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WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats say they will press for a vote as early as Tuesday to address a $1 billion shortfall in the budget for veterans’ health care programs. Two congressional panels have summoned Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson (search) to Capitol Hill to testify about the VA’s miscalculation of …

NEW YORK – Saddam Hussein (search) loves Doritos, hates Froot Loops, admires President Reagan, thinks Clinton was “OK” and considers both Presidents Bush “no good.” He talks a lot, worries about germs and insists he is still president of Iraq. Those and other details of the deposed Iraqi leader’s life …

ELTON, La. – A casino-rich tribe wrote checks for at least $55,000 to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s (search) political groups, but the donations were never publicly disclosed and the tribe was directed to divert the money to other groups that helped Republicans, tribal documents show. Lobbyist Jack Abramoff (search), …

ANKARA, Turkey – Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (search) said Friday he was disappointed by the failure of European Union constitutional referendums but Turkey was determined to press forward with its efforts to join the bloc. Erdogan, speaking in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press ahead of a meeting …

SANTIAGO, Chile – Chile sent cargo planes with medicine and tents Tuesday to a northern Andean (search) region rocked by an earthquake that killed at least 11 people, including a family of six buried by a landslide. The magnitude 7.9 quake, the world’s third-strongest since the temblor that set off …

WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld (search ) defended the military’s handling of detained terror suspects Wednesday while acknowledging that some have been mistreated, “sometimes grievously.” At a Pentagon news conference, Rumsfeld criticized Amnesty International, the human rights group, for calling the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, …

TRENTON, N.J. – For 13 straight months at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center (search), not one patient on a ventilator has developed pneumonia (search). Not impressed? You should be. Typically there is a case of pneumonia every week among ventilator patients at busy ICUs, and up to 40 percent of …

DETROIT – General Motors Corp.’s (GM) “Employee Discount for Everyone (search)” consumer incentives program has given the struggling auto giant a bit of relief in June, boosting its U.S. sales as much as 30 percent, analysts say. Moving the metal at bargain-basement prices is unlikely to bolster GM’s profits, however. …

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A Sunni Arab (search) politician said Tuesday two insurgent groups were willing to negotiate with the government, possibly opening a new political front in embattled Iraq (search). But a string of coordinated deadly bombings signaled that militants remain fierce. The former Cabinet minister said he had established …

ROME – Efforts to loosen Italy’s assisted-fertility laws in a national referendum appeared likely to fail Monday because of low voter turnout that could invalidate the balloting — a result that would be a victory for the Vatican’s boycott campaign. The referendum won’t count unless turnout over the two days …