It establishes military tribunals that would allow some use of evidence obtained by coercion, but would give defendants access to classified evidence being used to convict them.

"The president will mark a historic day in which he will sign a bill that he knows will help prevent terrorist attacks," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Bush is expected to speak briefly at the ceremony, which will also be attended by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales.

Bush is trying to help Republicans maintain control of the US Congress by contending they are stronger on national security, a stance with which Democrats vehemently disagree.

For instance, an April 12, 2005, Talon document, just released by the ACLU, shows that the Pentagon was concerned about "suspicious activity" at an upcoming event sponsored by the Broward Anti-War Coalition in Florida.

This peace group, according to the document, was planning-hold your breath here-"guerrilla theater and other forms of subversive propaganda" at the Fort Lauderdale Air and Sea Show.

The source of the information was the Miami-Dade Police Department, and members of Army Recruiting and the Miami Joint Terrorism Task Force were briefed on it, the document states.

Another Talon document, dated March 1, 2005, released by the ACLU, reveals that Homeland Security agents are monitoring e-mails of such scary groups as the Quakers.

"The source received an e-mail on 25 Feb 05, subject: upcoming peace/anti-war events. The e-mail was from the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in Northeast Ohio," the document states. And that source is identified as "a special agent of the Federal Protective Service, US Department of Homeland Security." The document adds, "Source is reliable."

The Joint Terrorism Task Force of Dayton, Ohio, was briefed on this one.

The planned activity of the Quakers that so concerned the Pentagon, Homeland Security, and the Joint Terrorism Task Force was this: "On 19 Mar 05, there will be a 'Stop the War NOW!' rally in commemoration of the second anniversary of the U.S. Invasion/Occupation of Iraq. The Akron rally will have a march and reading of names of war dead. . . . The Akron march begins at noon and goes past a local military recruiting station and the FBI office. The march will end at the Federal Building in Akron, for a rally, followed by reading of names of U.S. and Iraqi war dead."

A third Talon document, dated March 7, 2005, also relies on an e-mail from the Quakers. "Source received an e-mail from the American Friends Service Committee" about "actions at military recruitment offices with the goals to include: raising awareness, education, visibility." The source is again identified as "a special agent of the Federal Protective Service, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Source is reliable."

All three Talon documents state at the top: "This information is being provided only to alert commanders and staff to potential terrorist activity or apprise them of other force protection issues."

"Potential terrorist activity." Isn't that delightful?

Word to the wise: If you're a peace activist, the government may be watching you and reading your e-mails.

Something just to keep in mind.

"They can train themselves over the Internet. They never have to necessarily go to the training camp or speak with anybody else and that diffusion of a combination of hatred and technical skills in things like bomb-making is a dangerous combination," Chertoff said. "Those are the kind of terrorists that we may not be able to detect with spies and satellites."

Chertoff pointed to the July 7, 2005 attacks on London's transit system, which killed 56 people, as an example a home-grown threat.

To help gather intelligence on possible home-grown attackers, Chertoff said Homeland Security would deploy 20 field agents this fiscal year into "intelligence fusion centers," where they would work with local police agencies.

By the end of the next fiscal year, he said the department aims to up that to 35 staffers.

Lynne Stewart, 67, was convicted in February 2005 of helping her imprisoned client, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, contact the Islamic Group, which is listed by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization.

Outside court, Stewart said she thought the sentence was "a victory for doing good work all one's life." She added: "You get time off for good behavior usually at the end of your prison term. I got it at the beginning."

Ever since she was charged, Stewart has insisted she was being unfairly targeted for her unorthodox choice of clients over a 30-year career that has seen her represent mobsters and political radicals.

Tagged as both heroine and radical leftist, Stewart is the only U.S. lawyer to be indicted on terrorism charges. Some observers said the case stemmed from Bush administration efforts to discourage the defense of accused terrorists.

The 2nd congressional district of Virginia is deeply conservative terrain. It is home to the world's largest naval base, and more than 20% of the population is military, on active duty or retired. George Bush carried 58% of the vote here in 2004. Ms Drake took her seat with a 10-point margin, and that was as a last-minute replacement for a conservative Republican who resigned after being outed as gay.

But in this election season, where opinion polls and analysts suggest the Republicans are in serious peril of losing control of the House of Representatives, the president is now seen as a liability for Republicans like Ms Drake who are in tight races. Mr Bush's image has been scrubbed from Republican television ads in all but the most secure districts - although he is everywhere in Democratic attack ads. When he goes out on the campaign trail, it's for closed door high-ticket fundraisers, with a guaranteed friendly crowd.

But even that was too much exposure for Ms Drake. The congresswoman was so nervous about being seen in public with an unpopular president that she stayed behind in Washington when Mr Bush visited the district last summer for a $5,000 (£2,700) a plate fundraiser.

Ms Drake's biggest challenge remains deflecting charges from her Democratic challenger, Phil Kellam, that she is a rubber stamp for the White House. "They are trying to say that I vote for President Bush all the time, but if I disagree with President Bush I don't go along with that," she insisted.

Mr Kellam is scornful. "She just blindly follows the president and hasn't asked the tough questions," he said.

Such exchanges are being played out in dozens of congressional districts across America in an increasingly competitive election. Larry Sabato, a political analyst at the University of Virginia, believes as many as 50 seats could change hands in these elections, of which 42 are held by Republicans. For Ms Drake and others who are locked in tight races, being seen with Mr Bush is just not worth the risk.

With the president's approval ratings hovering in the low to mid-30s, many Republican candidates are finding it necessary to dissociate themselves from Mr Bush. "Republicans are trying to run not as Republicans, not as surrogates for Bush, they are trying to run as themselves," said Stuart Rothenburg, who publishes a well-regarded political newsletter in Washington.

Ms Drake was not the only candidate to flee when the president came to call. (In her defence, Ms Drake said she stayed behind to vote on a bill that would direct projects to her district. The bill passed 395-0).

Michael Steele, who is running for a Senate seat in Maryland, left for Las Vegas when Mr Bush visited his state for a fundraiser. Tom Kean, who is running for the Senate in New Jersey, did not go to those extremes - but he made sure not to turn up at his fundraiser until the president had left.

"I think the country is upset with the president. It's making Republican races throughout the country very tough," said Tom Gear, the local representative to the Virginia house of delegates, who is also a Republican.

Republicans are also giving a wide berth to their party leadership in the House of Representatives following reports that the speaker, Dennis Hastert, tolerated for years the behaviour of a Florida congressman who made sexual overtures towards teenage congressional pages. Would Ms Drake welcome a campaign swing by Mr Hastert in the final heat of the campaign? "That is something we have to decide, whether he can do an appearance," she said. "We are down to a time crunch."

While Republicans such as Ms Drake may be camera shy when Mr Bush is around, they continue to rely on the campaign funds that the president and the house leadership can provide. Mr Bush has personally raised more than $180m for candidates this year, and his White House is more actively engaged in the congressional elections than any other in recent memory.

If Republican candidates need to step away from the administration to win re-election, Mr Bush, it appears, is willing to turn the other cheek. The disavowals of Mr Bush are a radical departure from the 2002 congressional elections. In those midterm elections, 20% of Republican candidates relied on images of Mr Bush in their campaign ads, said Joel Rivlin, of the University of Wisconsin project on political advertising.

This time around, Republicans are keen to flaunt their independence. In Minnesota, Mark Kennedy, a Republican fighting for a seat in the Senate, has gone out of his way to point out his disagreements with the White House. "I am not afraid to work for the other side," his ads say.

In Pennsylvania, Republican congressman Jim Gerlach has run ads claiming: "When I believe President Bush is right, I'm behind him. But when I think he is wrong, I let him know that."

Other candidates have tried a stealth approach by removing references to the Republican party in television advertisements. When it comes to posting pictures of Republican leaders on their websites, they are careful to choose mavericks such as the former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, and the Arizona senator John McCain.

Some candidates have stayed away from humans altogether. In Maryland, Mr Steele tried to pre-empt Democratic attacks on his proximity to Mr Bush by appearing with a puppy in his arms.

The tactic didn't work. The Democrats snapped back immediately with a television ad showing Mr Steele and Mr Bush, locked together within a heart-shaped frame. "Michael Steele. He likes puppies, but he loves George Bush," the voiceover said.

Explainer: The crucial seats

At stake in the congressional mid-term elections on November 7 are all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, 33 Senate seats, and 36 governorships.

In the house, the Republicans hold 231 seats, the Democrats 202. The one independent usually votes with the Democrats. One seat is vacant. The Democrats need a net gain of 15 seats to win the house, and more than 40 Republican seats are thought vulnerable, compared with nine Democrat. The battlegrounds are in the east: Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, New York and Florida.

In the Senate there are 55 Republicans, 44 Democrats and one independent. Of the 33 up for election, 15 are Republican-held, 17 Democrat, and the independent seat, Vermont, is almost certain to go Democrat. The Democrats must make a net gain of six seats to win. There are eight vulnerable Republicans: in Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Tennessee, and Arizona. The Democrats' most vulnerable seat is in New Jersey.

The Republicans have 28 governors, the Democrats 22. Of those up for election the Republicans have the most to lose. Five states seem to have slipped from their grasp - New York, Ohio, Arkansas, Colorado and Massachusetts. Maryland, Nevada and Minnesota could go either way. Democrats are in danger in Iowa, Michigan, Oregon and Wisconsin.

In the latest attack on Friday night in the southern Paris 'banlieue' of Epinay-sur-Seine, three officers were ambushed in their patrol car and set upon by around 30 youths with stones and metal bars. According to police, shots were even fired by one of the assailants.

The squad used "flash-ball" stun-guns and fired their hand weapons in the air to deter the crowd, but was only rescued when reinforcements arrived on the scene. One officer was hospitalised, requiring 30 stitches on his face.

Two similar clashes have occurred in the last three weeks at the Les Tartarets estate in Corbeil-Essonnes and at Les Mureaux, in the western Paris outskirts.

"For me all three incidents are obviously linked. There is a disturbance, the cops are called, and then they lay into them," said Bruno Beschizza of the Synergie Officiers union. "In the last month there has been a change. Now it is like they want to kill."

"These guys came to kill. They were hooded and they had baseball bats and iron bars," Joaquin Masanet, of the UNSA union, told Libération newspaper of the incident in Epinay.

Another union - Action Police - said in a statement: "It shows that what we are dealing with here is not youths in need of more social aid, but individuals declaring war on the Republic."

Several police officials warned that it could only be a matter of time before either a rioter or a policeman is killed, further poisoning the climate in France's out-of-city estates and hastening a resurgence of last November's unrest.

Speaking on condition of not being identified, one young police officer told AFP that conditions in the poor 'banlieues' are becoming unbearable for new recruits, many of whom demand an early transfer.

"When we go into the estates for the smallest job, we are surrounded and prevented from acting. So in order to do anything we have to move in quickly and in force - which undermines our human contact with the community," he said.

"No-one has drawn the lessons of the 2005 riots. We are not sufficiently trained for urban violence, yet we are often in face-to-face situations," said another officer.

Le Monde newspaper meanwhile published ministry figures that appeared to confirm a growing willingness among young delinquents to choose police and other representatives of public services as targets.

Some 480 incidents of this type were recorded in September - a 30 percent increase on August, Le Monde said. And it quoted interior ministry figures showing that 2,458 police officers were hurt on service in the first six months of the year - compared to 4,246 for the whole of 2005.

"Behind the statistics police specialists detect a harder, better organised type of delinquency. However they are unwilling to draw definitive conclusions about the increase in attacks on police," Le Monde said.

Interior ministry officials noted that police unions are exploiting the media impact of the recent attacks to the full, ahead of union elections next months.

With France's presidential elections due to take place in April, the resurgence of tensions in the 'banlieues' has major political implications - raising questions over the tactics of Interior Minister and presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy.

Manuel Valls, socialist mayor of Evry in the southern Paris suburbs, said Sarkozy - who is widely hated by youth in the poor estates - had "uncontestably created disorder."

Thousands of cars and hundreds of buildings were torched last year in three weeks of nightly confrontations. With the October 27 anniversary approaching, police say there is no sign of a coordinated plot to rekindle violence, but warn that the half-term holiday and end of Ramadan coincide at the end of the month.

Automobile auctionPolk County, Iowa sheriff's deputies and employees of a local towing company purchased seized vehicles at cut-rate prices as low as one cent. Earlier this month Iowa's Attorney General charged two fifteen-year veteran officers with "felonious misconduct" for falsifying sales receipts so that R&R Towing employees could buy vehicles before they were offered to the public at auction.

R&R Towing, founded by two reserve deputies, has long had a close relationship with the department. The attorney general charged the company's manager, Tim Cox, with fraud after Cox purchased a seized $10,000 Harley-Davidson motorcycle for just $100.

A new investigation by the Des Moines Register found that even relatives of the sheriff's department and towing company employees have been buying seized automobiles at cut-rate prices. For example, Senior Deputy John R. Taylor helped Jamie Taylor buy a $5000 1997 Chevy Blazer for just $800 in November 2005. He also helped Jake Taylor buy a 2002 Honda motorcycle for $1265. At the same November 2005 auction, a 1999 Chevy Tahoe and 1992 Jeep Cherokee sold for one cent each.

Many police departments forbid the practice of allowing officers to purchase seized vehicles.

Meanwhile, teams of lawyers hired by the fund to dispute and deny more than 5,000 claims for illnesses blamed on toxic exposure at Ground Zero earn up to $550 an hour for "senior partners," the records show. Other top lawyers working for the entity earn higher rates, sources said.

The Post has reported that Captive, a self-insurance fund set up by the city in 2004 to cover claims from the WTC cleanup, had spent more than $40 million as of four months ago on overhead and lawyers. The company has refused to pay a single ill Ground Zero responder.

LaSala, 56, a former partner at insurance brokerage Johnson & Higgins, took the helm of the captive in mid-2004.

"It's amazing that Ms. LaSala gets $20,000 for health insurance while the 9/11 heroes she's fighting often have no health coverage at all," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.).

"If the city wanted someone to do nothing, I'm sure they could find someone a lot cheaper than $370,000 per year," Maloney said. "This salary could have helped a lot of sick and injured workers take care of their families."

Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, which keeps a registry of cops suffering respiratory illness, cancer and other diseases since working at the toxic WTC pit and Fresh Kills landfill, was taken aback.

"They're paying that kind of salary to someone overseeing a campaign where lawyers are working to deprive people of benefits for the illnesses they developed at Ground Zero," Lynch said. "9/11 responders are struggling with medical bills."

LaSala's pay exceeds by $100,000 the $250,000 salary of Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, the highest-paid city employee, who oversees a $14 billion budget, 110,000 employees and 1.1 million kids.

"There are terrorists operating in and around Iraq and in that part of the world," Winkenwerder said. "That's a higher threat area."

The move to reopen the mandatory vaccination program follows a final order from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2005 that found the anthrax vaccine safe and effective in preventing anthrax disease.

But attorneys whose lawsuit previously shut down the mandatory anthrax vaccination program said they plan to file a new suit to challenge its resumption.

"The forthcoming mandatory program is just as senseless as before and the FDA's new determination remains legally and scientifically flawed," said Mark Zaid, one of the attorneys.

Winkenwerder, who has not taken the anthrax vaccine, said the FDA's final order settles legal questions and the Pentagon is prepared for a court challenge.

Anthrax spores can be used in germ warfare to give victims the deadly bacterial disease. The Pentagon argues the shots are needed to protect troops against bioterrorism.

Fay said his investigation found that Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan was in charge of the center, despite Jordan's insistence to Fay that he was just a liaison between the center and superior officers.

Fay said Jordan knew about some of the abuses and did not stop them. He said Jordan "told us a story that was deceptive and it was misleading, and he tried to avoid responsibility for his role at Abu Ghraib."

Jordan, 50, of Fredericksburg, Va., is charged with 12 offenses, including one count of cruelty and maltreatment for allegedly subjecting detainees to forced nudity and intimidation by dogs. He faces a maximum of 42 years in prison if convicted of all counts.

Fay said that when he asked Jordan if he had seen prisoners stripped naked, Jordan told him he had, but that the nudity had nothing to do with interrogations.

Under cross-examination, Fay acknowledged that Jordan had reported some abusive episodes. He also testified that the
Pentagon's rules regarding harsh interrogation techniques, such as the use of dogs, had gone through several rapid changes in late 2003, confounding workers at Abu Ghraib.

"It was a confusing situation," Fay said.

Defense attorney Maj. Kris Poppe said in opening statements that Jordan was thrust into an unfamiliar, ill-defined role in an ad hoc command structure. Poppe said most of the abuses at Abu Ghraib were committed by rogue military police soldiers who were not under Jordan's command.

"In the end, we believe the story will show to you that Col. Jordan did not commit criminal misconduct," Poppe told hearing officer Col. Daniel Cummings.

Prosecutor Lt. Col. John P. Tracy said Jordan had embarrassed the Army by ignoring the abuse. He said Jordan had not personally committed egregious acts but that his negligence created an atmosphere conducive to mistreatment.

Jordan, a military intelligence reservist, was director of the interrogation center from mid-September through late November 2003, when detainees were physically abused, threatened with dogs and sexually humiliated. He is now assigned to the Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Belvoir, Va.

Jordan's supervisor at Abu Ghraib, Col. Thomas Pappas, was reprimanded and fined $8,000 for once approving the use of dogs during an interrogation without higher approval. Several other officers have been reprimanded for their roles in the abuse.

Eleven lower-ranking soldiers have also been convicted in the scandal.

The Article 32 hearing - the military's equivalent of a grand jury proceeding - is expected to last three to six days at Fort Meade.