WASHINGTON – The House gave its approval Monday to a U.S.-Russia treaty to help protect polar bears from overhunting and other threats to their survival. The House bill puts into effect a 2000 treaty that sets quotas on polar bear hunting by native populations in the two countries and establishes …

Political debates tend to be moved forward by new facts generated “on the ground.” At these moments, it is far easier to convince people of the truth, because that truth is tied directly to facts people can see out in the world. Hezbollah‘s initiation of a war with Israel is …

ON THE ISRAEL-LEBANON BORDER – Israel massed tanks and troops on its border with Lebanon and called up reserves Friday, announcing plans for a ground operation to destroy Hezbollah’s tunnels, hideouts and weapons stashes. Early Saturday Israeli aircraft and artillery pounded Lebanese roads and villages in the path of its …

PETERBOROUGH, N.H. – Parents and teachers are complaining that the latest issue of a popular magazine for preteens amounts to little more than an early recruitment pitch for the Army. Cobblestone magazine, which is put out by Carus Publishing in Peterborough, is aimed at children ages 9-14 and is distributed …

ANKARA, Turkey – The government on Monday named a general who favors a tougher line on a wide range of issues, including Turkey’s EU negotiations, to replace the head of the country’s powerful military, who was considered a moderate. The change, which was widely anticipated, comes as Turkey is insisting …

It is not rational for the Bush administration to think it can continue to do little or nothing with respect to the gas price crisis and expect to keep control of Congress. Remember the sayings, “All politics are local” and “It’s the economy, stupid?” The former was coined by Tip …

WASHINGTON – The G-8 summit that President Bush and seven other world leaders are attending next weekend in Russia is often billed as a gathering of the world’s leading economic powers. It is not. Consider: China, now the world’s fourth-largest economy and the nation with the most influence over renegade …

BEIJING – China’s death toll from tropical storm Bilis more than doubled to 482 on Friday after a hard-hit province reported a sharp rise in fatalities, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Authorities in inland Hunan province said 346 people died in floods triggered by Bilis, while 89 others were …

WASHINGTON – President Bush declined Thursday to criticize Israel’s tactics in its continuing offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon, and gave a sharp condemnation of Iran’s role in the bloody fighting. “Hezbollah attacked Israel. I know Hezbollah is connected to Iran,” Bush said tersely at the end of Oval …

You can inherit heart failure, new data from the Framingham Heart Study shows. The famous study is now two generations old, with some 20 years of follow-up data on the children of the original study subjects. The risk factors today used to evaluate a person’s risk of heart attack and …