United States Politics

She is 90 and has arthritis, emphysema and a bunion on her left big toe, but on Tuesday, Doris "Granny D" Haddock completed a 14-month, 3,200-mile trek across America to agitate for campaign finance reform. Hundreds gathered to cheer the final steps of her arduous journey, which began Jan. 1, 1999, at the Rose Parade in Pasadena, and ended with a rally on the east steps of the U.S. Capitol. There the Dublin, N.H.

With the 106th Congress nearing adjournment, a final burst of negotiations has produced only modest deals to ease immigration restrictions. The agreements are a far cry from sweeping reforms that President Clinton and congressional Democrats were pushing before the Nov.

Republican leaders denounced the Democratic approach to health reform Monday night in a nationally televised policy forum amid an intense behind-the-scenes debate over what strategy the GOP should pursue on the issue that now dominates the national political landscape. The hourlong program, carried live by C-SPAN and various satellite links around the country, was heralded as an attempt to show Americans that the GOP has its own solution to the nation's health care problems.

A passerby steps into Trader Fred's log cabin in rural Vermont and confronts a symbolic chasm. To the right are antique clocks and toys: steel hook-and-ladder trucks, airplanes and Cubby, a 1940s windup tin bear. To the left, a rack displays the small shop's other specialty: firearms, including rare 19th century Colt shotguns and a Sterling AR-180 semiautomatic combat rifle with a folding stock.

Abraham Polonsky was living in France in 1950, writing a novel, when he got a call from a friend who was staying in his house in Los Angeles. An investigator for the House Un-American Activities Committee had been by, trying to serve him with a subpoena.

George Hulshult sits behind home plate at the new downtown ballpark here and tries to explain how men and women see things differently, and why George W. Bush is so popular among a certain kind of male voter. "Gore looks like he's been babied," explained Hulshult, a 32-year-old cook who voted for Clinton in 1992, but not in 1996. "Bush looks like someone who's been around, who's seen things. I picture Gore crying. He seems very emotional. He looks like he'd break down more often."

As the U.S. Supreme Court this week cast a new cloud over the use of sampling by the Census Bureau, results from a test of the controversial counting method here were giving its foes and fans even more to debate. Census officials said that using the statistical method, they counted 403,313 residents in Sacramento during a dry run last spring. Without sampling, which is designed to cut census costs and avoid an undercount, they tallied 349,197 people.

Her father had been missing in Indochina for nearly 25 years, and suddenly there was a controversial photograph of him, along with two other American MIA soldiers, somewhere in the jungle. Shelby Robertson Quast was desperate for information, and when she spotted Defense Secretary Dick Cheney at a POW-MIA meeting here last month, she made a beeline for his table.

The vote in Quebec on secession from Canada should stand as a clear warning to Americans about the threat that bilingualism poses to unity in the United States, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said Monday. "Allowing bilingualism to continue to grow is very dangerous," Gingrich said after addressing a technology and business forum at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. "We should insist on English as a common language. . . . That's what binds us together."

For more than 20 years, Katharine Graham, head of the Washington Post and grande dame of American journalism, proudly displayed in her office the mechanical wringer from an old washing machine. It was a reminder that life entails risks--and that taking those risks can lead to greatness. During the early days of Watergate, when the Post labored almost alone to expose the improper and illegal actions that eventually forced President Richard M.

At their convention here Saturday, National Rifle Assn. leaders took credit for President Bush's election, saying they're taking aim next at unseating gun control advocates in Congress and defeating campaign finance reform in court. "You are why Al Gore isn't in the White House," NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre told more than 4,500 delegates at the NRA's 131st annual meeting.

President Bush urged the Senate on Saturday to move swiftly to approve legislation that would expand his authority to negotiate international trade agreements. In his weekly radio address, Bush said the trade promotion authority "would give me the flexibility to negotiate with other countries to open their markets and get the best deals for American producers and workers." The president also signaled support in principle for providing help for U.S.

At a time when Congress is stalemated on a spate of issues, one measure is an eye-catching exception: a major rewrite of federal farm policy. While most other major legislation seems doomed to election-year oblivion, congressional negotiators put the finishing touches Friday on a bill that would increase agriculture subsidies a staggering 70% over the next decade.

The Senate approved a bill Thursday that would revamp the nation's energy policy, paving the way for talks with the House on one of President Bush's domestic priorities. The bill is a mix of relatively modest steps geared more toward promoting conservation and the use of alternative power sources. The House bill, taking its cue from Bush, is tilted more toward increasing production.

Breaking a stubborn impasse, House and Senate negotiators reached agreement Thursday on the outlines of a farm bill that would vastly increase federal spending on crop subsidies and conservation programs. The breakthrough came a day after President Bush traveled to South Dakota and called on Congress to reach a quick compromise on the legislation, which passed the House and Senate in significantly different forms.

Capping years of frustration, the House voted Thursday to overhaul the beleaguered Immigration and Naturalization Service, splitting up its law enforcement and service roles into separate bureaus within the Justice Department. The bill passed, 405 to 9, reflecting overwhelming support to straighten out an agency that has become legendary for bureaucratic incompetence, most recently when it notified a Florida flight school that two of the Sept. 11 terrorists had been approved for U.S.

In a steady snowfall, President Bush celebrated Earth Day on Monday by visiting the Adirondacks, where he described himself as an ardent environmentalist for whom "every day is Earth Day." Reviewing the nation's "tremendous progress" on the environment since the first Earth Day in 1970, he declared: "This Earth Day finds us on the right path."

President Bush has come face to face with the limits of the American presidency. Last week, the Senate dealt him a major energy policy defeat when it thwarted his plan to drill for oil in the Arctic wilderness. He was defied in the Middle East as Secretary of State Colin L. Powell returned from a lengthy, much-touted mission unable to win a cease-fire between Israelis and Palestinians.

An animated Al Gore delivered a comprehensive indictment of President Bush's domestic record Saturday, returning to the political arena with a campaign-style speech that roused a crowd of Florida Democrats. In his most pointed remarks since conceding the 2000 election to Bush, Gore denounced the administration's record on issues from the economy and education to the environment and the federal budget.

President Bush is devoting unprecedented attention to the Middle East, as well as pressing ahead with the war on terrorism. But with an eye toward November's congressional elections and his own 2004 reelection bid, he is devoting no less energy to his largely dormant domestic agenda. Since February, Bush has spent about two days each week traveling around the country to promote causes ranging from greater volunteerism to expansion of Head Start.