Bristol Palin, the 17-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin, is pregnant and will keep the baby and marry the father, a senior aide to Sen. John McCain confirmed to CNN Tuesday.

Republican presidential candidate McCain was aware of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy before he chose her mother for his running mate, the aide said.

“Senator McCain knew this and felt in no way did it disqualify her from being vice president,” said the aide. “Families have difficulties sometimes, and lucky for her she has a supportive family.”

The 17-year-old, a senior in high school, is about five months along, in her second trimester, according to the aide.

The aide said it was decided the campaign would reveal this information now because of rampant Internet rumors that Sarah Palin’s 4-month-old baby, who has Down syndrome, was actually Bristol’s.

Honesty We Can Believe In!

Sadly, this won’t do anything to quiet the attacks on Bristol from the sewers of the left. No matter that the announcement shows the campaign to be honest (rather than secretive and bullying) about private matters, or that the situation the family is in itself illustrates personal responsibility (one of those principles Republicans are supposed to stand for), it’s blood in the water. The imagery experts at Kos and elsewhere who spent the past three days poring over every photo and video of Gov. Palin and her daughter looking for telltale signs of a “baby bump” will regard their efforts as a brilliant success rather than a lucky shot in the dark, and will be emboldened to continue and even expand what they’ve been doing.

Which sucks for the Palin family. And for civil discourse. I can only hope that the silver lining in all of this is that there is so much blowback against the unhinged left that the Democrats are finally forced to marginalize them.

First lady Laura Bush said today that sexism aimed at Sarah Palin was a very real prospect and suggested Democrats watch what they say about the Alaska governor and John McCain's ticketmate.

“The other side will have to be particularly careful," Bush said in an interview on Fox News from St. Paul, "because that’s something we all looked at."

Questioned about whether Palin may face sexism from the media in the way Hillary Rodham Clinton supporters claim she did, Bush said: "I think that's a possibility."

The first lady, who had been planning to speak to the GOP convention tonight before Gustav scrambled the schedule, expressed pride in Palin.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's fiery ex-pastor, re-emerged yesterday with a crude reference about race and sex in the White House.

"This ordinary boy [Obama] just might be the first president in the history of the United States to have a black woman sleeping at 1600 Pennsylvania legally," Wright said, referring to Michelle Obama, in a sermon at the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in Houston.

THREE TEENAGE girls have been buried alive by their tribe in a remote part of Pakistan to punish them for attempting to choose their own husbands, in an "honour" killing case.

After news of the deaths emerged, male politicians from their province Balochistan defended the killings in parliament, claiming the practice was part of "our tribal custom".

The girls, thought to have been aged between 16 and 18, were kidnapped by a group of men from their Umrani tribe.

They were driven to a rural area and then injured by being shot. Then, while still alive, they were dragged bleeding to a pit, where they were covered with earth and stones, according to the findings of Human Rights Watch, the international campaigning group.

Officials, speaking off the record, confirmed the killings.

The US military has handed Anbar province, once the centre of Iraq's Sunni insurgency, to Iraqi control at a ceremony in the provincial capital.

Anbar province began a transformation in 2006 as former insurgents turned against al-Qaeda and became US allies.

More than a quarter of all US soldiers killed in Iraq have died in Anbar, which is Iraq's biggest province.

With Anbar's transfer Iraqi forces will control security in 11 of the country's 18 provinces.

The government headquarters in Ramadi was draped with tribal flags for the handover ceremony, which was presided over by US, Iraqi and tribal officials.

The Global warming has probably made Hurricane Gustav a bit stronger and wetter, some top scientists said Sunday, but the specific connection between climate change and stronger hurricanes remains an issue of debate.

The Atlantic is seeing an increase in storms rated among the strongest. In the past four years, Hurricanes Gustav and Katrina, and six other storms have reached Category 4 or higher with sustained winds of at least 131 mph, according to research at Georgia Tech.

Six scientists contacted by The Associated Press on Sunday said this shows some effect of global warming, but they differ on the size of the effect.

"We are just seeing a lot more Categories 4 and 5 globally than we have ever seen," said Judith Curry, chairman of Earth and atmospheric sciences at Georgia Tech. "The years 2004, 2005 and 2007 are quite high. We're just seeing more and more."

Measurements of the energy pumped into the air from the warm waters — essentially fuel for hurricanes — has increased dramatically since the mid 1990s, mostly in the strongest of hurricanes, according to a soon-to-be published paper in the journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems by Kevin Trenberth, climate analysis chief at National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

McCain spotlighted Palin at the suburban St. Louis rally -- giving her the clean-up speaking spot on a stage erected over the ballfield's home plate. She got an enthusiastic reception from the crowd that filled the infield bleachers and spread from the dirt base paths into the outfield grass. At various times, they chanted, "Sarah, Sarah."

The ball team's president said the stadium holds about 15,000 for such concert-style events. Republican consultant John Hancock, who served as master of ceremonies for the event, estimated there were about 20,000 people.

"I told Congress, thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere," Palin told the cheering McCain crowd, referring to Ketchikan's Gravina Island bridge. But Palin was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it. The Alaska governor campaigned in 2006 on a build-the-bridge platform, telling Ketchikan residents she felt their pain when politicians called them "nowhere." They're still feeling pain today in Ketchikan, over Palin's subsequent decision to use the bridge funds for other projects -- and over the timing of her announcement, which they say came in a pre-dawn press release that seemed aimed at national news deadlines. "I think that's when the campaign for national office began," said Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein on Saturday. ...McCain also claimed to have found, in Palin, "someone with an outstanding reputation for standing up to special interests and entrenched bureaucracies" and "someone who has fought against corruption and the failed policies of the past" and "someone who has reached across the aisle and asked Republicans, Democrats and independents to serve in government." On those scores, Palin can fairly claim credit, according to Alaska political leaders and others who have followed her career here. She did fight corruption as a whistle-blower, even before an FBI investigation burst into public view. She also stood up to "party bosses," as McCain claimed, running against Republican incumbents as an outsider -- though she has yet to unseat her nemesis, Randy Ruedrich, as state party chairman. Palin spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said Saturday that as projected costs for the Ketchikan bridge rose to nearly $400 million, administration officials were telling Ketchikan that the project looked less likely. Local leaders shouldn't have been surprised when Palin announced she was turning to less-costly alternatives, Leighow said. Indeed, Leighow produced a report quoting Palin, late in the governor's race, indicating she would also consider alternatives to a bridge.