WASHINGTON – Fresh off presiding over a global financial summit, President George W. Bush on Sunday conferred privately about the world’s economic downturn with the leader of a wealthy Persian Gulf emirate. Bush was hosting Sheik Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, at the president’s …

MEXICO CITY – A top police official who worked as Mexico’s main liaison with Interpol was placed under house arrest as part of an investigation into leaks of information to drug cartels, prosecutors said Tuesday. The arrest of Ricardo Gutierrez Vargas — who served as director for International Police Affairs …

This is a rush transcript from “The Beltway Boys”, November 22, 2008, that has been edited for clarity. FRED BARNES, FOX CO-HOST: Coming up on “The Beltway Boys,” the lame duck Congress lives up to its name: lame. MORT KONDRACKE, FOX CO-HOST: No bipartisanship, no money for auto makers and …

JERUSALEM – Israeli police say Palestinian militants have fired six rockets at southern Israel. Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld says the rockets landed in open areas, and no one was injured. The attack came as Britain’s foreign minister, David Miliband, planned to visit the southern Israeli town of Sderot. It was not …

Should you share your number? When it comes to professing how many people you’ve slept with, it is the ultimate “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” confession. For many, some things are better left unsaid. You may be better off avoiding this conversation entirely, given you never know …

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – The younger sister of a girl who suffered a severe brain injury will testify that she saw her stepfather push the older girl down a flight of stairs, prosecutors said Tuesday. “She will tell you that this was the time Haleigh did not wake up,” Assistant District …

ORANGE, Calif. – A Southern California county will allow jailed Muslim women to wear headscarves after settling a lawsuit with a woman who claims that deputies violated her religious freedom by making her remove her hijab. The settlement agreement signed by the county last week and released Monday specifies that …

CHICAGO – Federal investigators say they’ve found no evidence that mechanical failure was the cause of a medical helicopter crash earlier this month that killed a 1-year-old patient and three crew members. The helicopter’s flight controls, engines and drive system showed no sign of malfunction just before the Oct. 15 …

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. – A man found dead in a suitcase in a suburban park was a drug “mule” who had 50 packets of heroin in his body and probably died when one or two of them broke open, police said Tuesday. The heroin, worth an estimated $100,000 on the …

CAMDEN, N.J. – Being an informant for the FBI in the Fort Dix terror investigation has paid well, a witness explained to jurors Monday. John Stermel, an investigator assigned to an FBI counterterrorism task force, spent Monday morning on the stand detailing the role of informant Mahmoud Omar, who wore …