WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate and House of Representatives panels approved competing tax cut bills on Tuesday setting the stage for a congressional battle over President George W. Bush's tax and spending priorities.

AP - President Bush's efforts to paint Democrats as hypocrites for criticizing the Iraq war after they once warned that Saddam Hussein was a grave threat could backfire on Republicans.

AP - Tax reductions of about $60 billion being considered by the Senate highlight internal divisions between Republican moderates trying to restrain budget deficits and others pressing ahead with tax cuts.

AP - Efforts to stem America's appetite for oil, nearly two-thirds of it imported, is getting new attention in Congress with a push from an unusual coalition of environmentalists, evangelical Christians and conservatives.

Reuters - NATO's top military authority has agreed to proposals for closer cooperation in Afghanistan between its ISAF peacekeeping force and the U.S.-led coalition fighting insurgents, NATO sources said on Monday.

AP - Senate votes reflecting a growing bipartisan unease with President Bush's war policies in Iraq present a dilemma for GOP House leaders who tend to toe the administration line on defense issues.

USATODAY.com - An internal report by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting found evidence that former chairman Kenneth Tomlinson 'violated statutory provisions and the Director's Code of Ethics' as he tried to address what he saw as a lack of objectivity and balance in public broadcasting programs.

Reuters - Legislation to create a $140 billion fund to compensate asbestos victims will be one of the first legislative issues before the U.S. Senate next year, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's office said on Wednesday.

AFP - Two top US government officials will travel to Australia this week in the hope of broadening a bilateral security alliance and cooperation on a host of regional and economic issues, ranging from free trade to a bird flu scare, the State Department announced.

AP - Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on Wednesday said he has "significant concerns" about Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, calling President Bush's latest choice one of the most conservative judges in the United States.

AP - Former Rep. Baron Hill said he will run to reclaim his seat after narrowly losing last year to Republican Mike Sodrel.

Reuters - Legislation to create a $140 billion fund to compensate asbestos victims will be one of the first legislative issues before the U.S. Senate next year, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said on Wednesday.

AP - Text of Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward's statement regarding his testimony in the case of the leak of a CIA operative's name, as published by The Washington Post:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday approved the nomination of Ben Bernanke to be chairman of the Federal Reserve, sending it to the full Senate for a final confirming vote.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Wednesday backed an amendment to pension legislation that would give airlines 20 years to fix funding shortfalls in the pension plans they sponsor.

AP - House and Senate negotiators struck a tentative deal on the expiring Patriot Act that would curb FBI subpoena power and require the Justice Department to more fully report its secret requests for information about ordinary people, according to officials involved in the talks.

AP - Two proposed bridges in Alaska that became symbols of the excesses of old fashioned 'pork barrel' politics would get the ax — sort of — under a deal emerging on a major transportation spending bill.

AFP - The US Senate banking committee cleared top White House economist Ben Bernanke to succeed Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve chairman, officials said.

AP - Police on Tuesday arrested Hissene Habre, the former dictator of Chad who was wanted on an international war crimes warrant 15 years after his fall from power in the destitute central African country.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. Congress said on Wednesday they were moving ahead with legislation that would speed up executions in the United States by limiting the ability of those sentenced to death to appeal to federal courts.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate approved on Wednesday a bill aimed at strengthening the funding of traditional corporate pensions and shoring up the deficit-ridden agency that insures such plans.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Prime Minister Paul Martin pledged on Wednesday to tell U.S. President George W. Bush that Canada is 'in the right' on a softwood lumber dispute and that the United States should give in on duties on the lumber.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mandatory funding for two controversial bridge projects in Alaska -- including the ridiculed 'bridge to nowhere' -- has been stripped from a federal spending bill, a congressional committee said on Wednesday.

AP - House and Senate negotiators have struck a tentative deal on the expiring Patriot Act that would curb the FBI's investigative power and require the Justice Department to more fully report its secret requests for information about ordinary people.

AP - Former President Clinton told Arab students Wednesday the United States made a 'big mistake' when it invaded Iraq, stoking the partisan debate back home over the war.

AP - New Hampshire Democrats are fighting efforts by some in their party to insert presidential caucuses between Iowa and their own state's leadoff primary.

AFP - Senior Democrats stepped up their attacks on US President George W. Bush's Supreme Court pick, judge Samuel Alito, charging Alito with being a right-wing conservative ideologue.

AP - President Bush's already embattled policy to shape postwar Iraq as an ethnically balanced democratic state faces a new hurdle after the discovery of a secret jail in which Sunni prisoners may have been tortured.

AP - The chief executives of five major oil companies were asked Wednesday to clarify their recent Senate testimony about the companies' involvement in Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force four years ago.

AP - Vice President Dick Cheney added his voice on Wednesday to the chorus of Republican criticism of Democrats who have accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence on Iraq, calling it 'one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city.'

AP - President Bush's efforts to paint Democrats as hypocrites for criticizing the Iraq war after they once warned that Saddam Hussein was a grave threat could backfire on Republicans.

AP - There is more evidence of questionable work on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada, an Energy Department inspector general's report said Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Legislation aimed at strengthening traditional corporate pensions and shoring up the deficit-ridden pension insurance agency was easily approved by the U.S. Senate on Wednesday with a generous exemption for struggling airlines.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The insurance regulators of California, New York, Florida and Illinois said on Wednesday they have a framework plan for a national program to provide insurance for catastrophic events, excluding acts of terrorism.

MADRID (Reuters) - The United States has told Spain it has 'no knowledge' of CIA planes using a Spanish airport as a base to transport Islamic terrorism suspects, the Spanish government said on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA leak probe on Wednesday ensnared Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, who disclosed that he was told about CIA operative Valerie Plame nearly a month before her secret identity was revealed and apologized to his editor for keeping him in the dark.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Wednesday passed and sent to President George W. Bush a $52 billion bill that would increase funding for law enforcement activities for the fiscal year that began on October 1.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chief sponsors of a Senate bill threatening China with a 27.5 percent tariff on its exports to the United States said on Wednesday they would delay a promised vote on the bill until March 31 at the latest.

AP - Democrats said on Wednesday that Samuel Alito's confirmation was not guaranteed as senators kept the focus on a 20-year-old document in which the Supreme Court nominee asserted that the Constitution "does not protect a right to an abortion."

AP - Prosecutors in Rep. Tom DeLay's conspiracy and money laundering case on Wednesday denied allegations that they coerced a grand jury to indict the former House majority leader.

Reuters - The Bush administration will provide up to $20 million this year to help Colombia disarm and re-train former members of groups on the State Department's terrorism list, a move that could have implications for the broader U.S. war on terrorism.