this is an adventure

His voice shaking at times, Alex Rodriguez met head-on allegations that he tested positive for steroids six years ago, telling ESPN on Monday that he did take performance-enhancing drugs while playing for the Texas Rangers during a three-year period beginning in 2001.

The next words out of Alex Rodriguez’s mouth, the first since he was outed for steroids use by Sports Illustrated, will set the tone for how he is viewed for what’s left of his baseball career. He is expected to utter those words on ESPN, probably later Monday, probably with veteran baseball reporter Peter Gammons.

The bottom line is that there will be a cloture vote at about 5:30 this afternoon Eastern time — the vote in which Democrats, with the help of Republicans Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Arlen Specter, will barely top the 60-vote hurdle required to stop a filibuster. Before that, however, people are pretty much sitting […]

The Obama administration today today outlined a new campaign strategy for the war in Afghanistan, scaling back the ambitions of George Bush in a shift which senior officials and diplomats described as a “new realism”.