AP - California, always a leader in fashion and fads, is poised to become a national political trendsetter as well in 2008.

Reuters - Canada needs to improve social services for its aboriginal population, particularly native women who face persistent and marked inequalities, a United Nations panel said on Friday.

Reuters - The U.N. Security Council will decide whether to give Kosovo independence from Serbia, after U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari on Saturday declared an end to over a year of fruitless Serb-Albanian talks.

AP - Sen. Chuck Hagel, one of the more forceful Republican voices in opposition to the Iraq war, on Monday put off a decision about a possible presidential bid, saying he wanted to focus on the conflict and other pressing national issues.

AP - Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani picked up an endorsement Monday from Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, who said he's backing the former New York City mayor even though he disagrees with his stances on social issues.

AP - Ron Paul, a nine-term Texas congressman who describes himself as a lifelong libertarian, announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination Monday.

AP - The state has placed four counties on an election watch list because of serious voting problems in November and will seek court permission to directly supervise their next elections unless they fix the deficiencies, The Associated Press has learned.

AP - A House Republican leadership group said Monday that Democrats should retract an offer to let the nation's largest Islamic civil liberties organization use a Capitol conference room for a seminar.

AP - The closest thing Congress has to a peace movement — 71 liberals who want to yank Iraq funding and bring troops home swiftly — faces a dilemma: The lawmakers can back a Democratic plan they think is too weak, or they can block it and risk an embarrassing defeat for their cause.

AP - Democrats running Congress will likely not be able to pass climate legislation with mandatory limits on 'greenhouse' gases without help from President Bush, the chairman of the Senate's energy panel said Monday.

AP - Call it the presidential candidates' striptease. White House hopefuls aren't willing to just declare they're running, but rather are flirting with the idea as long as possible. First, they show some leg with an exploratory committee, then plenty of skin with a pronouncement on a faux news program or a late-night show and finally they bare all with a ruffles-and-flourish formal announcement.

AP - The three Army leaders dismissed so far:

AP - A civil rights organization wants Congress to closely examine what it says are abuses in existing guestworker programs before creating a new one to curb illegal immigration.

Reuters - The Afghan parliament passed a revised bill on Saturday that called for amnesty for groups involved in war crimes but also recognized the victims' right to seek justice, lawmakers said.

AP - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday denounced oil giant Halliburton's planned relocation to Dubai.

AP - Congressional Democrats on Monday singled out presidential adviser Karl Rove for questioning about the firings of eight federal prosecutors and whether the dismissals were politically motivated.

AP - House Democrats hope to breathe new life into open-government legislation, marking Sunshine Week with votes to protect whistle-blowers, smooth freedom of information requests and compel presidential libraries to disclose more about their donors. Efforts to shield reporters from revealing their sources are not faring so well.

AP - Safety problems with Vioxx could have been detected in months rather than years if the Food and Drug Administration had been able to sift through health-care information already compiled privately on one in three Americans.

Reuters - Angry and dismissive, Darfuris who fled their homes to the relative safety of overcrowded makeshift camps demand Khartoum hand over two war crimes suspects to an international court.

AP - House Republicans said Monday that Democrats should retract an offer to let the nation's largest Islamic civil liberties organization use a Capitol conference room for a seminar.

AP - House Democrats hope to breathe new life into open-government legislation, marking Sunshine Week with votes to protect whistle-blowers, smooth freedom of information requests and compel presidential libraries to disclose more about their donors. Efforts to shield reporters from revealing their sources are not faring so well.

AP - The closest thing Congress has to a peace movement — 71 liberals who want to yank Iraq funding and bring troops home swiftly — faces a dilemma: The lawmakers can back a Democratic plan they think is too weak, or they can block it and risk an embarrassing defeat for their cause.

AP - Ron Paul, a nine-term Texas congressman who describes himself as a lifelong libertarian, announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination Monday.

AP - The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday he considers homosexuality to be immoral and the military should not condone it by allowing gay personnel to serve openly, the Chicago Tribune reported.