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The hand-crank phone rang that stormy afternoon in the parsonage at the farm village of Creedmoor in North Carolina. My father answered and turned pale.

Father's Day 2005

House Republicans, led by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) act on their longstanding dissatisfaction with the United Nations. Following their lead, the House votes cut in half the U.S. contribution that sustains the international organization and its worldwide activities. There is no companion bill in the Senate.

The alleged mistreatment of detainees at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay sets off a heated Senate debate. Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, compared a description of mistreatment -- submitted to a Pentagon investigator by an F-B-I agent -- to actions carried out by Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Some Republicans accused Durbin of maligning American military personnel.

Iran's presidential election Friday is the most tightly contested contest since the Islamic revolution of 1979, according to preliminary polls. Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani is considered the frontrunner, but analysts say none of the seven candidates is likely to obtain 50 percent of the vote, with a run-off race possible. NPR's Ivan Watson reports from Tehran.

Democrats on Capitol Hill hold a hearing today on the so-called Downing Street Memo. The memo for British Prime Minister Tony Blair reportedly suggests that U.S. intelligence was ''being fixed" in 2002 to back up President Bush's desire to invade Iraq.

The Senate began considering President Bush's comprehensive energy proposal on Tuesday. The debate is expected to continue for weeks. Democrats argue that it does not do enough to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil.

Hundreds of Iranian women protested against gender discrimination, just five days before the country holds presidential elections. The demonstrations came as several people died in a series of explosions.

Two small villages in Kurdistan remain haunted by mustard-gas attacks that took place almost a year before those in Halabja in the late 1980s. Despite the chemical assault by Saddam Hussein's regime, the West did little to help the Kurds.

The Zimbabwean government's campaign to wipe out shantytowns has left an estimated 200,000 people homeless. President Robert Mugabe says the three-week-old operation is a "cleanup" designed to restore the country's "sanity." Critics say it's intended to punish city dwellers for opposing Mugabe and have launched a two-day strike.