Jimmy Carter

Malaise is a disease of the spirit, a crippling affliction often marked by lethargy and despair. For the last 30 years, Jimmy Carter has been branded by the word. In the roiling wake of Watergate and Vietnam, confronted by gasoline shortages and an apathetic or distracted citizenry, President Carter infamously described the doldrums consuming the nation as a malaise during his televised address of July 15, 1979.

Former President Jimmy Carter on Monday said Zimbabwe's humanitarian crisis was far worse than he could have imagined and expressed dismay that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his government refused to acknowledge the problem even existed. "The entire basic structure in education, healthcare, feeding people, social services and sanitation has broken down," Carter said at a news conference in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Former President Carter wrapped up his controversial Middle East tour Monday with an upbeat account of the militant Hamas movement's position on Israel, but with no apparent progress in promoting a cease-fire or bringing the Islamic group into peace efforts. Hamas turned down Carter's proposals for a one-month suspension of rocket attacks on Israel and a rapid prisoner exchange that would have transferred a captive Israeli soldier to Egypt. Israeli and U.S.

Sen. Barack Obama on Wednesday criticized former President Carter for planning to meet with leaders of the Palestinian militant group Hamas as he tried to reassure Jewish voters that his candidacy isn't a threat to them or U.S. support for Israel. The Democratic presidential candidate's comments to a group of Jewish leaders were his first on Carter's controversial meeting scheduled this week in Egypt. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Sen.

A dispute erupted Monday over the lack of Israeli secret service protection for former President Carter as he visited this border town and called rocket attacks by Palestinian militants "a despicable crime" that he hoped a cease-fire would halt. Carter's planned talks with the leader of the militant group Hamas and a book he published in 2006 that called Israeli policy in occupied Palestinian territories "a system of apartheid" have caused official displeasure in Israel.

The Israeli and Palestinian leaders held surprise talks Sunday, as former President Carter received a cool reception in Israel on a Mideast visit that includes plans to meet with Khaled Meshaal, the political head of Hamas. An Israeli official said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert -- who sat down together just a week ago -- would coordinate peace moves before Abbas travels to the U.S., where he is to meet with President Bush on April 23.

Jimmy Carter still spends much of his time injecting himself into the nastiest spats on the planet. But most Sundays, the 83-year-old former president manages to be back here in the tiny city where he was raised. He does not like to skip Sunday school. He gives his Bible lessons at Maranatha Baptist Church, an unassuming red-brick chapel on the outskirts of town. Carter estimates that he has given more than 450 of them since leaving the White House in 1981.

From the founders' deism to Mitt's message on Mormonism, cartoonists have treated the super-serious subject of the supernatural with superciliousness.

On Thursday, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is headed to Texas to deliver a speech on "Faith in America" in order to dispel reservations voters may have about electing a Mormon president. While this clearly echoes the famous address that his fellow Bay Stater, John F. Kennedy, gave on Sept. 12, 1960, to the Greater Houston Ministerial Assn., Romney was adamant to reporters this week that "I'm not gonna be giving a JFK speech." And he shouldn't. Romney doesn't need to do a JFK.

For the last four years, Edgar Ruano and his wife, Carolina Morales, have slept on the pullout sofa bed in the living room of their one-bedroom Bellflower apartment. They reserved their only bedroom for their two children. But today they will begin building a three-bedroom, 2 1/2 -bath home in San Pedro through Habitat for Humanity's Jimmy Carter Work Project.