Democratic National Convention

A stalemate in Washington is holding up money for security at next year's Republican and Democratic conventions and could force Minneapolis-St. Paul and Denver to front tens of millions of dollars, lawmakers warned Monday. Led by Democratic Reps. Diana DeGette of Colorado and Betty McCollum of Minnesota, the congressional delegations from both states will ask Congress to appropriate money by year's end.

Anaheim has been invited to bid for the 2008 Republican and Democratic national conventions, a key step in the city's first-ever attempt to be host to one of the events. Anaheim is competing with 30 cities vying for the GOP convention and 10 cities hoping to play host to the Democrats. City officials began their lobbying effort at the 2004 national conventions, sending Councilman Richard Chavez to the Democratic convention in Boston and Mayor Curt Pringle to the GOP gathering in New York City.

New Orleans has dropped out of the race to host the 2008 Democratic National Convention, saying the cost of holding the event after Hurricane Katrina last year was too large. The announcement leaves Denver, Minneapolis-St. Paul and New York City as the remaining competitors to host the party's nominating convention.

A federal judge Friday signed the last settlement in a group of lawsuits claiming that Los Angeles police officers roughed up protesters and bystanders during the 2000 Democratic National Convention, bringing to $4.1 million the total the city has paid out. The latest settlement, for $1.

A day after Sen. John F. Kerry's campaign floated the idea of postponing his nomination for president, many Democrats embraced the proposal Saturday as an effective way to blunt a key financial edge that President Bush holds over his challenger. Still, Republicans signaled they would use any postponement of the nomination to buttress their attacks on Kerry, and some Democrats fretted about potential unrest among delegates.

Sen. John F. Kerry plans to decide by the end of this week whether to delay his official nomination until after the Democratic National Convention in July, sources said Tuesday. The campaign may postpone Kerry's acceptance of the party's nomination for five weeks -- until around the same time as the Republican National Convention, which is scheduled for Aug. 30-Sept. 2, to better compete financially with President Bush.

Facing sharp opposition from some Democratic Party elders and rank-and-file alike, Sen. John F. Kerry on Wednesday abandoned the idea of delaying his official nomination, a move that would have eliminated President Bush's financial advantage in the final months of the general election campaign.

For the second day in a row, striking police officers, joined by several hundred pickets from dozens of other Boston labor organizations, disrupted construction Wednesday at the site of next month's Democratic National Convention. The demonstration outside the Fleet Center on a 90-degree day prompted many tradesmen to turn away rather than enter the cavernous arena to continue a seven-week, $14-million face-lift aimed at converting a sports arena into a convention center. Thomas J.

U.S. marshals on Thursday began patrolling outside the site of the Democratic National Convention to ensure that picketing police officers did not block the start of construction work for next month's political gathering. U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro said at a hearing earlier in the day that he would use the marshals to patrol the FleetCenter, the site of the July 26-29 convention, and report violations of an order he issued last week.