Laura Bush

With old and young providing testament to the success of a U.S.-funded effort to fight AIDS, President Bush on Sunday called for Congress to renew the program quickly and said that helping Africa was in the national and moral interests of the United States. The program provides readier access to antiretroviral drugs, easing the impact of the disease. But it also puts a strong focus on premarital sexual abstinence, drawing criticism in the U.S.

The federal tax bill for President Bush and his wife in 2007 was $221,635. That's how much the Bushes owed on their adjusted gross income of $923,807 that year, according to a joint return released Friday. The Bushes have paid $203,894 so far, which means they owe the government $17,741. Their income total includes a $150,000 advance received by Laura Bush for the children's book she co-wrote with her daughter Jenna. Last year, the Bushes paid $186,378 in federal taxes on income of $765,801.

First Lady Laura Bush, an advocate of the national "Red Dress" awareness campaign to improve women's health, visited the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library near Simi Valley on Wednesday to hear firsthand accounts of the cardiac disease epidemic facing American women. Bush joined former First Lady Nancy Reagan in a brief tour of the library's new exhibit: the First Ladies Red Dress Collection. It includes red outfits worn by first ladies dating back to the 1960s.

First Lady Laura Bush had a hard act to follow Saturday when she delivered the commencement speech at Pepperdine University's graduation ceremony. Preceding her was a student speaker -- graduating senior Christine E. Li, an intercultural communication major from Santa Monica -- who cried, and moved parents and fellow grads to tears, as she lauded classmates' "incredible capacity to love."

For foreign leaders doing business with President Bush, no invitation holds quite the cachet of a visit to his Prairie Chapel Ranch. And spending the night elevates the event even more. That the NATO secretary-general, a Dutch politician with a predilection for running long distances and singing short cabaret classics, arrived here Sunday for some sleepover diplomacy illustrates the extent to which Bush is putting the spotlight on trans-Atlantic relationships in general and NATO in particular.

First Lady Laura Bush, a former teacher well known for her advocacy of books, is now writing one. Bush and her daughter Jenna are collaborating on a children's picture story, currently untitled, that will be published by HarperCollins in spring 2008. Financial terms weren't disclosed, but the authors' net proceeds will be donated to two education programs: Teach for America and the New Teacher Project. The book will be illustrated by Denise Brunkus, the illustrator for the popular Junie B.

First Lady Laura Bush has a pinched nerve and so has canceled plans to accompany the president on next month's trip to Australia, her office announced. President Bush is to arrive in Sydney on Sept. 4 for a state visit and talks with Australian Prime Minister John Howard before participating in the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders summit. Howard said the president would leave the summit early to return to the U.S. for the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Laura Bush will undergo surgery today to relieve pain from pinched nerves in her neck, her press secretary said. Spokeswoman Sally McDonough said Bush was having elective outpatient surgery. She said the physician would use a minimally invasive procedure to take pressure off the nerve by enlarging the passageway where the nerve sits near the spinal column. The first lady injured the nerve earlier this year while hiking and has undergone physical therapy.

When a national magazine correspondent first sought White House cooperation for a real-time biography of President Bush, it was no surprise that the most secretive administration in memory said no, even to a fellow Texan. But, 18 months later -- his presidency beset by an unpopular war, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the lowest poll numbers of his career -- George W.