The Christian Science Monitor - In its efforts this week to bring clarity to the confusion surrounding the Bush administration's military tribunals, the US Senate might also have helped to make the controversial process a fixture of American law.

AP - A former Bosnian Muslim army commander was acquitted of war crimes charges Wednesday relating to the massacres of Croat civilians during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

AP - Tinkering again with enforcement of the No Child Left Behind education law, the government plans to let some states fundamentally change how they measure yearly student progress.

Reuters - The U.N. war crimes tribunal on Wednesday acquitted Sefer Halilovic, the highest-ranking Bosnian Muslim yet to stand trial in The Hague, of war crimes.

AP - Vice President Dick Cheney is not the unidentified source who told Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward about the CIA status of the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, a person familiar with the investigation said Thursday.

AP - A $60 billion bill the Senate passed to continue expiring tax cuts and shelter 14 million families from higher taxes faces a White House veto threat because it also lincludes a hefty tax increase for oil companies.

AFP - The war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic was suspended for an indefinite period after the 64-year-old former Yugoslav president complained of ill-health.

AP - National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley won't say if he was the source who told Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward that Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. But Hadley volunteered on Friday that some administration officials say he's not the leaker.

Reuters - The U.S. Senate on Friday passed a bill to continue a program of federal guarantees to cover losses from terrorist attacks, pushing the program nearer to extension before its year-end expiration.

AP - A $60 billion bill the Senate passed to continue expiring tax cuts and shelter 14 million families from higher taxes faces a White House veto threat because it also includes a hefty tax increase for oil companies.

AP - A U.S. field commander in Iraq countered calls by a usually pro-military congressman for withdrawal of Americans fighting there Friday, while Democrats defended Rep. John Murtha as a patriot even as they declined to back his view.

AP - The prosecutor in the CIA leak investigation offered a compromise that might give the news media access to some of the evidence against former White House aide I. Lewis Libby before his trial.

AFP - The US House of Representatives narrowly approved a Republican-backed deficit reduction bill that trims about 50 billion dollars in spending over five years, much of it from social programs.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Friday to kill a trade program that has paid more than $1 billion to U.S. companies since 2000 and been declared illegal by the World Trade Organization.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Friday boosted the borrowing authority of the government's flood insurance program to $18.5 billion from $3.5 billion to cover claims from Hurricane Katrina and other flood disasters.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Friday approved a resolution to keep the federal government running through December 17 as Congress struggled to complete work on outstanding spending bills.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Friday, put his weight behind reviving a $1 billion dairy subsidy for farmers, supporting a two-year extension like that already approved by the U.S. Senate in a broad federal budget-cutting bill.

AP - House Republicans, sensing an opportunity for political advantage, maneuvered for a quick vote and swift rejection Friday of a Democratic lawmaker's call for an immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq.

AP - In a blow to the Bush administration, South Korean defense officials say they are seeking to reduce their troop contribution in Iraq — the second-largest among U.S. coalition partners — by nearly one-third next year.

AP - The Red Cross is free to visit detainees at Guanatano Bay but the United States will not permit visits by U.N. human rights experts 'just to avoid a row,' the State Department said Friday.

AP - Education Secretary Margaret Spellings told state school chiefs Friday that some of them will win freedom in the area they worry about most: showing student progress. But every child, she said, must still be up to par in reading and math by 2014.

AP - The Supreme Court will release audio tapes immediately after argument sessions in upcoming cases involving abortion rights and a protest of the Pentagon's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy for gays.

Reuters - A United Nations human rights envoy on Wednesday called for an independent probe into the murders of two of Saddam Hussein's defense lawyers in Iraq.

AP - Text of President Bush's proclamation of Nov. 24 as Thanksgiving Day.

AP - Congress agreed Friday to place a statue of civil rights leader Rosa Parks in the Capitol's Statuary Hall.

AP - For President Bush, there's no respite from Iraq. Even traveling in Asia, he's had to deal with an Iraq rebuff from a friend, South Korea, and with turmoil over his policies back home.

AP - A charge that Rep. Tom DeLay conspired to violate the election code should not be dismissed, prosecutors said Friday.

AP - A court set up by Sudan to try war crimes in its violence-plagued Darfur region issued its first sentences Wednesday, condemning to death two soldiers in the torture killing of a Sudanese citizen.

AP - The Republican-controlled Congress helped itself to a $3,100 pay raise on Friday, then postponed work on bills to curb spending on social programs and cut taxes in favor of a two-week vacation.

AP - U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts took a break from his high court duties Friday to hear second-year law school students argue fictional cases, and to offer a little personal advice.

AP - In Syria, even the prisoners are supporting the government in its standoff with the United Nations: They're on a three-day hunger strike to express solidarity.