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President Bush on Wednesday will try to boost the morale of National Security Agency workers carrying out his controversial eavesdropping program. While critics call it a domestic spying program, the White House calls it a "terrorist surveillance program." After receiving harsh criticism from civil liberties groups and Democrats when news of the program was leaked by The New York Times, defending the program is a top priority of the Bush administration. The president on Wednesday will visit behind closed doors with employees of the super-secretive agency — which traditionally conducts only overseas surveillance. He will then make some remarks to...

Existing-home sales declined in November while home prices sustained double-digit annual gains, the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® reports. Total existing-home sales—including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops— eased 1.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.97 million units in November from a pace of 7.09 million in October. Sales were 0.1 percent below the 6.98 million-unit level in November 2004. David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, says higher mortgage interest rates were responsible for moderating sales, but notes that it’s important to keep an eye on the actual level of home sales given the market surge this year. “The current...

Navy Secretary Gordon England-- who has also been serving as the acting deputy defense secretary-- gave up his Navy post Thursday, clearing the way for a new naval leader. The move will allow Donald Winter to be sworn in as Navy secretary next week. Congressional roadblocks have prevented Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld from filling key leadership positions in his department for months. But legal maneuvering by the White House, which formally designated acting deputy England as Rumsfeld's second in command last week, allowed England to relinquish the Navy job. Two senators have blocked England's confirmation as deputy defense secretary,...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Four Iraqi children with life-threatening heart defects left a Bronx hospital Tuesday after successfully undergoing open heart surgery. Through its Operation Iraqi Hearts, Montefiore Medical Center has performed such operations on more than 500 children around the world in the past 15 years. When you look into a heart, it's not a Muslim heart, it's not a Jewish heart. We are all the same," Dr. Samuel Weinstein, a pediatric heart surgeon, said earlier this month after the Muslim children -- three boys and a girl, ages 6 to 14 -- arrived. The children's families had first...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- U.S. President George Bush decided to skip seeking warrants for international wiretaps because the court was challenging him at an unprecedented rate. A review of Justice Department reports to Congress by Hearst newspapers shows the 26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than the four previous presidential administrations combined. The 11-judge court that authorizes FISA wiretaps modified only two search warrant orders out of the 13,102 applications approved over the first 22 years of the court's operation. But since 2001, the judges have modified 179 of the 5,645 requests...

At midnight on Oct. 14, hundreds of former high school dropouts trained as social workers in recent years were summoned to Havana's convention center. They received a crash course in pumping gas and filling out forms with such data as customer license plates, amount, and type of fuel purchased, in cash or credit. Cuban President Fidel Castro walked in at 3 a.m. to tell the young people they were undertaking a crucial mission for the country. At 4 a.m., they boarded buses, and by 5 a.m. had taken control of every gas station in the capital.

Most living conditions are rated positively, seven in 10 Iraqis say their own lives are going well, and nearly two-thirds expect things to improve in the year ahead. Surprisingly, given the insurgents' attacks on Iraqi civilians, more than six in 10 Iraqis feel very safe in their own neighborhoods, up sharply from just 40 percent in a poll in June 2004. And 61 percent say local security is good — up from 49 percent in the first ABC News poll in Iraq in February 2004. Average household incomes have soared by 60 percent in the last 20 months (to $263...

The World Health Organisation yesterday became the largest international employer to ban the hiring of smokers in an effort to promote its public health campaign against tobacco use. In a memo circulated to its 8,000 staff this week, the WHO stressed that it had "a responsibility to ensure that this [its campaign] is reflected in all its work, including recruitment practices". The move is an escalation of action taken against smokers. Several countries have introduced legislation banning smoking in pubs, restaurants and public places, while some employers ban smoking on their premises. Its job advertisements now carry the statement "WHO...

ANNAPOLIS, Maryland -- President George Bush delivered remarks Wednesday on the war in Iraq. Following is a transcript of his address at the U.S. Naval Academy. "Thank you. Thank you. Please be seated. Thanks for the warm welcome. It's good to be back at the Naval Academy. I'm pleased to provide a convenient excuse for you to miss class. It's the first year that every class of midshipmen at this academy arrived after the attacks of September the 11th, 2001. Each of you have volunteered to wear our nation's uniform in a time of war, knowing all the risks and...

An Arab-American college student was convicted Tuesday of joining al Qaeda and plotting to assassinate President Bush. The federal jury rejected Ahmed Omar Abu Ali's claim that Saudi authorities whipped and tortured him to extract a false confession. Abu Ali, a 24-year-old U.S. citizen born to a Jordanian father and raised in Falls Church, Virginia, could get life in prison on charges that include conspiracy to assassinate the president and providing support to al Qaeda. Sentencing was scheduled for February. Abu Ali confessed shortly after his June 2003 arrest at a university in Medina, Saudi Arabia, that he joined al...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The bitter battle in Washington over whether to withdraw U.S. troops quickly from Iraq is disturbing but has not damaged U.S. military morale, a senior American Army general in Baghdad said on Tuesday. "A precipitous pullout, I believe, would be destabilizing," Lt. Gen. John Vines, the second-ranking U.S. commander there, told Pentagon reporters in a teleconference from Iraq. He refused to set any timetable. "Of course the debate and the bitterness is disturbing. But, after all, we are a democracy, and that is what democracy is about ... people will have differences of opinion," Vines said. "Certainly,...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's celebrity quickly overshadowed his political woes on the first of his six-day trade mission to China. Schwarzenegger had just finished speaking at an event in Beijing on Monday when he and his wife, Maria Shriver, were briefly mobbed by fans and photographers. Also in China this week are Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and President George W. Bush, who is visiting as part of a multination Asia trip. Schwarzenegger and Bush avoided each other on the president's two most recent trips to California. California is a major gateway for U.S. trade to China. In 2004, the state exported...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger showed up to his Brentwood neighborhood polling station today to cast his ballot in the special election — and was told he had already voted. Elections officials said a Los Angeles County poll worker had entered Schwarzenegger's name into an electronic voting touch screen station in Pasadena on Oct. 25. The worker, who was not identified, was testing the voting machine in preparation for early voting that began the next day. Somehow, Schwarzenegger's name was then placed on a list of people who had already voted, said Conny B. McCormack, the Los Angeles County registrar. Schwarzenegger's aides...

A truck carrying elderly missile components exploded in a tunnel on the highway to Daegu on Tuesday, causing a panic at the scene and a three-hour traffic jam. The left rear tire of the 15-ton cargo truck caught fire while the vehicle, part of a convoy, was passing through the Dalseong Tunnel 2 on the Guma Highway toward Daegu shortly after 2 p.m. The fire spread to missile propellants stored in wooden boxes in the rack and caused an explosion. Another truck behind also caught fire. In the ensuing panic, more than 100 drivers following the trucks abandoned their cars...

The original informant who prompted the terror alert on New York City's subways last week is sticking to his story, and there is no basis to conclude the threat was a hoax, sources involved in the investigation of the plot told ABC News. When last spoken to by interrogators, the original informant has remained firm in his statement that there was in fact a plot. Citing government sources, several media outlets reported today that information that led to heightened security for the New York City transit system was a hoax. Those reports said three men arrested in Iraq with suspected...

The Supreme Court, venturing into legal territory that it historically has avoided, said Tuesday it will consider restricting the government's authority to regulate wetlands. Jumping into a subject that is crucial for environmentalists, property owners and developers, the justices will take up claims that federal regulators have gone too far by restricting development of property that is miles away from any river or waterway. The cases give the court an opportunity to put limits on federal government authority, and a key player may be new Chief Justice John Roberts. The appeals were the first the court agreed to hear under...

NAZRAN, October 10 (RIA Novosti) - A major terrorist attack was prevented Monday in Ingushetia, a Russian constituent republic in the North Caucasus, a spokesman for the Ingush Interior Ministry said. "An explosive device weighing some 20 kilograms was found on the Kavkaz federal highway near [the Ingush capital of] Nazran," he said. He said the device contained a metal box with explosives and bolts, a portable radio and a power source. "But for the local resident who helped prevent the terrorist act it would have had serious consequences," the spokesman said. He said the explosive device had been disarmed.

Beyond leaving people bleary-eyed, clutching a Starbucks cup and dozing off at afternoon meetings, failing to get enough sleep or sleeping at odd hours heightens the risk for a variety of major illnesses, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity, recent studies indicate. Physiologic studies suggest that a sleep deficit may put the body into a state of high alert, increasing the production of stress hormones and driving up blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart attacks and strokes. Moreover, people who are sleep-deprived have elevated levels of substances in the blood that indicate a heightened state of inflammation...