WASHINGTON – Public angst about Iraq (search) will reverberate in Congress in the weeks ahead as lawmakers start shaping a defense spending blueprint and debate President Bush’s Iraq policies. Hurricane Katrina (search) has topped the agenda since the House and Senate returned to Washington last week. But debate over the …

NEW YORK – A federal probe concluded that a government program to monitor the health of federal employees at the World Trade Center disaster site in New York “accomplished little” even though city and state programs screened more than 30,000 people. A report by the Government Accountability Office (search) found …

LAS VEGAS – A woman accused in a multimillion-dollar armored truck heist surrendered Thursday after more than 10 years on the run. Heather Catherine Tallchief (search) is accused of driving an armored truck loaded with cash away from the Circus Circus casino in October 1993. Speaking to reporters before she …

MEDAN, Indonesia – Investigators tried to determine Tuesday why an Indonesian jetliner crashed into a neighborhood seconds after takeoff, killing at least 149 people. Weeping families looked for loved ones at a morgue, and authorities readied a mass grave for the unidentified. Remains not identified by early Wednesday will be …

NEW ORLEANS – Progress was measured in inches Tuesday, in the slow dropping of water levels outside New Orleans’ (search) buildings, as engineers struggled to drain this saucer of a city in a Herculean task that could take weeks — if they are lucky. The Army Corps of Engineers (search) …

NEW YORK – Jessica Simpson (search) and Nick Lachey (search) will sing “America the Beautiful” as part of a tribute by the National Football League (search) to mark the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Their performance will be televised by CBS and Fox before the nine regular-season …

NEW ORLEANS – Above the din, a woman is screaming the Lord’s Prayer as if heaven can no longer hear silent pleas. “And lead us not into temptation,” she bellows hoarsely to the unhearing throng, “but deliver us from evil …” But temptation is everywhere in this crippled city. And …

AUSTIN, Texas – The Texas Supreme Court declared Tuesday that the property tax system that supports the state’s public schools is unconstitutional, and it gave the Legislature until June 1 to come up with a new way to pay for education. Texas lawmakers have been struggling with the question of …

SAN FRANCISCO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday he would consider granting clemency to convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams, the Crips gang founder who became an anti-gang activist while in prison and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The governor said he would meet Dec. 8 in a private …

WASHINGTON – The pitched battle over pre-Iraq war intelligence, leaks and the call for more investigations continued Tuesday on Capitol Hill, with congressional Democrats raising the bar by blaming Vice President Dick Cheney for just about everything but the weather and maybe even that. “There’s a dark cloud hanging over …