By Carey Gillam
As Congress battles over whether or not to raise the minimum wage, Main Street America is moving on.
More than a dozen U.S. states, including Massachusetts, Michigan, Arkansas and Missouri, have either already raised the minimum wage in their states above the federal level of $5.15 an hour, or have ballot initiatives for a raise in the works for November elections.
By Vicki Allen
Trying to patch over their differences before November elections, top congressional Democrats urged President George W. Bush on Monday to start pulling U.S. troops from Iraq this year but did not specify a time frame for completing the withdrawal.
Democrats, who have split over whether to demand a deadline for troop withdrawal, were seeking to present a united front on the war that has eroded Bush’s popularity and may hurt Republicans in elections to determine control of Congress.
By Will Dunham
The U.S. military death toll in Iraq fell for a third straight month in July to one of the lower levels of the 3-year-old war despite rising violence that prompted the Pentagon to expand the U.S. force.
President Nixon, in his first year in office and eager to end an unpopular war that killed tens of thousands of U.S. troops, considered using nuclear weapons against the North Vietnamese, recently declassified documents show.
By DAN WALTERS
Sacramento Bee
With the California Democratic Party drifting leftward, Republicans had an opportunity this year to claim the decisive political middle by fielding a slate of centrist candidates for statewide office, led by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
By KEVIN SITES
Yahoo! News
TYRE, Lebanon — With a targeted missile strike in the center of downtown Tyre, Israel destroyed a building reportedly associated with Hezbollah. But while the destruction was complete, it was not bloodless, nor without repercussions.
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
A number of nations have expressed a willingness to help boost international economic support for Iraq, the Bush administration said Monday.
Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt, President Bush’s special envoy on the issue, said he was optimistic the necessary work will be completed in coming months so that an international conference to collect pledges of financial support can be held by the end of the November.
By FRANK BASS
Maybe "Big Media" isn’t so big in the eyes of government after all.
Some of the nation’s largest news media companies, including The Associated Press, were counted last year by the government as small businesses for contracting purposes, inflating the Bush administration’s record of help to small companies.
By MARY DALRYMPLE
Offshore tax havens hold trillions of dollars in assets and allow wealthy Americans to avoid paying $40 billion to $70 billion in taxes each year, a Senate panel said in a report being released Tuesday.
By ROBERT BURNS
An Army general who supervised the detention of insurgents in Iraq and ran the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison for terror suspects was lauded at a retirement ceremony Monday as an innovator and an exceptional leader.