Updated

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Narrowing the Gap

Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman is officially on the ballot as the candidate of the Connecticut for Lieberman party after the secretary of state certified his voter signatures.

Meanwhile, two new polls show Lieberman in a statistical dead heat with liberal challenger Ned Lamont a week after a separate poll gave Lieberman a double-digit advantage.

Lieberman leads Lamont 44 percent to 42 percent in an American Research Group survey, with 11 percent of voters still undecided. Just 3 percent support Republican candidate Alan Schlesinger. Lamont leads among Democrats 65 to 30, while 57 percent of Republicans and 48 percent of independents support Lieberman.

And a new Rasmussen Reports poll gives Lieberman a 45 to 43 lead over Lamont, with 6 percent supporting Schlesinger.

Paranoid in Pyongyang

North Korea says it has the right to attack the U.S. or South Korea without provocation, declaring the armistice ending the Korean War in 1953 "null and void."

In a statement, the military declared it "reserves the right to undertake a pre-emptive action for self-defense against the enemy at a crucial time it deems necessary to defend itself."

The announcement was likely prompted by annual joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea, which began on Monday. North Korea called those exercises "an undisguised military threat" and "a war action."

Fed Up With Funding Hezbollah?

A London-based Arab newspaper reports Iranians hit hard by recent wars and natural disasters are outraged over allegations that their government has pledged $500 million to support Hezbollah, saying they're still waiting on money to rebuild their own homes.

So-called "informed sources" tell Asharq al-Awsat that spontaneous demonstrations broke out in the western Khuzestan district, which sustained severe damage during the Iran-Iraq war, and in Bam, which was hit hard by an earthquake three years ago.

Protesters allegedly shouted anti-Hezbollah slogans and demanded reconstruction efforts at home, instead of in Lebanon.

Burns' Big Mouth?

Incumbent Republican Sen. Conrad Burns is already in some political trouble in his Montana re-election fight and may be in some more with his conservative base.

Burns referred to his house painter as a "nice little Guatemalan man" and joked that one of his maintenance employees has refused to show his green card.

Burns has made illegal immigration a central issue in his campaign and a spokesman insists the workers are legal residents.

But conservative group The American Cause says, "A U.S. senator hiring illegal immigrants is not a joke," while a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform calls the senator's mockery "a pretty good indication of why we have 12 million people breaking the law."

—FOX News Channel's Aaron Bruns contributed to this report.