by Frank James
A quick guided tour of some of the morning’s most important or interesting, or both, Washington-related stories.
Tensions rose between Turkey and Iraq after Kurdish guerillas ambushed Turkish soldiers, killing at least 12 Turkish troops and mounting domestic pressure on the Turkish government to strike back.
The Republican presidential candidates attacked each other with particular fercocity, focusing their barbs on GOP frontrunner Rudy Giuliani and the candidate they view as the likely Democratic nominee, Sen. Hillary Clinton.
High demand for ships to transport commodities across the world’s oceans are increasing the costs of numerous commodities like grains and iron ore, raising inflationary fears.Congressional Democrats have arrived at a strategy they believe will help them counter President Bush’s threats to veto spending legislation and that is to highlight popular items like money for cancer research, hospitals and worker safety whose funding could be threatened if the president makes good on his threat.
In becoming the first Indian-American to be elected a governor in the U.S., Louisiana Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal, 36, demonstrated deft political skills but he takes over a state still struggling to rebuild two years after Hurricane Katrina and to move beyond its reputation for corruption.
Las Vegas and its casinos are the proving ground for a host of surveillance and data-mining technologies More Top Picks Roof Tents
Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama is a key test of the usefulness of big celebrity-endorsements in politics where it appears they have less effect than they do when it comes to selling books or consumer goods.
Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign has learned to use the very popular Drudge Report as a way to drive the political news cycle, an irony since it was the very same website that added to her miseries during the Monica Lewinsky scandal during her husband’s presidency.
Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, leads his fellow Republican rivals for the party’s presidential nomination in the Iowa polls, largely because of the significant amount of advertising he’s done but his rivals haven’t really attacked him yet.