Mr. Frist, a heart-lung transplant surgeon who said last month that he did not back expanding financing "at this juncture," announced his decision this morning in a lengthy Senate speech. He said that while he had reservations about altering Mr. Bush's four-year-old policy, which placed strict limits on taxpayer financing for the work, he supports the bill nonetheless.

"While human embryonic stem cell research is still at a very early stage, the limitations put in place in 2001 will, over time, slow our ability to bring potential new treatments for certain diseases," Mr. Frist said. "Therefore, I believe the president's policy should be modified." His speech received the approval of Democrats as well as Republicans.

"I admire the majority leader for doing this," Senator Harry Reid, the minority leader and Democrat of Nevada, said immediately after the speech. He and Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said Mr. Frist's stance would give hope to people everywhere. Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, contending they were discussing "the difference between life and death," said of Mr. Frist, "I believe the speech that he has just made on the Senate floor is the most important speech made this year, and perhaps the most important speech made in years."

He added: "This is a speech that will reverberate around the world, including at the White House."

Ken, go ahead.

Q Scott, last night on the Tonight Show, Jay Leno, who apparently is subbing for Johnnie, displayed a video of the President at the Capitol yesterday. In that video, the President walking away from the press lifts his hand and raises a finger. Mr. Leno interpreted it as, shall we say, a finger of hostility. Each of our fingers has a special purpose and meaning in life. (Laughter.) Can you tell us what finger it was he held up?

MR. McCLELLAN: Ken, I'm not even going to dignify that with much of a response. But if someone is misportraying something, that's unfortunate.

Q Well, it was not a finger of hostility?

MR. McCLELLAN: Ken, I was there with him, and I'm just not going to -- I'm not going to dignify that with a response. I mean, I haven't seen the video that you're talking about, but I know the way the President acts. And if someone is misportraying it, that's unfortunate.

Both men came to Britain as so many immigrants do, fleeing something else. The circumstances of their arrival, as well as the disclosures that both received social security benefits and state housing, incensed critics of a government asylum policy that, many say, has allowed anti-Western extremists to proliferate in Britain.

"Welcomed here as the dependents of asylum seekers, educated in our schools, taking full advantage of all the benefits this country so generously offers - now they want to destroy us," The Daily Mail, which has long fulminated against what it calls a too-generous asylum system, said in an editorial on Wednesday.

"Could there be a more chilling snapshot of the madness of a system implemented by successive governments that has left this country at the hands of murderous fanatics?" the editorial said.

The Bush administration is retooling its slogan for the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, pushing the idea that the long-term struggle is as much an ideological battle as a military mission, senior administration and military officials said Monday.

In recent speeches and news conferences, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the nation's senior military officer have spoken of "a global struggle against violent extremism" rather than "the global war on terror," which had been the catchphrase of choice. Administration officials say that phrase may have outlived its usefulness, because it focused attention solely, and incorrectly, on the military campaign.

New opinion polls show that the American public is increasingly pessimistic about the mission in Iraq, with many doubting its link to the counterterrorism mission. So, a new emphasis on reminding the public of the broader, long-term threat to the United States may allow the administration to put into broader perspective the daily mayhem in Iraq and the American casualties.

Johnson, a registered Republican who voted for Bush in 2000, said he and Plame have been friends since they began their training at the CIA in 1985. In Saturday's radio address, Johnson said he was "stunned" by government officials' "ignorance about a matter so basic to the national security structure of the nation."

He strongly responded to some Republican allegations that minimized Plame's role in the CIA. "We must put to bed the lie that she was not undercover," he said. "Instead of a president concerned first and foremost with protecting this country and the intelligence officers who serve it, we are confronted with a president who is willing to sit by while political operatives savage the reputations of good Americans like Valerie and Joe Wilson."

"We deserve people who work in the White House who are committed to protecting classified information, telling the truth to the American people and living by example the idea that a country at war with Islamic extremists cannot focus its efforts on attacking other American citizens who simply tried to tell the truth," Johnson added.

While Rice and el-Bashir were meeting, journalists were taken inside in groups to see the meeting for a photo opportunity. At first, only Sudanese journalists, not those from the United States, were allowed in. Later, U.S. journalists were allowed access in two separate groups. In the first group, authorities pulled one journalist's microphone out of her tape recorder.

Afterward, Sudanese officials came and apologized to the media. But when a journalist in the second group attempted to ask a question, she was pulled away and authorities intended to kick her out. CNN's Andrea Koppel said journalists and Rice's staff members were "pushed and pulled" in attempts to keep them out of the meeting. One of Rice's aides eventually said, "We have a free press in the U.S.," and a Sudanese official responded, "Well, we don't here," Koppel reported.

Arguing on behalf of the government for a roll back of abortion rights, Roberts has stated that there is "no support in the text, structure or history of the Constitution" for Roe v. Wade. Roberts wrote the government's brief in Rust v. Sullivan, the 1991 case in which the Supreme Court held that government could prohibit doctors and clinics who receive federal funds from discussing abortion with their patients. In his brief, Roberts said: "We continue to believe that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled."

A working draft of Iraq's new constitution would cede a strong role to Islamic law and could sharply curb women's rights, particularly in personal matters like divorce and family inheritance.

The document's writers are also debating whether to drop or phase out a measure enshrined in the interim constitution, co-written last year by the Americans, requiring that women make up at least a quarter of the parliament.

The grand jury asked about one of the more interesting lines in that e-mail, in which I refer to my conversation with Rove as being on "double super secret background," a line that's raised a few eyebrows ever since it leaked into the public domain. I told the grand jury that the phrase is not a journalistic term of art but a reference to the film Animal House, in which John Belushi's wild Delta House fraternity is placed on "double secret probation." ("Super" was my own addition.) In fact, I told the grand jury, Rove told me the conversation was on "deep background." I explained to the grand jury that I take the term to mean that I can use the material but not quote it, and that I must keep the identity of my source confidential.

As for Wilson's wife, I told the grand jury I was certain that Rove never used her name and that, indeed, I did not learn her name until the following week, when I either saw it in Robert Novak's column or Googled her, I can't recall which. Rove did, however, clearly indicate that she worked at the "agency"--by that, I told the grand jury, I inferred that he obviously meant the CIA and not, say, the Environmental Protection Agency. Rove added that she worked on "WMD" (the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction) issues and that she was responsible for sending Wilson. This was the first time I had heard anything about Wilson's wife.

Rove never once indicated to me that she had any kind of covert status. I told the grand jury something else about my conversation with Rove. Although it's not reflected in my notes or subsequent e-mails, I have a distinct memory of Rove ending the call by saying, "I've already said too much."

"I want to put to rest the speculation and unfounded rumors of my imminent retirement," said Rehnquist, 80, who is battling thyroid cancer. "I am not about to announce my retirement. I will continue to perform my duties as chief justice as long as my health permits."

Rehnquist's statement, initially issued today by his family and later confirmed by court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg, marks his first public comment about his plans since he disclosed in October that he had thyroid cancer. The statement came eight hours after Rehnquist was released from a Virginia hospital where he was treated for a fever.

Cancer experts have said Rehnquist's treatments -- chemotherapy, radiation and a tracheotomy -- suggest he may have anaplastic thyroid cancer, an especially aggressive form of the disease. Rehnquist hasn't disclosed his type of thyroid cancer.

McClellan at White House press conference: "No one wants to get to the bottom of this matter more than the President of the United States. If someone leaked classified information, the President wants to know. If someone in this administration leaked classified information, they will no longer be a part of this administration, because that's not the way this White House operates."

"I mean, my first thought when I heard -- just on a personal basis, when I heard there had been this attack and I saw the futures this morning, which were really in the tank, I thought, 'Hmmm, time to buy.'"

KILMEADE: And he [British Prime Minister Tony Blair] made the statement, clearly shaken, but clearly determined. This is his second address in the last hour. First to the people of London, and now at the G8 summit, where their topic Number 1--believe it or not--was global warming, the second was African aid. And that was the first time since 9-11 when they should know, and they do know now, that terrorism should be Number 1. But it's important for them all to be together. I think that works to our advantage, in the Western world's advantage, for people to experience something like this together, just 500 miles from where the attacks have happened.

VARNEY: It puts the Number 1 issue right back on the front burner right at the point where all these world leaders are meeting. It takes global warming off the front burner. It takes African aid off the front burner. It sticks terrorism and the fight on the war on terror, right up front all over again.

KILMEADE: Yeah.

Bush had asked State Atty. Bernie McCabe to investigate Schiavo's case after her autopsy last month. He said he now considers the state's involvement with the matter finished. In asking for the investigation, Bush had cited an alleged gap between when Schiavo's husband, Michael, found her and when he called 911. McCabe said, however, that Michael Schiavo's statements that he called 911 immediately had been consistent.

O'Connor, who plans to step down after 24 years, was the most business-friendly justice on the nine-member court. She voted to cut punitive damages, curb class-action lawsuits and enforce arbitration agreements against consumers. "As somebody who stands at the podium regularly on behalf of business, I always thought I had a sympathetic ear in Justice O'Connor," says Carter G. Phillips, a Washington lawyer with Sidley Austin Brown & Wood who has 45 Supreme Court arguments to his credit.

That may not hold true for O'Connor's replacement. Social conservatives, focused on such issues as abortion and gay marriage, want President George W. Bush to appoint a justice along the lines of Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. Their rule-oriented approach to the law often leads them to dismiss the more pragmatic concerns of businesses.

In business cases that divided the court over the past six terms, Scalia and Thomas opposed the views of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce twice as often as O'Connor did. In the 2002-03 term alone, Scalia and Thomas rejected business positions in cases involving Norfolk Southern Corp., Nike Inc., State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance industry. "Social conservatives admire Justices Scalia and Thomas, but Justices O'Connor and Kennedy have been much better for business interests," says Walter Dellinger, a Washington lawyer and Duke University law professor who was the Clinton administration's top Supreme Court lawyer. "Pragmatism works well for business. Ideology often does not."