A U.S. military contract that drew fire for creating profiles to rate the output of journalists as well as coverage of the Afghanistan war is being terminated, according to U.S. military officials. The U.S. military had contracted with the public-relations firm The Rendon Group, which created profiles of journalists that rated their stories as "positive," "neutral" or "negative." The military said it did not use the ratings to influence coverage or deny reporters access to cover the war. "It was ...

In the closing days of Cash for Clunkers, car dealers were turning buyers away, the government website crashed trying to keep up with the paperwork, and even the purple cars were selling. So, what does it tell us about our national character when the most popular government program in years is an economically dubious, environmentally negligible, politically lazy handout from 99% of the population to the other 1%, all aimed at reviving the economy from its vegetative state? ...

On the surface, it seems like a fine idea; reproductive rights groups certainly think so. In July, the Ugandan government announced that, using cash from the U.N. Population Fund, it would distribute 100,000 female condoms in a bid to stop a resurgence of HIV/AIDS. Advocates cheered the initiative, saying it would give women more control over their own bodies. But in the weeks since, major funders of anti-HIV/AIDS programs have shown far less enthusiasm, with many deciding not to ...

A story told around Arlington National Cemetery holds that John F. Kennedy paid a visit around Veteran's Day in 1963. As he stood near the mansion that once was home to Robert E. Lee, taking in the sweeping view of the Potomac River down below and the National Mall rolling out toward the distant Capitol, he remarked, "I could stay here forever." Within three years, that serene and stirring spot had been visited by some 16 million people, ...

Senator John Kerry, the new senior senator from Massachusetts, stood with his eyes closed, his right hand on Ted Kennedy's flag-draped casket. Thirty seconds went by and, head bowed, Kerry crossed himself and stepped back. His hand reached toward the casket one last time for a final friendly pat. "As far as I'm concerned we still have a senior senator and we have to celebrate his life," Kerry says a few minutes later, backstage at the John F. ...

Nine police officers were killed and 11 wounded in a suicide bombing north of Baghdad on Saturday, local officials told CNN. The senator's funeral is scheduled for Saturday at Boston's Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in Boston's Mission Hill section. Dozens of Kennedy's fellow senators are scheduled to attend as well as three former presidents -- Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. President Obama, who called Kennedy the "greatest U.S. senator of our time," will deliver a ...

Is CIA morale going to suffer from the Justice Department's opening of an investigation into the agency's use of harsh interrogation methods under the Bush Administration? To a degree, yes. But there's a stronger case that the CIA was damaged the moment the White House picked it to conduct the interrogation of "high value" al-Qaeda prisoners. What everyone seems to forget is that the CIA is a civilian intelligence organization never designed, trained, or staffed to interrogate prisoners ...

Sen. Edward "Ted" Kennedy didn't wear his faith on his sleeve, but those close to him say Catholicism was much more than an ethnic and cultural identity. Kennedy's family chose Boston's Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, also known as the Mission Church, for his funeral Mass on Saturday. The church held a special significance for the senator because he prayed there every day when his daughter, Kara, was diagnosed with cancer. Kennedy died Tuesday night after a 15-month ...

Sen. Ted Kennedy would have had a "very, very difficult" time politically surviving the drowning death of a young woman if it happened in the era of blogs, talk radio and 24-hour news cycles, experts said. Mary Jo Kopechne, 28, drowned after Kennedy drove his Oldsmobile off a bridge following a regatta party in July 1969. The incident on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, helped dash the youngest Kennedy brother's chances at the Oval Office in 1972 and 1980. ...

There was a poignant footnote to President Obama's historic July 10 meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican. Behind closed doors in the papal library, Obama handed Benedict a letter that Senator Edward Kennedy had asked him to personally deliver to the pontiff. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs later told reporters that nobody — not even the President — knew the contents of the sealed missive. Obama himself asked Benedict to pray for Kennedy, and called the ailing ...