For all the talk about the here and now in Congress, the buzz of the presidential race was loud.
With star-powered names like Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain walking the Capitol corridors, the overtones of the next election were unmistakable as Democrats basked in their newfound control of the House and Senate.
Yet, the high-profile presidential wannabes sought to put the focus on their current jobs -- rather than the one they want on Jan. 20, 2009.
"I wish everyone would take a deep breath and worry about tomorrow and the next two days and the next two weeks and the next two months instead of the next two years," Democratic Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, said on Thursday after being sworn in for a second term.
Republican Senator John Mc-Cain, begged off questions about the timing of an official presidential announcement, saying the coming weeks would be largely devoted to Iraq policy and his new post as the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"We're kind of focusing a lot of attention on all that right now," he said.
And, Democratic Senator Ba-rack Obama punted presidential queries and emphasized the need to make progress this year on several policy areas, including energy and health care.
"A couple of issues we talked about ... are on everybody's minds. And we should come up with some reasonable solutions," he said after Republicans and Democrats held a private meeting in the Old Senate Chamber.
Still, the presidential chatter filled the halls. It no doubt will persist through the year, given that Congress is filled with presidential hopefuls -- some political celebrities and others little-known long-shots -- in the first wide-open White House race in a half-century.
Running for president from the House and Senate is extremely difficult, in part because lawmakers have voting records that can be picked apart by opponents and used to twist a candidate's positions.
Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004 and a potential 2008 candidate, learned that cruel lesson when President George W. Bush's re-election campaign seized on the senator's votes from his decades-long career to argue that he habitually flip-flopped on various issues. Kerry lost the race.
The last senator to win the presidency was Senator John Kennedy in 1960.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not