BLOOMBERG: Crude oil fell from near a record as Iran said it gave a ``constructive'' response to incentives intended to persuade the nation to stop uranium enrichment. A compromise may allay concern that Israel is ready to attack Iran's nuclear installations, starting a conflict likely to cut supply from OPEC's second-largest oil producer. Futures climbed to a record $145.85 a barrel yesterday on speculation tension in the Middle East may worsen.

Full story

SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS: Badly wounded and woozy from medication in a chopper speeding over Baghdad, Iraq, Staff Sgt. Sophia Mitchell softly sang the “I Love You” song she and her daughter had made up. “They must have thought I was high on the morphine,” Mitchell said.

Full story

HOUSTON CHRONICLE: Se habla straight talk? In a day of sight-seeing, meetings and mixed messages in Mexico's capital, John McCain called Thursday for keeping the border open for business but shutting it tight against undocumented migrants and illegal narcotics.

Full story

THE HILL: The Senate Republican leadership, amid a negative public relations campaign being waged by Democrats and the nation’s physicians, urged Thursday that the Senate act quickly on a short-term solution to a cut in Medicare fees to doctors.

Full story

THE HILL: An assortment of food groups, from soft drink makers to chicken producers, urged President Bush to suspend an import tariff on Brazilian sugarcane ethanol as a way to reduce demand for the corn-based variety produced domestically. The competition for corn is increasing due to higher ethanol production requirements mandated by Congress in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, the groups argue. The result is an “unforeseen and severe feed grains inflation,” they said in a letter to Bush.

Full story

THE HILL: The standoff between the House and the Bush administration over the congressional testimony of top White House aides continued on Thursday when House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) threatened to hold Karl Rove in contempt if he follows through on his refusal to respond to a committee subpoena.

Full story

WASHINGTON POST: The Bush administration is developing a long-range plan to empty the Guantanamo Bay military prison that could include asking Congress to spell out procedures for scores of suspected terrorists whom the government does not plan to bring to trial, administration officials and others familiar with high-level White House discussions on the issue said yesterday.

Full story

WASHINGTON POST: Joe Hagin, the little known but influential White House staffer who supervised the renovation of the Situation Room and planned President Bush's secret trips to Iraq, surprised colleagues yesterday with his resignation. "It's time to move on," Hagin told colleagues yesterday in an e-mail informing them he had accepted a corporate job that will involve spending time in Washington and Chicago.

Full story

WASHINGTON POST: Employers cut 62,000 jobs in June, marking the sixth consecutive month that the nation has shed jobs, according to a government report released yesterday, deepening concern that the struggling U.S. economy could turn worse before it gets better. The collapse in the real estate and mortgage industries, coupled with the specter of inflation fueled by the rising price of oil and other commodities, has crimped employers and left top policymakers and private analysts convinced that the economy is in for a prolonged period of sluggishness.

Full story

WASHINGTON POST: A flurry of recent research indicating that Vitamin D may have a dizzying array of health benefits has reignited an intense debate over whether federal guidelines for the "sunshine vitamin" are outdated, leaving millions unnecessarily vulnerable to cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other ailments. The studies have produced evidence that low levels of Vitamin D make men more likely to have heart attacks, breast and colon cancer victims less likely to survive, kidney disease victims more likely to die, and children more likely to develop diabetes.

Full story

WASHINGTON POST: Think you're worried about the economy? Phillip Swagel is a wreck. The assistant Treasury secretary for economic policy, Swagel came out for his monthly economic briefing yesterday, 90 minutes after the Labor Department reported that the country had shed jobs in June for the sixth straight month.

Full story

WASHINGTON POST: Sen. John McCain's trip to Colombia and Mexico this week made one thing clear: The shape of the United States' relationship with Latin America will hinge on the outcome of the 2008 election. The Republican presidential candidate and his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, have outlined sharply contrasting visions of how they would conduct relations in the hemisphere.

Full story

WASHINGTON POST: Government workers repeatedly snooped without authorization inside the electronic passport records of entertainers, athletes and other high-profile Americans, a State Department audit has found. One celebrity's records were breached 356 times by more than six dozen people. The audit, by State's inspector general, was prompted by the discovery in March that three of the department's contract workers had peeked at the private passport files of Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain and that a State Department trainee had examined the file of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Full story

WASHINGTON TIMES: Conservative black pastors nationwide are caught between irreconcilable opposites - congregations that overwhelmingly favor Sen. Barack Obama versus their personal doubts about the Illinois Democrat's politics, particularly on abortion. "It's a theological contradiction, from the Christian perspective, to be excited about Obama," said the Rev. Levon Yuille, pastor of the 100-member Bible Church in Ypsilanti, Mich. "Very few black pastors have problems supporting Obama because they are fixated on this race thing."

Full story

WASHINGTON TIMES: Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's campaign swing this week through Republican-leaning Western states appears to be paying off, as a new poll shows he is leading Republican Sen. John McCain by five percentage points in Montana in the race for president. A Rasmussen Reports poll released Thursday shows the Illinois senator attracting 48 percent of the vote in the mountain state, compared with 43 percent for Mr. McCain.

Full story

WASHINGTON TIMES: Soaring gasoline prices, tumbling stocks, the war, the nukes, the bickering between political parties as trouble looms. It is not the most serene Fourth of July on record, certainly. Yet, despite collective and persistent anxieties, the nation's patriotism remains very much intact. Alive and well, in fact.

Full story

WASHINGTON TIMES: At an Egyptian resort this week, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe preened with the other African leaders, seemingly oblivious to Security Council calls echoed by his peers that he negotiate with the opposition after a flawed election. In Sudan's western Darfur region, a few thousand African peacekeepers continue to wait in parched misery for the 31,000 U.N.-backed reinforcements that the Sudanese government agreed to accept and were slated to begin arriving in December.

Full story

NEW YORK TIMES: Lis and Robert Billingsley — retirees, volunteers and proud American Legion members — said they had exactly one word to describe sales this holiday period at the fireworks stand they run here for the Legion. “Lousy,” said Ms. Billingsley, speaking almost in unison with her husband. “Thanks to the TV and the fires they are putting on the TV, it’s the worst year ever.”

Full story

LOS ANGELES TIMES: Barack Obama struggled Thursday to explain his plan to end the war in Iraq, calling a rare do-over news conference to insist that he was not softening his campaign pledge to withdraw all combat troops within 16 months of becoming president. "That position has not changed. I have not equivocated on that position. I have not searched for maneuvering room with respect to that position," he said.

Full story

LOS ANGELES TIMES: The Bush administration is locked in an internal debate over whether to present Congress with proposed legislation that would allow suspected terrorists to be held in the United States -- a possible first step toward closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- according to current and former officials. The officials said the administration was not on the verge of shutting down Guantanamo. But the legislation under debate could make it easier to move some suspects to the United States by lessening the risk that federal courts would set them free in Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., or Charleston, S.C.

Full story

NEW YORK TIMES: The nation’s employers eliminated tens of thousands of jobs in June for the sixth consecutive month in a steady chipping away of the work force that seems likely to leave the economy very weak through Election Day. Responding quickly to the government employment report, issued Thursday, the presidential candidates called for action, beyond the recent stimulus package, to reverse the deterioration. In past downturns, the Federal Reserve saved the day, or tried to, by cutting interest rates.

Full story

NEW YORK TIMES: A federal judge has ordered Google to turn over to Viacom its records of which users watched which videos on YouTube, the Web’s largest video site by far. The order raised concerns among YouTube users and privacy advocates that the video viewing habits of tens of millions of people could be exposed. But Google and Viacom said they were hoping to come up with a way to protect the anonymity of the site’s visitors.

Full story

NEW YORK TIMES: On the field before the All-Star Game, Major League Baseball plans to assemble the largest gathering of Hall of Fame players in baseball history. And as fans salute their heroes, the former players will join the crowd in saluting the American flag — one that is roughly 75 feet by 150 feet, as long as a 15-story building is tall, spread horizontally over the Yankee Stadium turf.

Full story

NEW YORK TIMES: As chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Michael E. O’Neill helped steer the Supreme Court nominations of John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr. through the confirmation process. An expert on judicial nominations, Mr. O’Neill later spoke with pride to a legal magazine about helping place “some difficult federal judicial nominees” onto the lower federal courts.

Full story

NEW YORK TIMES: Senator Barack Obama said Thursday that he might “refine” his policies for Iraq after meeting with military commanders there later this summer. But hours later he held a second news conference to emphasize his commitment to the withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.

Full story

NEW YORK TIMES: At 5 a.m. on Wednesday, the sun had yet to peek through the jungle canopy in this country’s Guaviare Department when the guerrillas told their captives to gather their belongings. A call had come in from a top adviser to Alfonso Cano, their new supreme commander. He said to move. Immediately.

Full story