possible White House bid.

Link here. He was 89.

Dec. 5, 2005 — Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff were named co-anchors of an expanded version of ABC News' flagship broadcast "World News Tonight," ABC News President David Westin announced today. Beginning Tuesday, Jan. 3, when Vargas and Woodruff debut together as co-anchors, "World News Tonight" will become the first evening newscast to broadcast a live version to the West Coast each night. "World News Tonight" will also make various versions of its reports available over the Internet throughout the afternoon and evening. "Elizabeth and Bob together will be the anchors for this new broadcast and digital age of 'World...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chance of a filibuster to halt the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel Alito rose on news he once opposed 1960s Supreme Court rulings on reapportionment based on the principle of equal voting rights, a top Democrat on the Senate judiciary panel said on Sunday. Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democrat from Delaware, told Fox News Sunday that a decision by Democrats to filibuster would depend largely on Alito's answers during judiciary committee questioning scheduled for January. Prior to the Warren court's decisions, some state legislators were elected on a geographical basis, giving thinly populated rural areas...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The public's belief that the United States should mind its own business internationally has reached levels not seen since after the Cold War ended more than a decade ago, a poll found. Opinion leaders from various parts of society also are less likely to feel the U.S. should be the most assertive of the leading nations, according to the poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. The poll, sponsored this year by Pew and the Council on Foreign Relations, has been conducted by Pew every four years since 1993. Anxiety about the...

New Hampshire Republican Rep. Charles Bass says GOP leaders in the House are ignoring the party’s "fundamental principles” and he’s calling for new elections to replace them next year. The five-term congressman, co-chair of a group of about 35 moderate House Republicans called the "Tuesday Group,” aired his opinions in interviews with the New Hampshire Union Leader and Boston radio station WBUR. He said the House Republican conference "would be healthier and more unified if we had real elections and if [former House Majority Leader] Tom DeLay would step aside for the good of the conference.” DeLay has kept his...

A public spat between Rush Limbaugh and Democratic Iowa Senator Tom Harkin has now hit both the Senate floor and the airwaves. The bout of nastiness began on Nov. 7 when Harkin presented a defense bill calling for fair and balanced programming on the Armed Forces Radio. While Limbaugh’s conservative show is broadcast on the network, listeners are not offered a liberal alternative, says Harkin. He’d like to see a liberal talk show like Ed Schultz or Al Franken added. Limbaugh was not pleased, so on his show the next day he referred to Harkin as “Dung Heap.” More recently,...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Uncle Sam has tried to feed millions of hurricane victims this year with Meals-Ready-to-Eat, or MREs, only to fear that some of them have become Meals-Ready-for-eBay. The government is looking into whether eBay sellers in Gulf Coast states are trying to profit from military foodstuffs handed out for free following hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. Representatives for eBay, the online auctioneer company, say it is impossible to prove that any of the meals were meant for hurricane victims. They note that MREs can be bought in camping stores and Army-Navy surplus outlets. But at least some of...

Joe Strupp says this "secret arrangement" began in the early 1990s. "It seemed logical, because for years we would always try to get a copy of each other's papers as soon as they came out," says Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. "It made sense to both of us to make it simpler for everybody."

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon phoned Mahmoud Abbas Tuesday to congratulate him on his election as Palestinian president and offer cooperation, the highest-level contact between the sides in nearly four years. But Palestinian militants resumed rocket and mortar fire at Jewish settlements in Gaza, signaling tough challenges ahead for the moderate Abbas and his call for a truce to help revive peace talks aimed at creating a Palestinian state. Abbas's predecessor Yasser Arafat last spoke to Sharon by telephone in February 2001 to congratulate him on his election victory. With a Palestinian uprising raging, Sharon subsequently boycotted...

WASHINGTON - Microsoft Corp., whose popular Windows software is a frequent target for Internet viruses, is offering a free security program to remove the most dangerous infections from computers. The program, with monthly updates, is a step toward plans by Microsoft to sell full-blown antivirus software later this year. Microsoft said Thursday that consumers can download the new security program from the company's Web site — www.microsoft.com — and that updated versions will be offered automatically and free each month. It will be available starting Tuesday. Also, Microsoft offered Thursday a free program to remove "spyware," a category of irritating...

VIENNA, Austria (AP) — The U.N. atomic watchdog agency has found evidence of secret nuclear experiments in Egypt that could be used in weapons programs, diplomats said Tuesday. The diplomats told The Associated Press that most of the work was carried out in the 1980s and 1990s but said the International Atomic Energy Agency also was looking at evidence suggesting some work was performed as recently as a year ago. Egypt's government rejected claims it is or has been pursuing a weapons program, saying its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. "A few months ago we denied these kinds of...

HAVANA (AP) - Cuba has agreed to buy about $125 million in farm goods from U.S. companies attending trade talks in Havana, officials said. The deals, which were agreed on during three days of negotiations that ended Friday, surpassed expectations, Pedro Alvarez, chairman of the Cuban food import company Alimport, told The Associated Press. Cuba had expected to sign deals worth about $100 million going into the talks, he said. More than 300 people, primarily producers of American farm goods, attended the meetings, as did several lawmakers - including Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, the top Democrat on the Senate...

Filed at 4:32 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former U.S. House of Representatives committee chairman, who earlier this year ended negotiations to head the pharmaceutical industry's top lobby after critics questioned the ethics of the move, has now accepted the post, the group said on Wednesday. Rep. W. J. ``Billy'' Tauzin, a Louisiana Republican, announced in February that he would step down as the Energy and Commerce Committee chairman and leave Congress because of a bleeding ulcer. Democrats criticized him for considering the high-profile post leading the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), which lobbies Congress on behalf...

Andy Rooney indicated Thursday that CBS may once again be considering airing a one-hour nightly newscast. Appearing on Larry King's CNN program, Rooney said: ‘Most of the American public gets their news from television. And if we're going to have an informed electorate, we have to have good television news. I think it's vital that we have it. I keep waiting for some hero to come in and say, look, I'm going to give them the money. We're going to run this network, we're going to make all our money off programming and we can make plenty of it that...

Twenty-one Member [sic] of Congress, led by Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), sent a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell today in support of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The letter states: We are writing to express our support of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has recently been under attack by some American lawmakers for the U.N’s Oil-for-Food program scandal occurring under his watch. Such an attack on the second-term Secretary-General and Nobel Peace laureate is disgraceful and premature. There has been no hint of impropriety on the part of the Secretary-General, who on numerous occasions has proven...

WSJ executive Washington editor Al Hunt joins Bloomberg News in January as managing editor for government reporting. "In his 39 years at the Journal, Al has been cited as 'Washington's most trusted reporter,' and "most dynamic bureau chief' before he turned to commentary and TV as a columnist and anchor," writes Bloomberg News editor-in-chief Matt Winkler.

No longer the just-the-facts newsman, retired CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite, 88, blasted the Bush administration during a charity appearance on Fisher Island.What America needs right now, legendary TV anchor Walter Cronkite said Thursday, is a new election -- and, he warned a laughing press conference full of reporters, he wasn't kidding. ''That's not entirely a joke,'' Cronkite said solemnly, arguing that the Bush administration has spent itself into ruin while embroiling the country in a war that will eventually make public revulsion to the war in Vietnam look ``like peanuts.'' ''I think you journalists today have a great four...

PARIS (Reuters) - The fate of Yasser Arafat was mired in confusion on Tuesday as Palestinian officials insisted in public he was clinging to life even as aides said privately the veteran leader had died at a Paris hospital. Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath, in a strenuous denial, said the Palestinian president, 75, was "very much alive," but at least five senior sources said he had succumbed to the mystery illness that led to his being flown to Paris on Oct. 29. A top aide said Arafat, who lapsed into a coma last week, had suffered a brain hemorrhage. Palestinian sources...

What began as a probe into Newsday's circulation puffing scandal has now spread to The New York Times. The daily joins the New York Post and the Daily News in receiving federal subpoenas this week for records relating to their circulation data. Just why Brooklyn's U.S. Attorney would be looking beyond Newsday to the three Manhattan-based dailies is entirely unclear, and the government is not offering any explanations. In any case, all three papers say they are cooperating with federal investigators but stop short of speculating as to why they have been included in the investigation or what investigators expect...