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Funeral plans for President Ford. All times are local: Friday, Dec. 29 — Palm Desert, Calif. 12:20 p.m. President Ford's casket arrives at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert, Calif. Mrs. Ford and the family will have a private prayer service. 1:15 p.m. Close friends and guests will arrive at St. Margaret's for private visitation. The Ford family will return to their residence. 4:20 p.m. Public repose begins at St. Margaret's. The church will remain open until 8 a.m. on Saturday.

Sen. Harry Reid (and others) trip to South America on a fact-finding mission (actually a vacation if you read the itinerary) instead of attending to duties concerning the death of a former president leave me preplexed. Mr. Reid believes that he should not be expected to cancel his trip for this very rare event. If everyone that had "plans" for this weekend had his view no one would be there. When you assume leadership in Congress certain things are expected. Going on a vacation is not one of them. It makes me wonder if Mr. Reid is really leadership material....

(AP) A delegation of six U.S. senators led by incoming Majority Leader Harry Reid met Thursday with Bolivian President Evo Morales, seeking to smooth relations with the South American country's left-leaning government. Relations have been tense since Morales' election a year ago, with the U.S. wary of his friendship with Presidents Fidel Castro of Cuba and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Morales has been critical of U.S. attempts to eradicate coca in the region. Reid said the United States must pay more attention to Latin America, blaming the region's recent populist shift in part on U.S. neglect. "I believe that the...

A city councilman introduced legislation Thursday that would prohibit restaurants from using artery-clogging artificial trans fat. The legislation proposed by Councilman Juan F. Ramos is similar to a ban enacted by the New York City Board of Health earlier this month. Ramos' bill would amend the city health code to allow only trace amounts of trans fat in foods served in restaurants and vending carts. The proposal does not outline penalties, but they would be settled before it is implemented, said Ramos' aide Joshua M. Cohen. Artificial trans fat, which is found in vegetable shortening, margarine and partially hydrogenated vegetable...

PLYMOUTH - Parents standing in line with their children to see Santa Claus reportedly covered their children's ears to avoid hearing a man allegedly yell obscenities at St. Nick and others Saturday at Plymouth Meeting Mall. According to police report, a Philadelphia man felt slighted after being told to go to the end of a long line of people waiting to visit the Santa exhibit after he'd waited in the wrong place. The agitated man was at the mall exhibit with his wife and a child. The man reportedly was upset and cursed at the man dressed as Santa Claus...

Hezbollah chief 'plotting coup' Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has accused the leader of the Hezbollah militant movement of plotting a coup. He pointed to comments by Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah that the opposition would form an interim government without the existing administration. Mr Siniora said these were tantamount to a plot to overthrow the government. In another development, a Sunni preacher led thousands of Sunni and Shia anti-government protesters in a show of unity during Friday prayers. The preacher, Fathi Yakan, praised the protesters for trying to stop what he called the American project in Lebanon - a reference...

Incoming Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) named two new members to his whip team yesterday: Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus with close regional ties to Clyburn, and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), a member of the Thirty-Something Working Group who has been active in the Democrats’ campaign operation. Butterfield and Wasserman Schultz will join a team of nine chief deputy whips serving directly under Clyburn in the next Congress. The seven others — Reps. John Lewis (D-Ga.), Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.), Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), Ed Pastor (D-Ariz.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), John Tanner (D-Tenn.) and Maxine...

In a luncheon yesterday, members of the fiscally centrist Democratic Blue Dog Coalition promised to build bipartisan consensus to establish “fiscal sanity” and attempt to improve government accountability, transparency and oversight. “This country is desperate for the middle, desperate for common-sense solutions,” said Rep. John Tanner (D-Tenn.). “We have to tear down that aisle between Republicans and Democrats,” said Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.). Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.) said Democrats only have a short time to prove they can work across the aisle to get things done. “The message that was sent on election night was not that the American people...

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said yesterday that he is awaiting a decision from Republican leadership on whether he will remain on the Intelligence Committee after relinquishing the gavel or leave the panel for a new assignment. Speculation has mounted recently about Roberts’s future on Intelligence, where he and incoming Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) have long wrangled over a still-unfinished probe of the Bush administration’s conduct during the run-up to war. Roberts is considering leaving the Intelligence panel’s fierce partisanship behind and joining a committee where he could more directly help his home state, according to local media reports. “I am...

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is just days away from becoming the first female Speaker of the House, but already she’s dictating marching orders in the Capitol. On Tuesday, none other than Barbara Walters, the doyenne of the celebrity interview, was in the building to interview the future Madame Speaker. And in a scene prescient of the coming Democratic reign, several GOP aides had to cool their heels and look on while Babs and the soon-to-be Speaker did their walk-and-talk shots in Statuary Hall. One GOP leadership aide halted on a walk through the Capitol by a Pelosi handler so as...

WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Thursday announced the recipients of this year's Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award. Those to be honored at a White House ceremony on Dec. 15 are:

When the District goes smoke-free Jan. 2, at least one nicotine haven will remain: the U.S. Capitol. Lawmakers, several of whom enjoy a good cigar, have exempted themselves from the city's smoking ban, not to mention rules that forbid lighting up in federal buildings across the country. But winds of change may be blowing on the Hill Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat from smoke-free California and the next speaker of the House, is thinking of banishing tobacco from the most popular smoking spot in the building: the Speaker's Lobby outside the House chamber. "I'm not an advocate of smoking," Pelosi...

On Wednesday night, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy hosted the nine Democratic members of his health and education committee at an intimate dinner in his home in Washington's Kalorama neighborhood. The surroundings were stylish, the food home-cooked and tasty. And then there was the entertainment. The gathering included a former presidential candidate, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, and a close friend of Kennedy's, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut. But the star attractions were Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, two junior committee members who may be duking it out for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination...

Despite an intensified campaign against poverty, World Bank programs have failed to lift incomes in many poor countries over the past decade, leaving tens of millions of people suffering stagnating or declining living standards, according to a report released Thursday by the bank's autonomous assessment arm. Among 25 poor countries probed in detail by the bank's Independent Evaluation Group, only 11 experienced reductions in poverty from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, while 14 had the same or worsening rates over that term. The group said the sample was representative of the global picture. "Achievement of sustained increases in per...

President Bush vowed yesterday to come up with "a new strategy" in Iraq but expressed little enthusiasm for the central ideas of a bipartisan commission that advised him to ratchet back the U.S. military commitment in Iraq and launch an aggressive new diplomatic effort in the region. On the day after the congressionally chartered Iraq Study Group released its widely anticipated report, much of Washington maneuvered to pick out the parts they like and pick apart those they do not. The report's authors were greeted with skepticism on Capitol Hill, and Democratic leaders used the occasion to press Bush to...

With the Bush administration on the defensive in the wake of the strong critique of its Iraq policies by the Iraq Study Group, the Democrats might be expected to be cheering. But key Democrats in Congress are keeping their distance from the report. Critics of the war opponents obviously liked the report's stark portrayal of the deteriorating situation in Iraq and its blunt assessment of failed Bush administration policies there. But while seeking to "pivot off that to put it squarely back in the lap of the President to propose a way forward in Iraq," in the words of one...

December 8, 2006 -- THE most powerful media institution in all of human history is the Associated Press. Its news feed is ubiquitous - used, directly or indirectly, by every U.S. newspaper and TV news program and a vast number of foreign ones, too. AP maintains the largest world-wide coverage, and its reader base is nearly immeasurable. Unfortunately, and repeatedly of late, this behemoth has not only been getting it wrong - but increasingly refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing. Instead, acting more like a politician or the mega-corporation that it is, the AP crew spins, obfuscates and attacks. Now they're...

DEER Linsay, It is my oppinion that you are the coollest, smartist and most bootiful . . . I mean you are butiful . . . - crap! - you are the prettyest girl in the hole wide world. Linsey, I hope you don't mind me comming out and saying how I feel about, after all, you are an inspration to younger generations and generations older than you. Which we all know and can obviously see. People are just mean. Or maybe the drugs are finally kicking in! About freaking time. Here is my point Lins, I want to grow...

-- THE battle for the 2008 Democratic presidential nom ination will come down to two candidates: Hillary vs. the Un-Hillary. Sen. Clinton is so polarizing and a female candidacy is so novel, that the race for the nomination must revolve around her. Who will the Un-Hillary be? The early front-runner is Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. As a new African-American face, he has the same sort of first-of-a-kind credentials as Hillary and boasts genuine outsider status as well. But Obama is very, very inexperienced. He was elected to Illinois' state Senate in a one-party district, then won the Democratic U.S. Senate...