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The terror organizations in the Gaza Strip have changed their rocket-launch tactics in an attempt to evade the two Iron Dome anti-missile batteries deployed by the Israel Air Force in southern Israel, security sources say. The new tactics include aiming more frequently at areas beyond the Iron Dome protection range. On Saturday, the terror groups attempted to break through the intercept system's defenses by firing a particularly large volley of rockets at Be'er Sheva, where one of the batteries is deployed. The Defense Ministry, for its part, has accelerated its timetable in order to double the number of available batteries...

Washington- P.J. Crowley is abruptly stepping down as State Department spokesman under pressure from the White House, according to senior officials familiar with the matter, because of controversial comments he made about the Bradley Manning case. Crowley will step down as early as Sunday afternoon, the officials said, because White House officials are furious about his suggestion that the Obama administration is mistreating Manning, the Army private who is being held in solitary confinement in Quantico, Virginia, under suspicion that he leaked highly classified State Department cables to the website Wikileaks. Speaking to a small group at MIT

The Rules of War Can't Protect Al Qaeda By RUTH WEDGWOOD NEW HAVEN — It makes no sense to win a trial but lose the war. With this in mind, a majority of the American public favors giving President Bush the option to use military tribunals against the Qaeda terror network. The tribunals are designed to permit a "full and fair trial" of war crimes without compromising our ability to track the network's future plans. Al Qaeda's skill at countersurveillance has made plain the need to protect sensitive intelligence sources at trial. But some international-law scholars suggest that President Bush's ...

President Obama and his wife Michelle will not be invited to Prince William's wedding next year. Royal sources revealed yesterday that the American President and his wife are not among the congregation as William's wedding to Kate Middleton is not classed as a 'state occasion' - as the Prince is not yet heir to the throne. Courtiers suggested they are more eager to ask ordinary citizens and charity workers than foreign dignitaries and VIPs at the 'people's wedding'.

POLITICO executive editor Jim VandeHei defended his publication’s use of anonymous attacks on Sarah Palin as “essential to the way we do business.” “Granted, an anonymous source is unverifiable,” VandeHei confessed. “But sometimes it’s all you’ve got. Does this create suspicion that the entire thing is fabricated? You bet. Still, as long as people keep reading our mission is accomplished.” To try to dampen suspicions that the anti-Palin quotes might have been fake, VandeHei posited the very plausible alternative that “it is entirely credible that these GOP ‘pussies’ who’re anonymously complaining about Palin don’t have the balls to take her...

The world's nuclear weapons watchdog is hiding data on Iran's drive to obtain nuclear arms, senior Western diplomats and Israeli officials told Haaretz. The officials and diplomats said that the International Atomic Energy Agency under Director General Mohamed ElBaradei was refraining from publishing evidence obtained by its inspectors over the past few months that indicate Iran was pursuing information about weaponization efforts and a military nuclear program. ElBaradei, who will soon vacate his post, has said that the

Sky sources say Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi is set to be released on compassionate grounds due to his terminal cancer.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration is preparing a set of about 50 benchmarks for Afghanistan, senior officials said Monday, redefining how to measure success in a war now widely assessed as a stalemate. The benchmarks will test how well the U.S. military and civilian "surges" ordered by President Barack Obama are working. The new measures, ordered by Congress, are due Sept. 24 amid creeping skepticism among many Democrats about the war's prognosis and costs.

WASHINGTON – Several officials say veteran Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania intends to switch parties, advancing his own hopes of winning a new term next year while pushing Democrats one step closer to a 60-vote filibuster-resistant majority. The sources said an announcement could come later in the day — or Wednesday. The officials who provided the information did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss his plans. Specter is a 79-year-old veteran of five Senate terms, and one of only a handful of moderate Republicans left in Congress in a party made up largely...

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is proposing an extensive overhaul of financial regulations to increase oversight of such exotic instruments as credit default swaps that have been blamed for contributing to the worst financial crisis to hit the country in seven decades. Officials said Wednesday that the administration will seek to regulate the market for credit default swaps and other types of derivatives and require hedge funds to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was scheduled to outline the administration's proposals in testimony Thursday before the House Financial Services Committee. Administration officials provided details of...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Financial documents filed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton show that her husband earned nearly $6 million in speaking fees last year, nearly all of it from foreign companies. The documents obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press indicate that $5 million of the former president's reported $5.7 million in 2008 honoraria came from foreign sources. .. Kuwait's National Bank, a Hong Kong-based company, .. firms and groups in Canada, Germany, India, Malaysia, Mexico and Portugal.

SANTA ANA – A Washington Times reporter has been subpoenaed by a federal judge who wants him to reveal the sources for a story he wrote about an engineer convicted of conspiracy to export U.S. defense technology to China. National security reporter Bill Gertz was ordered to appear before U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney in June, the newspaper reported Saturday. The judge has also requested e-mail messages, files and correspondences. Gertz cited U.S. government sources in a 2006 story saying that Justice Department officials approved an indictment against Tai Mak and that four of Mak's relatives would also be charged....

WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain announced his support Monday for legislation protecting the identity of confidential news sources. The Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting coupled his announcement with a challenge to the media to acknowledge its errors "beyond the small print on a corrections page." Appearing at the annual meeting of The Associated Press, McCain also said he believes the economy is in a recession, a statement that Bush administration officials have declined to make. "The important factor here is that Americans are hurting," he said. In addition to a formal speech, McCain answered questions in a more relaxed setting designed to...

HARARE (AFP) - Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe is ready to step down after he accepted he failed to win the country's presidential election, a senior source in his ruling party and diplomats told AFP Tuesday. An official in Mugabe's ZANU-PF party said the long-ruling president was prepared to step down but was still trying to win agreement from the army's chief of staff Constantine Chiwenga. "He is prepared to step down because he doesn't want to embarrass himself by going to a run-off," the source said on condition of anonymity. "There is only one person still blocking him, the army...

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I know.......many folks are still covered in snow others are facing other horrendous weather issues. They are all in our thoughts and prayers. HOWEVER - at 1:26 Eastern this afternoon Spring officially begins. Trying to find articles about the first day of spring was practically an impossibility. Oh sure, there were some out there but most of them were real downers, so I decided today might be a great share some of our favorite gardening websites. The categories of gardening and seed catalogs on my favorites list are both as long as my arm, but I grabbed...

'Links To News Sources' is a resource created especially for Free Republic users to find breaking news. It is now available with new features at a permanent location - http://LinksToNewsSources.GooglePages.com/news.html

KUWAIT CITY: THE UNITED STATES IS PLANNING TO ATTACK IRAN'S NUCLEAR REACTORS AND OTHER NUCLEAR FACILITIES BY THE END OF THIS MONTH, SOURCES IN WASHINGTON TOLD THE ARAB TIMES TUESDAY. THESE SOURCES ADDED THAT VARIOUS WHITE HOUSE DEPARTMENTS HAVE ALREADY STARTED PREPARING THE POLITICAL SPEECH, WHICH WILL BE DELIVERED BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. LATER THIS MONTH, ANNOUNCING THE MILITARY ATTACK ON IRAN. THE SOURCES SAY THAT THE U.S. WILL NOT RESORT TO A GROUND ATTACK BECAUSE THEY PLAN TO ACHIEVE THEIR AIM THROUGH AIR ATTACKS...

When indicted Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes landed a contract to ship supplies to CIA agents in Iraq, he tapped his nephew and lobbyist Joel Combs to handle the job, according to people close to Wilkes and within the CIA. On July 29, 2004, Combs – who had no previous experience in overseas supply operations – formed a one-man company called Archer Logistics in Chantilly, Va., records with the Virginia State Corporation Commission show. Within months, Archer Logistics was selling bottles of water to the CIA, more than half a dozen sources have told The San Diego Union-Tribune. Those sales...

After the latest widely-publicized stories in national newspapers about weapons from Iran allegedly killing Americans in Iraq -- based completely on unnamed sources -- at least one smaller news outlet has had enough of it. The news director of the public radio station in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has directed his staff to "ignore national stories quoting unnamed sources." He also called on other news outlets to join this policy. Bill Dupuy sent the following to his news staff. * Effectively immediately and until further notice, it is the policy of KSFR's news department to ignore and not repeat any...

WASHINGTON - Three prominent journalists testified Monday that Bush administration officials volunteered leaks about a CIA operative, as I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's attorneys sought to suggest he was not responsible for exposing her. The jury in Libby's perjury trial heard a 66-second snippet of one of the deep background interviews given to Washington Post editor Bob Woodward for use in one of his books. They also saw a parade of Pulitzer-prize winning journalists discuss who did and did not leak the information that set off a scandal and ultimately brought Libby to trial. Woodward, who never wrote about Plame, and...