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WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush says history will judge him, but he is getting his own crack first. Bush is using his final 50 days in office to tout his legacy, hoping to leave a lasting impression of overshadowed progress. On Monday, World AIDS Day, Bush was heralded for his leadership in fighting the disease, a point that even his Democratic critics readily concede. The anti-AIDS program Bush championed in 2003 has delivered lifesaving medicine to more than 2 million people in five years, up from 50,000 people before it began. Many of those helped live in impoverished sub-Saharan...

<p>FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON ON NOT CAPTURING BIN LADEN: 'At least I tried. That's the difference between me and some, including all the right wingers. They ridicule me for trying. They had eight months to try, they did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed'...</p>

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to make a trade mission to Mexico from Aug. 20-22, his press secretary said Tuesday. Schwarzenegger plans to meet with departing Mexican President Vicente Fox in Mexico City. He will also spend time in the economic and intellectual center of Monterrey, about 150 miles from the border with Texas. "We have a robust relationship with Mexico," said Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Margita Thompson. "We share bonds of culture, family and commerce. And the governor has enjoyed previous trips he has taken to Mexico." Thompson said one of the governor's many goals during the trip would be...

OAKLAND — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Legislative leaders barnstormed the state Monday to tout their agreement on a $37.3 billion infrastructure bond package likely to play a pivotal role in November's election. The tarmac at Oakland International Airport was awash in bipartisan praise as the "Big Five" — the governor and the Assembly's and state Senate's Democratic and Republican leaders — held their news conference before jetting to Burbank, Santa Ana and San Diego for similar events. "I think this is going to be terrific for the whole state of California," Schwarzenegger said of the plan lawmakers approved in the...

BERKELEY — In the early 1970s, California faced a one-two punch of doubled oil prices and soaring electricity demand, with new coal and nuclear power plants projected every eight miles along the coast from San Diego to San Francisco. The plants never got built because a motley band of physicists and state lawmakers cut energy demand down in ways as ambitious as reinventing the fluorescent light bulb and as simple as slapping energy-usage labels on refrigerators. They also retooled the electricity market so power companies spent money helping people use less energy. Utilities were investing in selling less electricity, but...

CHICAGO - Supreme Court nominee John Roberts skipped the American Bar Association's yearly meeting, but big-name conservatives like Kenneth Starr and Theodore Olson were there to promote his credentials. Roberts' nomination to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is a watershed for lawyers. And with Senate confirmation hearings just a month away, he was the inescapable subject at the meeting of the country's largest lawyers group. Top conservatives, from Starr and Olson to Reagan administration Attorney General Edwin Meese and Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo, were attending the meeting and serving as unofficial ambassadors on Roberts' behalf. "For those people...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Secretary-General Kofi Annan has announced the creation of a fund to promote democratric institutions and practices around the world - an idea first proposed by the United States. President Bush suggested the creation of a fund in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly in September. He said it would help countries lay the foundations of democracy by instituting the rule of law, independent courts, a free press, political parties and trade unions. "For quite some time we have believed that democratic countries with similar priorities on human rights and the rule of law should act...

Just weeks after he shelved his plan to overhaul the state's public pension system, Gov. Schwarzenegger is expected to stump for his remaining reform measures Wednesday morning at an invitation-only town hall meeting at a Fontana steel plant. About 500 people, including some steel workers, will be on hand for Schwarzenegger's visit at the 950-employee California Steel Industries, said Brett Guge, the company's vice president of administration. "Our employees will be the primary ingredient of the audience but the governor's office has put together a list of area people that they are inviting," Guge said. "We're honored that the governor...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is scheduled to make a cameo appearance on the ABC television show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" on Sunday to tout the use of solar electricity in homes and businesses. The Republican governor will appear during Sunday night's episode, when a home is renovated with a solar photovoltaic system that allows the house to produce its own electricity, helping the owner to save on electricity bills, according to ABC's Web site and the San Francisco nonprofit Vote Solar. Schwarzenegger is championing new legislation - known as the Million Solar Roofs Initiative - that would create...