Sometime this spring, Republicans turned against unemployment. In Nevada, Sharron Angle (R), the candidate facing incumbent Sen. Harry Reid (D), told local reporters, “You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job.” (Untrue.) Angle also called the unemployed “spoiled.”

Rand Paul, a candidate for a Kentucky Senate seat, made similar statements, and politicians in Washington followed suit. Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said on C-SPAN that extending unemployment would discourage “individuals that are out there to actually go out and go through the interviews.”

But unlike most comments from politicians, these criticisms did not diffuse into the generic noise of political chatter. They began reverberating in what might be termed the unemployed netroots — a system of highly trafficked, influential blogs and sites connecting the jobless and updating them, often in minute detail, about the ins and outs of Congress’ work on unemployment issues.

When Jordan, a former programmer living in Nevada, lost his position with a local university, he began sending out resumes, but he also found himself following the eight-month battle for an unemployment extension closely — each failed Senate vote, each new House proposal. (He requested I withhold his last name to avoid impeding his job search.) Online, he started surfing list-servs, posting on message boards and using resources from the unemployed. A few times, he has worked up the courage to call his legislators’ offices.

Jordan has searched hard for a job and is now considering moving away from his family for a few months, if it means he can send home a paycheck. “I have voted Republican my entire life,” he says. “I don’t want to vote for Harry Reid. But I don’t want to be told I’m lazy, and I’m dumb, and I’m living high on the hog, collecting [unemployment insurance] because I want to.”

There are more than 30 million people left without work at some point during the course of the recession; 14.6 million are currently unemployed. As many as 4 million people have exhausted the maximum weeks of federal and state unemployment benefits. In each case, Jordan is among these millions, and for an uncountable number of people like him, the experience with income insecurity has led to a political awakening.

Among the biggest sites in the unemployment netroots is LayoffList, managed by Michael Thornton, a native of Rochester, N.Y. Thornton started LayoffList in 2008; five months ago, he began writing articles and posting legislators’ information on the Rochester Unemployment Examiner. He now receives hundreds of emails and has logged more than a million hits at the Examiner. Thornton is finding that, rather than losing interest in politics since the end of the fight for extended benefits, the unemployed are “energized and motivated” and have started looking forward to the fall.

“Even Republicans say they aren’t voting Republican anymore,” the soft-spoken former technical writer says. “You have millions of unemployed people out there. If even half of them voted, they could swing a nationwide election.”

Paladinette — the online “zealot for the unemployed” also known as LaDona King — has taken the battle over the unemployment extension as more of a call to arms. She routinely publishes phone numbers, fax numbers and email addresses of lawmakers to target, rallying her thousands of online supporters to the cause. King personally calls 25 or 30 legislators’ offices a day. Sometimes, when she posts lawmakers’ numbers or picks out a particularly egregious example of a legislator blocking a vote or putting down the unemployed, her followers flood a Senate or House office with phone calls. The same goes for LayoffList. At one point, Thornton published the name and number of a House staffer working on unemployment legislation. Soon after, the staffer called and begged him to take it down, he says.

“They’re all concerned about their re-election,” King says. “We’re making sure the Republicans get blasted for their obstructionist behavior. … We have tons of people calling, faxing, emailing.”

“We’re lobbyists in training,” she laughs. “Without all that money!”

During the eight month battle to extend unemployment insurance, with the unemployment rate peaking over 10 percent, huge online networks of the unemployed came into fruition. Now, coming into the fall and the midterms, King and other grassroots organizers for the unemployed are hooking up with formal organizing groups to add institutional oomph to the effort. They say they do not want to let the long battle for simple extensions go to waste.

Already, a number of unions and other organizations have created dedicated working groups or online organizations for the jobless. Last year, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, a labor union, founded the Ur Union of Unemployed, or U-Cubed, for jobless workers. Additionally, the AFL-CIO’s Working America affiliate has launched Unemployment Lifeline, an online site to rally and organize the unemployed.

Working America is “the biggest organization for the unemployed,” according to spokesman Robert Fox. By the union’s own count, 500,000 of its 3.2 million members are currently jobless, and the group is going door-to-door, recruiting more members from the ranks of the unemployed.

“We spend most of our time demanding the reform of banks, demanding good jobs, and trying to make sure that there’s investment being made in our communities,” says Fox. But come this fall, “We’re going to be engaging our members fully, making sure they’re aware of which candidates to support.”

“We have the ability to make sure a lot of unemployed folks know where politicians stand, who is voting against making investments in jobs, who needs to hear from unemployed workers and who needs to hear from them twice,” he says.

Likewise, U-Cubed is readying unemployed workers to call out politicians and candidates stumping in their home states during the August recess, planning to visit events in Wichita, Ks., and the west coast.

The push from the unemployment netroots has already started. Upon hearing that Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) might attempt to move legislation for unemployed workers who have exhausted their benefits this week, Paladinette urged her followers to start calling possible swing votes — Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe (Maine), Susan Collins (Maine), Scott Brown (Mass.) and Charles Grassley (Iowa).

And she says she is gearing up to push her followers to attend rallies starting next week. “We don’t want to be like the Tea Partiers,” she says, noting their small-government views, “Just sort of.”

KABUL, Afghanistan — Three U.S. troops died in blasts in Afghanistan, bringing the death toll for July to at least 63 and surpassing the previous month's record as the deadliest for American forces in the nearly 9-year-old war.

In Kabul, police fired weapons into the air Friday to disperse a crowd of angry Afghans who shouted "death to America," hurled stones and set fire to two vehicles after an SUV was involved in a traffic accident that killed four Afghans on the main airport road, according to the capital's criminal investigations chief, Abdul Ghaafar Sayedzada.

SUVs are often associated with foreigners, but it remained unclear who caused the accident because the occupants fled the scene. Sayedzada said two foreigners' vehicles at the scene were burned by the crowd.

A fatal traffic accident caused by a U.S. military convoy in 2006 triggered an anti-American riot in Kabul that left at least 14 people dead and dozens injured.

The three U.S. service members died in two separate blasts in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, a NATO statement said Friday. It gave no nationalities, but U.S. officials said all three were Americans. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity pending notification of kin.

U.S. and NATO commanders had warned casualties would rise as the international military force ramps up the war against the Taliban, especially in their southern strongholds in Helmand and Kandahar provinces. President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 reinforcements to Afghanistan last December in a bid to turn back a resurgent Taliban.

British and Afghan troops launched a new offensive Friday in the Sayedebad area of Helmand to try to deny insurgents a base from which to launch attacks in Nad Ali and Marjah, the British military announced. Coalition and Afghan troops have sought to solidify control of Marjah after overrunning the poppy-farming community five months ago.

In Kabul, a crowd threw stones and set fire to an SUV after a traffic accident Friday in which two Afghans were killed and two were injured, according to traffic official Abdul Saboor. SUVs are associated with foreigners, but Saboor said the occupants of the vehicle fled the scene.

The tally of 63 American service member deaths in July is based on military reports compiled by The Associated Press. June had been the deadliest month for both the U.S. and the overall NATO-led force. A total of 104 international service members died last month, including 60 Americans.

The American deaths this month include Petty Officer 2nd Class Justin McNeley from Kingman, Arizona, and Petty Officer 3rd Class Jarod Newlove, 25, from the Seattle area. They went missing last week in Logar province south of Kabul, and the Taliban announced they were holding one of the sailors.

McNeley's body was recovered there Sunday, and Newlove's body was pulled from a river Wednesday evening, Afghan officials said. The Taliban offered no explanation for Newlove's death, but Afghan officials speculated he died of wounds suffered when the two were ambushed by the Taliban.

The discovery of Newlove's body only deepened the mystery of the men's disappearance nearly 60 miles (100 kilometers) from their base in Kabul. An investigation is under way, but with both sailors dead, U.S. authorities remain at a loss to explain what two junior enlisted men in noncombat jobs were doing driving alone in Logar — much of which is not under government control.

Newlove's father, Joseph Newlove, told KOMO-TV in Seattle he too was baffled why his son had left the relative safety of Kabul.

"He's never been out of that town. So why would he go out of that town? He wouldn't have," he said.

Senior military officials in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, said the sailors were never assigned anywhere near where their bodies were found.

A NATO official in Kabul shot down speculation the two were abducted in Kabul and driven to Logar — the same province where New York Times reporter David Rohde was kidnapped in 2008 while trying to make contact with a Taliban commander. Rohde and an Afghan colleague escaped in June 2009 after seven months in captivity, most spent in Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan.

Samer Gul, chief of Logar's Charkh district, said the two sailors, in a four-wheel drive armored SUV, were seen Friday a week ago by a guard working for the district chief's office. The guard tried to flag down the vehicle, carrying a driver and a passenger, but it kept going, Gul said.

Gul said there is a well-paved road that leads into the Taliban area and suggested the Americans may have mistaken that for the main highway — which is much older and more dilapidated.

Elsewhere, violence continued Friday.

Four Afghan civilians were killed and three were injured when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in Zabul province of southern Afghanistan, provincial spokesman Mohammed Jan Rasoolyar said. When police arrived at the scene, Taliban fighters opened fire. One insurgent was killed, the spokesman said.

In Kandahar, a candidate in September's parliamentary election escaped assassination Friday when a bomb planted on a motorcycle exploded, city security chief Fazil Ahmad Sherzad said. The Interior Ministry said a woman and a child were killed and another child was wounded.

KABUL, Afghanistan — A second U.S. Navy sailor who went missing in a dangerous part of eastern Afghanistan was found dead and his body recovered, a senior U.S. military official and Afghan officials said Thursday.

The family of Petty Officer 3rd Class Jarod Newlove, a 25-year-old from the Seattle area, had been notified of his death, the U.S. military official said on condition of anonymity, because he was not authorized to disclose the information.

Newlove and Petty Officer 2nd Class Justin McNeley went missing last Friday in Logar province. NATO recovered the body of McNeley — a 30-year-old father of two from Wheat Ridge, Colorado — in the area Sunday.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press in Kabul on Thursday that two days ago the Taliban left the "body of a dead American soldier for the U.S. forces" to recover. The Taliban said McNeley was killed in a firefight and insurgents had captured Newlove. Mujahid offered no explanation for Newlove's death.

NATO officials have not offered an explanation as to why the two service members were in such a dangerous part of eastern Afghanistan.

The sailors were instructors at a counterinsurgency school for Afghan security forces, according to senior military officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case. The school was headquartered in Kabul and had classrooms outside the capital, but they were never assigned anywhere near where McNeley's body was recovered, officials said.

The chief of police of Logar province, Gen. Mustafa Mosseini, said coalition troops removed Newlove's body about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Newlove was shot once in the head and twice in the torso, according to Logar provincial spokesman Din Mohammad Darwesh. He speculated Newlove may have been wounded in a shootout with the Taliban and died because there was no medical care available in the rugged mountain area.

Mosseini said he believed the body washed downstream after rains Tuesday night.

He noted in the past several days, the Taliban were being pressured by coalition forces in the area.

"The security was being tightened," Mosseini said. "Searches continued from both air and the ground. Militants were moving into Pakistan."

Mohammad Rahim Amin, the local government chief in Baraki Barak district, also said coalition forces recovered a body about 5:30 p.m. and flew it by helicopter to a coalition base in Logar province, about 40 miles (60 kilometers) away.

"The coalition told our criminal police director of the district that the body belonged to the foreign soldier they were looking for," Amin said.

In the capital Kabul, President Hamid Karzai urged his international partners on Thursday to take stronger action against terrorist sanctuaries outside of Afghanistan, telling reporters the international community "is here to fight terrorism, but there is danger elsewhere and they are not acting."

Karzai appeared to be referring to insurgent sanctuaries across the border in Pakistan, although he did not cite that country by name.

Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit criticized Karzai's comments, saying, "We found these incomprehensible given the fact that we all know well that during the last two years Pakistan and Afghanistan have been cooperating very closely with each other against terrorism."

Pressure is building on Pakistan to escalate the fight against militants on its soil, especially since the release of more than 90,000 leaked U.S. military documents posted Sunday on the Web by WikiLeaks. The trove of U.S. intelligence reports alleged close connections between Pakistan's intelligence agency and Taliban militants fighting Afghan and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

Pakistan called the accusations malicious and unsubstantiated, but the push to persuade Pakistan to do more to eliminate Islamic extremists on its soil continues.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said Thursday that Pakistan needs to make progress against terrorist groups on its soil.

"To be fair, the Pakistan government — they have taken action against these groups," he said.

But refusing to back down from comments he made this week in India, Cameron added: "We need them to do more and we will support and help them as they do more."

Karzai also told reporters he ordered his Cabinet to study the war papers, especially those that address Pakistan and civilian casualties in Afghanistan. He also said documents that disclosed the names of Afghans who have worked with the NATO-led force were "shocking" and "irresponsible."

"Their lives will be in danger now," he said. "This is a very serious issue."

Alon settlement, West Bank —

If Palestinians ever achieve the viable state to which they aspire, they will have a determined young Israeli activist to thank for its territory not being entirely swallowed by Israeli settlements.

Hagit Ofran, a former student of Jewish history, uses a four-wheel drive vehicle, pocket-sized camera, and a deep sense of mission to monitor the growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank area captured during the 1967 Six Day War. Sometimes her findings make headlines well beyond Israel, translating into international pressure on the government to stop further encroachment on Palestinian land.

Ms. Ofran's official title is director of the Settlement Watch Team of the dovish Peace Now organization. In practice, she is a spy operating in hostile territory, snooping, sniffing, and piecing together bits of intelligence to gauge how much illicit building is going on.

IN PICTURES: Israeli settlements

On a recent scouting trip, Ofran spotted four new alabaster trailers spread like matchboxes on a hillside of the Alon settlement northeast of Jerusalem.

The prefabricated buildings are in effect helping to fragment the heartland of a future Palestine. ''It's not that one caravan will change the chances of Middle East peace,'' says Ofran. ''But another and another and another will determine whether we can have a two-state solution to the conflict or not.''

Fluent in Arabic – and well-versed in sleuthing

Israel's conservative government now faces a crucial decision over whether or not to extend a 10-month partial freeze on settlement building that expires in September. The Obama administration is pressing for the freeze to remain in place, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition partners want it scrapped to enable a wave of new building.

''If it is not extended then the freeze may have delayed a few hundred sites for months, but it will not have caused a real change,'' Ofran says.''If work is restarted it might mean that the chances of peace are doomed, at least with this government.''

A fluent Arabic speaker, Ofran sometimes is tipped off by Palestinians about new settler building. She pores over aerial photos commissioned by Peace Now, whose settlement watch unit is funded partly by the governments of Britain and Norway, and garners information from planning meetings and official documents.

In March, Ofran learned from the Jerusalem municipality's website that officials had given permits for settler building at the Shepherds Hotel site in East Jerusalem, which is predominantly Arab. She did not keep the information to herself – though she's tight-lipped about her exact role.

Embarrassingly for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, news of the new settlement project broke just before he was to meet President Obama at the White House, contributing to the frostiness of that encounter.

Ofran's detractors, challenges

Danny Dayan, chairman of the Yesha Council that represents most of the half-million Israelis who have moved to the West Bank, accuses Ofran of serving foreign interests.

''In a democratic state it is legitimate to follow the settlements,'' Dayan says. ''The problem is that Peace Now does it with money that is from foreign sources, including from hostile sources. Her agenda is not objective.''

Ofran is up against a system that, although government-sponsored, lacks transparency. Much of its activity is illegal even according to Israeli law and settler leaders prefer to avoid public debate over it. Construction also violates the Geneva Convention and runs counter to international commitments Israel made to halt settlement building, for example in the 2003 international peace blueprint known as the road map. Tellingly, there is no distinct budget for building at settlements.

''The money is woven into a thousand other pieces of the budget. So you can't use the simple path of reading the budget to find out what's going on.'' says Israeli historian Gershom Gorenberg, author The Accidental Empire, a book about the origins of the settlements.

Keeping a low profile

At any given moment, Ofran could be discovered and evicted from a settlement. There are a few settlements too dangerous for her to enter, she says. Her predecessor, Dror Etkes, had his vehicle stoned by residents of the hard-core Yizhar settlement near Nablus and Ofran does not venture there.

But after three years in the job, Ofran seems to have mastered the territory. She knows when it's appropriate to give a lift to hitch-hiking settler youths and when to avoid eye contact with settler guards.''If they recognize me here we are in trouble,'' she says, navigating a rocky road near the settlement of Maale Michmash. Although generally successful in keeping a low profile, Ofran's face is becoming better known because she is the subject of a new documentary film.

''I generally try not to make eye contact so there's less engagement and less chance they will recognize me. On the other hand, sometimes if you don't make eye contact it could be a problem because they'll know you're not from here.''

Granddaughter of philosopher Leibovich

Ofran is the granddaughter of the late philosopher Yeshayahu Leibovich, one of the earliest Israeli critics of colonizing the West Bank after Israel's stunning victory in the 1967 Six Day war. He supported soldiers who refused to serve in the occupied territories and famously warned that those who did so risked becoming ''Judaeo-Nazis.''

''I used to hear him a lot and my character was influenced by his thinking.'' Ofran says

As her grandfather did, she believes Israel must withdraw from the West Bank and stop occupying its more than 2 million Palestinians if it is to remain a state with a predominantly Jewish population and character.

''I see myself first of all as Jewish and only then as an Israeli and it is very important to me how the Jewish state is acting,'' Ofran says. ''If we want to hold all the land than we must give the Palestinians full rights. So holding all the land means we will lose our independence as a Jewish people.''

PHOENIX — The sheriff of Arizona's most populous county is making room in a vast outdoor jail and determined to round up illegal immigrants to fill it. Police from the U.S.-Mexico border to the Grand Canyon are getting last-minute training. And protests and marches are planned throughout Phoenix.

Arizona's new immigration law takes effect Thursday, creating a potentially volatile mix of police, illegal immigrants and thousands of activists, many planning to show up without identification as a show of solidarity.

At least one group plans to block access to federal offices, daring officers to ask them their immigration status.

"Our message for that day is: 'Don't comply, don't buy,'" said activist Liz Hourican, whose group, CodePink, plans to block the driveway for immigration offices in downtown Phoenix.

As both sides prepare, a federal judge is deciding whether to step in and block the law. It requires officers enforcing other laws to check a person's immigration status if they suspect the person is in the country illegally. It also bans illegal immigrants from soliciting work in a public place.

Police across the state scrambled on Tuesday to train officers, including on how to avoid racial profiling, and plan for a potential influx of detainees.

The hardest-line approach is expected in the Phoenix area, where Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio plans his 17th crime and immigration sweep. He plans to hold the sweep, regardless of any ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton.

Arpaio, known for his tough stance against illegal immigration, plans to send about 200 deputies and volunteers out, looking for traffic violators, people wanted on criminal warrants and others. He's used that tactic before to arrest dozens of people, many of them illegal immigrants.

"We don't wait. We just do it," he said. "If there's a new law out, we're going to enforce it."

He said that the space he made in the complex of military surplus tents can handle 100 people, and that he will find room for more if necessary.

Elsewhere in the state, police officials said they didn't expect any dramatic events. They were busy wrapping up training sessions this week, with some agencies saying that untrained officers will not be allowed on the streets.

Many of the state's 15,000 police officers have been watching a DVD released this month that signs that might indicate a person is an illegal immigrant are speaking poor English, looking nervous or traveling in an overcrowded vehicle. It warned that race and ethnicity do not.

Some agencies added extra materials, including a test, a role-playing exercise or a question-and-answer session with prosecutors.

Critics of the law among police chiefs remain, saying that the law is so vague that no amount of training could eliminate potential confusion.

"Am I going to sit here and say I think every officer has a clear understanding of the law when they leave the training?" Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villasenor said. "No, because I think the law is poorly constructed."

Arizona's law gives police two options to confirm whether a detainee is an illegal immigrant.

Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to comment on preparations or the role federal authorities would play in enforcing the law, except to say ICE "focuses first on criminal aliens who pose a threat to our communities."

Arpaio vowed to arrest all illegal immigrants and make them spend time in his jail. Other police officials said they'd try to get the Border Patrol involved as often as possible to avoid the time and cost of booking the detainees into jail.

Prosecutors are also preparing for a potential influx of cases. They are reminding officers that they are required to explain the circumstances of the original stop, why they suspected the person was an illegal immigrant and any comments made by the suspect.

A march from the state Capitol is planned at 4:30 a.m., followed by a prayer service, a rally outside Arpaio's office and later that afternoon a concert outside a Maricopa County jail, according to the Los Angeles-based National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

The protesters both from Arizona and elsewhere plan to show up without identification and hold peaceful rallies.

"It's defiance, to see if they want to come and arrest those people," said Pablo Alvarado, the executive director of the NDLON. "We dare them to come and ask."

Associated Press writer Jacques Billeaud contributed to this report.

KILLEEN, TX - The owners and organizers behind an anti-war coffeehouse near Fort Hood have been fighting against mounting financial pressure.

"Under the Hood" is a cafe for soldiers and their families to "gather, relax and speak freely about the wars and the military" says its website.

But that draw hasn't been earning them the donations in recent months to keep their doors open.

"Two months ago when we were looking at the books, it was clear that Under the Hood would not be around for too much longer if we did not start engaging a larger group of small donors, the big checks, the grant funding has just not been there," said Matthis Chiroux, coffeehouse organizer.

That same dip in checks received coincided with the current economic recession that has hit many non-profits especially tough.

Veterans in Killeen however voiced opinions that it has less to do with the recession, and more to do with the "hard sell" they face in a military town.

"Good. Good,  I couldn't support that, if they're against the war, I'm against them," said Billy Reiken, a Vietnam veteran in response to their financial problems.

 "We're not pro-war, we're pro-support," said Bob Brown, commander of the American Legion post in Killeen.

The possibility of closing became all too real two months ago when coffeehouse organizers realized they may not make it three more months.

With the help of a recent anti-war convention in Austin and also a protest held outside Fort Hood earlier this month, organizers saw more donations come in.

"We are good until the first of the year, December or so, and we have fundraising and people have offered fundraising for us, so we are hoping for the best," said Cindy Tomas, Under the Hood owner.

As far as its presence in Killeen and in proximity to Fort Hood, "It should be a hard sell for them to do anything around here," Rieken said.

Six House members crossed the Capitol to stage a "sit-in" in the Senate chamber  to protest what they believe to be GOP obstruction of jobs legislation.

These House Democrats sat quietly in the back of the chamber and were approached by both Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois and Republican Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah, who shook the hands of the upper chamber visitors.

Democratic Reps. Donna Edwards of Maryland, Carolyn Kilpatrick of Michigan, Danny Davis of Illinois, Ed Perlmutter of Colorado, Gwen Moore of Wisconsin and Jackie Speier of California seated themselves in the area from which Senate staffers ordinarily watch their bosses on the floor.

Nothing really came of the silent protest.

But it was the second planned trip from the House side of the Capitol to the Senate — with the first being last week — and this brief sojourn to the upper chamber drew the attention of reporters when Senate Press gallery staffers announced their presence on the floor.

The orchestrated "sit-in" was a modest illustration of House frustration over the dozens of major pieces of legislation that have cleared the lower chamber only to be stuck in legislative limbo in the Senate. In addition to a pending small-business jobs bill, the House has passed climate change legislation, campaign finance reform and a tax extenders package — all of which await Senate approval.

This has been a tough week for the Defense Department. WikiLeaks released thousands of government documents on the Afghanistan war, and an even bigger treasure trove on Iraq may be next, while a government audit just reported that the Pentagon cannot account for more than 95 percent of $9.1 billion in Iraq reconstruction money.

But at least the cash will keep coming. With the August recess looming, the House just approved a $59 billion bill to continue war funding and to increase spending on operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, by a comfortable 308–114 vote. That's the good news for the Pentagon.

The bad news? The antiwar caucus is growing by leaps and bounds: 102 Democrats, including Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey (D-Wis.), voted against the bill (although Obey shepherded the bill to the floor, so his was a protest vote). That's a substantial increase when only 32 Democrats declined to support a larger war-spending bill a year ago.

With only 12 Republicans joining them, the antiwar Democrats in the House do not, by themselves, have the power to reverse the escalation in the AfPak theater. But what their displeasure signals—amid rising casualties, rumblings from Senate Foreign Relations chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), an anti-Afghanistan war gaffe from Republican Party chairman Michael Steele, and the recent controversy over comments by ousted Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal—is that the once near-unanimous support for the U.S. presence in Afghanistan is becoming controversial, particularly on the left.

That, in turn, could mean that there will be pressure on President Obama to move more quickly toward an Afghanistan withdrawal from within his party's grassroots in the run-up to his reelection bid in 2012. Just this week, liberal commentator Arianna Huffington told NEWSWEEK's Daniel Lyons that the editors of her popular Web site, the Huffington Post, uniformly oppose the Afghanistan war as unnecessary. That may be a bellwether of rising sentiment on the left.

BOISE - U.S. military commanders ordered all operations stopped in the moments after Spc. Bowe Bergdahl was reported missing in Afghanistan June 30, 2009, new secret military documents reveal.

Within hours, soldiers started looking for the Hailey, Idaho, native using various tactics including drones, a paratrooper, a tracking dog team and several fighter jets. They went active the same morning Bergdahl went missing.

Soliders also breached two enemy locations in the search but had nothing serious to report, according to the leaked documents.

Posted to the website WikiLeaks, 90,000 pages of secret military documents reveal new information on U.S. armed forces operations throughout Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Several pages of the leaked documents highlight how Spc. Bergdahl was captured. The events surrounding his disappearance have been under much speculation and rumors.

The Pentagon has previously said Bergdahl was captured after lagging behind on a patrol. One radio traffic transmission included in the report, apparently from the Taliban, says Bergdahl was captured while he was unarmed and stopping to go to the bathroom.

The radio traffic also reveals the Taliban lined "lots of I.E.D.s on the road" to prevent rescue teams from finding Spc. Bergdahl.

The documents also uncover new information regarding talks with Taliban "elders" about a possible release.

It reads: "The elders were asked by the Taliban to a trade between the U.S. and Taliban. The Taliban Terms are 15 of their Taliban brothers in U.S. jail and some money in exchange for Pvt. Bergdahl. The elders assured me that Pvt. Bergdahl is alive and that he in not being harmed."

"The elders are going to to have another meeting with themselves to discuss helping us this afternoon. They requested to have another meeting with me the same time tomorrow."

Read the full report.

The last time the world saw Bergdahl was April 7, 2010 by the Taliban. In the video Bergdahl pleads for an end to the war and a release of the prisoners being held by the U.S.

KABUL, Afghanistan — One of two US sailors missing in Afghanistan since last week — a 30-year-old father of two — has been confirmed dead and his body recovered, a NATO spokesman said yesterday.

The search continues for the other missing sailor, said Lieutenant Colonel Todd Breasseale, a spokesman for NATO and US forces in Afghanistan.

The only confirmed American service member in Taliban captivity is Specialist Bowe Bergdahl of Hailey, Idaho, who disappeared June 30, 2009, in Paktika Province. Bergdahl has since been shown in Taliban videos online.

LOS ANGELES — Energy giant BP and victims of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill go to court for the first time Thursday during a session in Idaho that sets the stage for a potential trial of the century.

The proceedings in Boise, Idaho before the Multidistrict Litigation Panel (MDL Panel) will examine whether complaints submitted by around 200 plaintiffs can be consolidated, and determine where the hearings should take place and under which judge.

A decision is expected around two weeks after the hearing, but the session will give trial lawyers a test run for the arguments they will make during what could be years-long legal proceedings.

The hearing will bring together a wide cast of characters linked to the disaster that was prompted by an April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig, which killed 11 and caused the platform to sink two days later.

Joining BP are Transocean, which leased the rig to the British firm, and Cameron International, which manufactured the blow-out preventer, which should have shut down the well, but failed to work properly.

Plaintiffs range from the families of the workers killed in the April explosion aboard the rig to Gulf fishermen whose catch has been contaminated by the spill, threatening them with financial ruin.

The judges on the panel are expected to consolidate the plaintiffs' complaints for practical reasons, but observers will pay close attention to where the panel orders the case be heard, and under which judge.

"As a legal matter, the MDL Panel has authority to send them to any federal court in the US, though, as a practical matter, the panel may very well be inclined to choose a judge located around the Gulf Coast area," said Richard Nagareda, a law professor at Vanderbilt University.

Richard Arsenault, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said he expected pre-trial hearings to be held in Louisiana, the Gulf state closest to site of the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig, which sank on April 22, two days after an explosion that killed 11 workers and unleashed the worst US oil spill ever.

Ordinarily, he said, the panel will consider the area's caseload and accessibility to witnesses among other factors when deciding where to send a case.

"In this case, however, I suspect that the experience of the jurist will be the critical consideration and the other factors will be a distant second," he told AFP.

Nagareda agreed and noted the panel would also likely seek out a judge with no potential conflict of interests.

"I believe the panel will take great care to select a judge with no financial or other professional connection to the oil industry. That way, his or her impartiality would be beyond question," he said.

Wherever the case ends up, it promises to be a high-profile process attracting plenty of public interest and scrutiny. Nagareda compared it to California court hearings involving Japanese automaker Toyota over faulty vehicles.

Thursday's court hearing comes during a rough week for BP, which announced Tuesday it would replace British chief executive Tony Hayward with Bob Dudley, an American, in a bid to repair its tattered US reputation.

The firm also reported a quarterly loss of 16.9 billion dollars after it set aside 32.2 billion dollars to cover costs associated with the oil spill.

BATTLE CREEK, Mich.—An oil spill from an underground pipeline connecting the U.S. to Canada has spread across roughly 20 miles of the Kalamazoo River in south-central Michigan, prompting the pipe's Canadian owner and U.S. officials on Wednesday to double their resources to contain and clean up more than 800,000 gallons of seeped-out crude.

The spill with an estimated volume of 19,500 barrels of oil is believed to be one of the largest in the history of the Midwest, but unlike the BP PLC oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, this spill was capped relatively quickly after its owners were able to shut down the line almost immediately after its discovery. The pipe rupture has already forced the evacuation of several dozen residents who live near the Kalamazoo River, forced the river's closure to the public and raised questions about whether the pipeline's owner reported the spill in a timely way.

The line owned by Enbridge Energy Partners LP is a 30-inch pipe that moves light synthetic, heavy and medium crude oil northeast about 1,900 miles from Griffith, Ind. through Michigan and just over the border to Sarnia, Ontario. After the leak was discovered on Monday morning near the company's pump station in Marshall, Mich., the pipeline was shut down and its isolation valves closed off, according to officials at the parent company, Enbridge Inc. of Calgary, Alberta. But some media reports said local residents first reported strong odors near the spill site in emergency calls as early as Sunday. Federal officials said Wednesday that the timeline involved in the spill remains under investigation by several agencies.

Officials said it would be weeks before an official cause of the pipe break is determined. Feedback from the initial portions of the investigation in the next few days are expected to provide telling clues about the origins of the leak, company officials said.

Patrick Daniel, Enbridge's chief executive, told reporters in a news conference Wednesday morning that his company is doubling its 150-person work force in Michigan and will increase the size of oil-corraling booms to about 31,000 feet from its current 14,000 Wednesday. The company has as much as 45,000 feet worth of boom on-hand.

"Our intention is to return your communities" to its state before the pill," Mr. Daniel said Wednesday, who has previously apologized for the spill. "We still have a lot of work to do."

The company now plans to unearth the pipeline at the breakpoint near Marshall, Mich., in an effort to determine the cause of the rupture, repair the line and restore the oil flow in coming days, according to Enbridge officials. In previously scheduled quarterly earnings, Enbridge reported net income of 138 million Canadian dollars, down 65% from a year-earlier period on market-to-market losses on current exchange compared to the year-earlier quarterly gain.

State and federal officials said they are attempting to stop the penetration of the oil down the river before it reaches a nearby lake, worried as well about the threat of predicted thunderstorm on the river's already swollen levels.

Mr. Daniel said he met Tuesday with Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who took an aerial tour of the affected site and called Enbridge's initial clean-up response "anemic." He told reporters Wednesday that he and the governor had a frank conversation and that Enbridge remains committed to do everything it can to contain the spill and clean-up the recovered oil.

Ralph Dollhopf, the on-scene coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency which is leading the government's efforts, said that the spill does not yet appear to have fouled air quality or groundwater to levels considered dangerous. Local health officials said they will continue to monitor air and water quality, reminding local residents that large swaths of the river remained closed to all public activity.

Concerned residents as well as volunteers willing to help with the spill response can call 1-800-306-6837 or visit response.enbridgeus.com for more information.

Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.

Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents.

Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighbouring Jordan and eight times higher than in

Dr Chris Busby, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster and one of the authors of the survey of 4,800 individuals in Fallujah, said it is difficult to pin down the exact cause of the cancers and birth defects. He added that "to produce an effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened".

US Marines first besieged and bombarded Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, in April 2004 after four employees of the American security company Blackwater were killed and their bodies burned. After an eight-month stand-off, the Marines stormed the city in November using artillery and aerial bombing against rebel positions. US forces later admitted that they had employed white phosphorus as well as other munitions.

In the assault US commanders largely treated Fallujah as a free-fire zone to try to reduce casualties among their own troops. British officers were appalled by the lack of concern for civilian casualties. "During preparatory operations in the November 2004 Fallujah clearance operation, on one night over 40 155mm artillery rounds were fired into a small sector of the city," recalled Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, a British commander serving with the American forces in Baghdad.

He added that the US commander who ordered this devastating use of firepower did not consider it significant enough to mention it in his daily report to the US general in command. Dr Busby says that while he cannot identify the type of armaments used by the Marines, the extent of genetic damage suffered by inhabitants suggests the use of uranium in some form. He said: "My guess is that they used a new weapon against buildings to break through walls and kill those inside."

The survey was carried out by a team of 11 researchers in January and February this year who visited 711 houses in Fallujah. A questionnaire was filled in by householders giving details of cancers, birth outcomes and infant mortality. Hitherto the Iraqi government has been loath to respond to complaints from civilians about damage to their health during military operations.

Researchers were initially regarded with some suspicion by locals, particularly after a Baghdad television station broadcast a report saying a survey was being carried out by terrorists and anybody conducting it or answering questions would be arrested. Those organising the survey subsequently arranged to be accompanied by a person of standing in the community to allay suspicions.

The study, entitled "Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2009", is by Dr Busby, Malak Hamdan and Entesar Ariabi, and concludes that anecdotal evidence of a sharp rise in cancer and congenital birth defects is correct. Infant mortality was found to be 80 per 1,000 births compared to 19 in Egypt, 17 in Jordan and 9.7 in Kuwait. The report says that the types of cancer are "similar to that in the Hiroshima survivors who were exposed to ionising radiation from the bomb and uranium in the fallout".

Researchers found a 38-fold increase in leukaemia, a ten-fold increase in female breast cancer and significant increases in lymphoma and brain tumours in adults. At Hiroshima survivors showed a 17-fold increase in leukaemia, but in Fallujah Dr Busby says what is striking is not only the greater prevalence of cancer but the speed with which it was affecting people.

Of particular significance was the finding that the sex ratio between newborn boys and girls had changed. In a normal population this is 1,050 boys born to 1,000 girls, but for those born from 2005 there was an 18 per cent drop in male births, so the ratio was 850 males to 1,000 females. The sex-ratio is an indicator of genetic damage that affects boys more than girls. A similar change in the sex-ratio was discovered after Hiroshima.

The US cut back on its use of firepower in Iraq from 2007 because of the anger it provoked among civilians. But at the same time there has been a decline in healthcare and sanitary conditions in Iraq since 2003. The impact of war on civilians was more severe in Fallujah than anywhere else in Iraq because the city continued to be blockaded and cut off from the rest of the country long after 2004. War damage was only slowly repaired and people from the city were frightened to go to hospitals in Baghdad because of military checkpoints on the road into the capital.

It's being called the largest wind power project in the country, with plans for thousands of acres of towering turbines in the Mojave Desert foothills generating electricity for 600,000 homes in Southern California.

And now it's finally kicking into gear.

The multibillion-dollar Alta Wind Energy Center has had a tortured history, stretching across nearly a decade of ownership changes, opposition from local residents and transmission infrastructure delays.

But on Tuesday, the project is officially breaking ground in the Tehachapi Pass, a burgeoning hot spot for wind energy about 75 miles north of Los Angeles. When completed, Alta could produce three times as much energy as the country's largest existing wind farm, analysts said. It's slated to be done in the next decade.

The project will probably be a wind power bellwether, affecting the way renewable energy deals are financed, the development of new electricity storage systems and how governments regulate the industry, said Billy Gamboa, a renewable energy analyst with the California Center for Sustainable Energy.

"It's a super-mega-project — it'll definitely set a precedent for the rest of the state and have a pretty large impact on the wind industry in general," he said.

The project's developer, New York-based Terra-Gen Power, plans to coax three gigawatts of power from the wind farm over the next eight years. It has led some industry experts to predict that California might have a shot at reclaiming the wind energy crown from competitors such as Texas and Iowa.

"Alta's an absolutely enormous project in probably the most promising wind resource area that remains in the state," said Ryan Wiser, a renewable energy analyst at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "It's the single biggest investment in California wind project assets in decades and is likely the largest the state is ever going to see."

Southern California Edison agreed in 2006 to buy 1,550 megawatts of electricity from Alta over 25 years, one of the heftiest power purchase agreements ever signed. That would be enough energy to serve 275,000 homes and is twice the capacity of the country's largest existing wind farm, a 735-megawatt project in Texas.

Terra-Gen is building Alta as a collection of wind farms; it has finished funding and started building the first group of five. The cluster's 290 turbines will be scattered across 9,000 acres, most of which are leased from private landowners. As early as next year, executives said, the turbines could start producing enough power to boost California's wind energy output more than 25% while creating thousands of local jobs.

By 2015, another batch of farms, with roughly 300 turbines — some with blades spanning nearly the length of a football field — is expected to be producing an additional 830 megawatts. Beyond that, details are scarce.

"The first Alta phases are very real, but future phases might be a little less tangible," said Matt Kaplan, a senior analyst with IHS Emerging Energy Research. "We've seen California utilities sign a lot of power purchase agreements for not necessarily the most realistic projects."

For years, Alta seemed to some like just another ambitious pipe dream tied up in red tape and stymied by a lack of transmission lines to carry the energy to customers.

The project was originally conceived as the Alta-Oak Creek Mojave initiative in the early 2000s by Australian infrastructure fund Allco Finance Group. But when the firm went bankrupt in 2008, Terra-Gen bought control of Alta for $325 million.

The permitting process took about three years, said Steve Doyon, vice president and head of development for Terra-Gen.

Along the way, Terra-Gen had to abandon several proposed sites because of landowners' concerns about noise and frosty turbine blades slinging chunks of ice. Some worried that the skyscraping structures could malfunction and collapse or impede firefighting efforts.

Last year, a petition opposing part of the project collected more than 1,000 signatures. The Federal Aviation Administration also jumped in, saying that some of the proposed turbines would interfere with flights at the nearby Mountain Valley Airport.

"We're not against green energy in any way, but there just comes a time when you say that this is my community and I don't want turbines encroaching in full view," said Merle Carnes, president of the Old West Ranch Property Owners Assn. "There's room somewhere else."

The Alta project had other big hurdles. California has been falling behind in the wind power race, increasing its capacity just 7% in 2008 while Texas and Iowa each doubled theirs. Pockets where high wind is common — such as the Altamont Pass in Northern California and the San Gorgonio Pass near Palm Springs — ran out of space early on, crammed with small turbines using inefficient old technology, analyst Wiser said. That has led to just "dribs and drabs" of installation over the last two decades. The Tehachapi area is one of the few windy regions left with room to grow, he said.

Edison has been making headway on its Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project, connecting alternative-energy projects such as Alta to electricity-hungry city centers. The utility is trying to meet a statewide goal for investor-owned utilities to use renewable energy for 33% of all power supplied to customers by 2020.

Previously tight-fisted investors also are more confident about financing renewable energy projects. Terra-Gen recently secured $1.2 billion in funding for the Alta project.

Vestas-American Wind Technology said last week that it would deliver 190 turbines to Alta, the largest order ever for the turbine-making company. It was unable to land any contracts last year because of the credit crunch.

The industry is not out of the woods yet: In the first half of 2010, newly added wind capacity in the U.S. tumbled 70% compared with the same period last year to just 1,200 megawatts, the American Wind Energy Assn. said Monday.

But for now, experts said, the Alta project seems to be on track.

"I'm not seeing any great big red flags there," Wiser said.

WikiLeaks' editor-in-chief claims his organization doesn't know who sent it some 91,000 secret U.S. military documents, telling journalists that the website was set up to hide the source of its data from those who receive it.

Julian Assange didn't say whether he meant that he had no idea who leaked the documents, or whether his organization simply could not be sure. But he did say the added layer of secrecy helped protect the site's sources from spy agencies and hostile corporations.

"We never the know the source of the leak," he told journalists gathered at London's Frontline Club late Tuesday. "Our whole system is designed such that we don't have to keep that secret."

While Assange acknowledged that the site's anonymous submissions raised concerns about authenticity, he said WikiLeaks had yet to be fooled by a bogus document.

"We do see wholly fabricated submissions, usually around election time," he said, but added that they were "quite rare."

Operatives inside Afghanistan and Pakistan who have worked for the U.S. against the Taliban or al-Qaida may be at risk following the disclosure of thousands of classified U.S. military documents, former and current U.S. officials said.

Speaking in Washington on Tuesday, President Barack Obama said he was concerned about the massive leak of sensitive documents about the Afghanistan war, but that the papers did not reveal any concerns that were not already part of the debate.

In his first public comments on the matter, Obama said the disclosure of classified information from the battlefield "could potentially jeopardize individuals or operations."

As the Obama administration scrambles to repair any political damage to the war effort in Congress and among the American public by the WikiLeaks revelations, there are also growing concerns that some U.S. allies abroad may ask whether they can trust America to keep secrets.

In Baghdad, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters he was "appalled" by the leak. He said "there is a real potential threat there to put American lives at risk."

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said he "deplores" the leak of Afghan war secrets and an investigation by the Pentagon and Justice Department will determine whether criminal charges will be filed.

Holder, speaking to reporters during a visit to Egypt on Wednesday, says the investigation aimed to determine the source of the leak. He says "whether there will be criminal charges brought will depend on how the investigation goes."

The Army is leading the Pentagon's inquiry into the source of the leak.

In London, Assange said WikiLeaks had ex-military and former intelligence workers "in our network," people he said could help evaluate whether documents leaked from the armed forces or spy agencies were genuine.

The website's worse fear, he said, was not a complete forgery but a real document that had been subtly tampered with. Still, he said he had yet to see that happen.

Assange spoke for nearly two-and-a-half hours, outlining his site's mission and methods, and defending it from criticisms that it had put lives at risk by putting mountains of classified information in the public domain.

He seemed irritated when one member of the audience asked him whether he believed there were ever any legitimate national security concerns that would prevent him from publishing a leaked document.

"You often hear ... that something may be a threat to U.S. national security. This must be shot down, whenever this statement is made. A threat to U.S. national security? Is anyone serious? The security of the entire nation of the United States? It is ridiculous!" he declared.

But he admitted that individual cases were different.

"If we are talking a threat to individual soldiers ... or citizens of the United States, then that is potentially a genuine concern," he said.