To the Point

Battle for Democratic Presidential Nomination Heads South

John Kerry won easy victories over the weekend in Michigan, Washington and Maine--states once thought to be Howard Dean country. Dean says he-ll make his last stand next week in Wisconsin. Meantime, polls show Kerry leading tomorrow-s contests in Tennessee and Virginia against Southerners Wesley Clark and John Edwards. Though other candidates claim they-re in for the long haul, Kerry is already concentrating his fire on President Bush. Will Kerry sew up the nomination before most Democrats have even gone to the polls? Is he getting the kind of scrutiny a challenger needs before he takes on a sitting President? We hear from political columnists, Democratic strategists, consultants and the former chairman of the Virginia Democratic Party. Making News: Russian Presidential Candidate Disappears President Vladimir Putin is widely expected to win re-election when Russians go to the polls next month. None of his five challengers has built much support, but now, one of them has disappeared. Andrei Kortunov, regional vice president of the Eurasia Foundation and an advisor to former President Boris Yeltsin, says theories about the disappearance of Ivan Rybkin range from mischievous political conspiracies to creative campaign strategies. Reporter's Notebook: 40 Years of Music, from the Beatles to Beyonc- and Beyond Only the final episode of M*A*S*H ever drew a bigger TV audience than the Beatles when they appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. But there could be no more dramatic demonstration of how much popular music has changed in the past 40 years than last night's Grammy's. Alan Light, editor-in-chief of Tracks, a magazine aimed at older music listeners, says last night's awards show covered some interesting musical ground.