THE FULCRUM

"We need to lean forward in making as much information available to the public as possible,'' Hastert, a Republican who represents Chicago-area suburbs and farms, said in a written statement."

"We need to lean forward in making as much information available to the public as possible,''

All three [actors and director] appeared at a screening of the trailer for "Spider-Man 2" as well as a lengthy action scene in which Spider-Man has a showdown on a train with the film's villain, Dr. Octopus.

Theater owners cheered wildly after seeing the clip and several said later that the film will be the biggest hit of the year.

China, in its strongest statement yet on the political crisis convulsing Taiwan since its controversial election, warned on Friday it would not stand idly by if the situation on the island spirals out of control.

"We will not sit by watching should the post-election situation in Taiwan get out of control, leading to social turmoil, endangering the lives and property of our flesh-and-blood brothers and affecting stability across the Taiwan strait," Beijing's policy-making Taiwan Affairs Office said in a statement.

Shortly after the vote, Beijing condemned Chen for holding the island's first referendum in tandem with the presidential vote, but said only that it was closely monitoring post-election developments. On Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry stressed that no matter who won, Taiwan belonged to China.

The year-old Department of Homeland Security is declaring a hiring freeze at two of its front-line units because of a potential $1.2 billion budget shortfall.

[snip]

The Homeland Security department, headed by former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, was created last March by shifting personnel from 22 agencies. However, the budgets from the agencies' 15 pay systems weren't moved until last October, the start of the 2004 fiscal year. The 15 pay systems have been cut down to three that speak different languages, use different budgeting principles and budget codes, a senior department official said.

[snip]

Although other Homeland Security officials said the discussions have also included the possibility of furloughs, Mr. Murphy said Mr. Hutchinson didn't talk about furloughs at all.

The worst border problems in the country at the moment are in Arizona. Robert C. Bonner, the Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, last month described the border security situation in Arizona, as a "complete mess."

But when leaders of some of this country's Islamic fundamentalist groups hear about her tactics, they react with outrage. By urging people to protect themselves with condoms, they say, Ms. Arifin is promoting sinful behavior.

"This is not how to solve the root of this problem," says Neno Warisman, a popular singer of Muslim songs and former television star. A candidate for Parliament from the Prosperous Justice Party, which campaigns for Islamic causes, she says efforts to stop the disease's spread should focus instead on improving people's morality.

For two years Family Health International, a U.S. group that runs health-care projects in developing countries, has struggled to get a hard-hitting AIDS campaign onto Indonesian national TV. When a commercial depicting men patronizing prostitutes was broadcast briefly in 2002, the Indonesian Mujahiddin Council, an organization of fundamentalist Muslin clerics, sent a letter to TV stations claiming the advertisement could provoke the wrath of Allah. The stations immediately pulled the ad, even though Indonesian censors and the Health Ministry earlier had cleared it.

The resistance the Indonesian activists now face comes amid similar clashes elsewhere in the world. Over the past 20 years, blunt messages from AIDS-prevention campaigns have drawn fire from religious and socially conservative groups. In the U.S., some AIDS activists have complained of problems getting public-service announcements broadcast, because TV-station managers feared upsetting their audience.

The widow of Martin Luther King Jr. called gay marriage a civil rights issue, denouncing a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban it.

Constitutional amendments should be used to expand freedom, not restrict it, Coretta Scott King said Tuesday.

[A] report, issued Tuesday by the trustees who monitor the fiscal health of Medicare and Social Security, concluded that the fund that pays hospital bills in the health insurance program will run out of money by 2019, seven years sooner than they predicted a year ago.

The report says that the new law is a significant factor, because it will steer more money to private health plans and increase payments for health care in rural areas.

One of the GOP authors of the Medicare law swiftly defended it Tuesday. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif., said the trustees' report "validates the reasons Republicans had in reforming Medicare and enacting a prescription drug benefit last year. The overall future health of Medicare depends on these reforms and our future action."

As a legal matter, the required outcome is plain: A principled application of constitutional law calls for the words to be stricken. As a political matter, however, the case is more complex: It pairs patriotism with religious faith, matters that inflame passions when they arise in isolation and are downright incendiary when they coalesce. But it is precisely because the pledge pairs religion and politics that the phrase must be removed.

In Washington, Wal-Mart has five lobbyists on its payroll, and a bench of hired guns led by Thomas Hale Boggs Jr., one of Capitol Hill's best-known lawyer-lobbyists. The company's political action committee was the biggest corporate donor to federal parties and candidates in 2003, with more than $1 million in contributions -- up from $182,000 during the 1997-98 election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission disclosure reports. Wal-Mart's PAC ranks as the second-largest in Washington, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization that tracks political giving.

Unlike most corporations, which contribute to both parties in rough proportion to Congress's partisan split, about 85% of Wal-Mart's checks go to Republicans. And recently Mr. Allen was named a "Pioneer" by the Bush campaign, meaning he has raised at least $100,000 by getting friends and colleagues to make contributions of up to $2,000 each.

The partisan giving is a nod to Wal-Mart's hostile relationship with organized labor and its dependence on free-trade agreements. Wal-Mart defends its lopsided support, saying it's supporting pro-business candidates.

"Congressional allies rushed to offer advice, including Trent Lott, then Senate majority leader. Mr. Lott arrived in Bentonville in late 1999 with a simple message, according to a congressman who attended the meeting: Increase your profile and open your wallet.

So Wal-Mart executives set out to beef up their political action committee -- an account made up of voluntary employee contributions that executives use to make political donations. (Federal law prohibits direct corporate contributions to party committees and candidates.) At an August 2000 meeting attended by thousands of Wal-Mart managers, buckets were passed around for donations, as well as forms authorizing automatic paycheck deductions for the PAC."

"...set out to transform itself from a company without a Washington presence to one that could bend public policy to suit its business needs."

We think Opportunity is now parked on what was once the shoreline of a salty sea on Mars," Cornell University's Steve Squyres, principal science investigator for the Mars rover mission, said in a statement provided to SPACE.com prior to a press conference today.

The rocks would be excellent preservers of biological signs, if life ever existed on Mars, Squyres said. That makes Meridiani Planum a prime target for future missions that would search for evidence of past biology.

The ten-member panel had invited National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to testify. She declined, with the White House citing concerns about separation of powers.

One panel member says that's not a good enough excuse.

Another mentioned the book written by former anti-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke, who accuses the Bush administration of downplaying the al-Qaida threat before 9/11.

Former Democratic Congressman Timothy Roemer also noted that Rice has been featured in the media disputing Clarke's claims. He suggests the debate shouldn't be played out in the media, but before the panel.