Since Lyndon Johnson declared his war on poverty in 1964, the program has stirred a steady drumfire of criticism that amounts to a war within a war. Last week some of the stoutest supporters of the antipoverty campaign engaged in a corrosive crossfire that could only further damage the Administration's prospects of getting its preshrunk, $2.06 billion request for the program through a critical Congress. New York's Senator Robert F. Kennedy opened the exchange in Manhattan with a withering attack ...

President Obama on Wednesday urged Sri Lanka to halt "indiscriminate" shelling of civilians trapped with the remnants of the country's Tamil Tiger rebels and to let humanitarian aid in. Obama criticized the Tigers for using civilians as "human shields" and urged them to surrender and let civilians go. But he also called on the island's government to stop using heavy weapons in the conflict zone, which has shrunk to just a few square miles, and allow U.N. and Red Cross ...

Sri Lankan authorities on Saturday detained a British news team that produced a report about allegations of abuse and ill-treatment of Tamil refugees. Three journalists from Channel 4 were seized and handed over to Sri Lanka's Criminal Investigation Department for interrogation, police spokesman Ranjih Gunasekera told reporters. The report, aired Tuesday on Channel 4, chronicled the alleged abuse of Tamils in internment camps in the city of Vavuniya in northern Sri Lanka, where fighting has raged between government and rebels. ...