Representative John Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania, is a decorated veteran, a member of the House Armed Services Committee and a longtime hawk on defense matters. So Washington had a rude awakening when he declared on Nov. 17 that the time had come for the United States to withdraw its troops from

Botanists in a greenhouse can cross a white flower with a red flower and raise generations of pink flowers that do not revert to red or white. This experiment provides a tiny example of evolution, but it provokes no debate because it was observed happening. The situation was different in 1859, when

Mean-spiritedthat is the only way to describe the budget cuts proposed by the House of Representatives. They are not only deep; their impact will be felt most by the very people who are least able to sustain them, namely, the poorest: low-income working parents, the elderly, children and legal immig

On June 26, 1997, at least 47 states had laws banning assisted suicides. These laws were aimed mainly at physicians who prescribed lethal medicines for patients who wanted to end their lives because of their great miseries. In two states, Washington and New York, those bans had been overruled by low

The Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, complained bitterly that it was a political stunt. He was referring to the invocation by the minority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, of Senate rules to call the body into secret session to discuss the failure of the Senate Int

The logjam of denials about the torture and abuse of prisoners in U.S. detention sites in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo has finally been broken. Capt. Ian Fishback’s letter in September to Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, has cleared the way for steps that may at last establish

Election reform is needed in the United States on several levels, both because of inequities in the present system and because of low voter turnoutone of the lowest in the world. The period from 1960 to 2000 marked a long decline: whereas 65 percent of the adult population voted in the 1960 presiden

On October 28, 1965, during the fourth and last session of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), Pope Paul VI formally promulgated the council’s Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions. Like other documents promulgated by the council, it would be identified b

Last month the nation observed for the first time Constitution Day. Some school administrators confessed that they were not aware of recent legislation that requires all public schools and colleges to sponsor an annual program on the Constitution on or around Sept. 17, the date in 1787 when the Cons

As the U.S. Senate began its confirmation debate on President Bush’s nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. for chief justice of the Supreme Court, the outcome of that debate seemed assured: Judge Roberts would be confirmed as the nation’s 17th chief justice with overwhelming approval b