News of Note
Operation Iraqi Freedom
House Panel Launches Probe of Handling of Iraqi Contractor's Alleged Rape
Triple Car Bombing Rocks Southern Iraq, Kills Dozens
Iraqi Girl Gets Gift of Mobility

Operation Enduring Freedom
Gates Sees Afghan Stability, Counsels Caution
Taliban Step Up Attacks, Chairman Says

Homeland Security / War on Terror / Hamas-Hezbollah Happenings
Car Bomb Kills Lebanese General in Beirut - PHOTOS
Sources: No Transcripts of Destroyed CIA Videotapes
U.S. says homegrown attack poses biggest risk
Rescuers search debris after Qaeda blast in Algeria - Video
Toll in Algeria bombings rises to 31
Israel and Palestinians launch peace talks in discord
CIA destroyed tapes despite court order
Hayden knew of interrogation videotapes

Welcome Home!!
Korean Engineers Meet Goal, Go Home

Supporting Our Heroes
American Idol Visits American Soldiers

Religion of Peace??
Canadian Muslim Teen's Dad Charged in Her Murder; Friends Say They Clashed Over Head Scarf

Homegrown Moonbats
Report: Olsen Twins in Hairy Mess With PETA

Politics / Government
GOP Debate Cuts to theChase: Trim Spending
Clinton's Lead Over Obama Dwindles in N.H., Polls Show
Romney: Huckabee's Religion Attack 'Goes Too Far'
CAMPAIGN CARL: Cameron's Blog From the Trail
GOP Hopeful Mike Huckabee Asks if Mormons Believe Jesus, Devil Are Brothers
Romney Says Attacking Religion 'Goes Too Far' After Huckabee Questions Mormonism
Rivals in agreement - Slideshow
Clinton faces tough path in N. Hampshire
Voters focus on pocketbooks
Reuters Blog: Tales from the Trail
Tax ritual underscores need for reform
Clinton now faces tough path in New Hampshire
Paying for tax fix divides Dems, GOP
Tony Blair has role in Barney Cam

In the Courts / Crime and Punishment / Law and Order
Montana Man Gets 225 Years in Prison for Indecent Exposure
Gunmen Knock at Door, Shoot Texas Teen, Mother
Boys, 11 and 14, Charged With Sex Assault on Woman, 60
Stacy Peterson's Sister Claims Ex-Cop Fired Gun at Wife
ABA Magazine Names Gonzales 'Lawyer of the Year'
Crime gangs make billions from Bulgaria sex slaves
`Sopranos' creator in federal court
Woman sentenced in baby swinging
Spears calls in sick for deposition
Judge rejects automakers' emissions suit
Vegas police search for bus gunmen

U.N. News
EXCLUSIVE: Did U.N. Program Funnel Money to N. Korea? (Personally, I'd be surprised if it DIDN'T...)

Science / Medicine and Health / Technology
Not Quite 'Model' Science? (Global warming theory flawed? Well...duh...)
Illuminating Discovery (Glowing cat clones...)
TB treatment pays off, World Bank report finds
Scientists shed light on monster sea waves
H5N1 bird flu new sites found in Poland
New satellite navigation system may save firefighters
Pregnant? Backache? Thank evolution
U.S. cholesterol average is ideal at 199
Panel urges end to incontinence stigma
Study: Why pregnant women don't topple
Childhood vaccine recalled

Mother Nature
Power Returns to Frozen Heartland - PHOTOS
Medium strength quake strikes eastern Venezuela

Oddities
Two Deceased Triplets Removed From Abdomen of 1-Year-Old Girl
Teen caller tricks White House
Keep Christmas cake Italian, panettone makers say
Lock of Lennon's hair sells for $48,000
'Avoid Death' is named wackiest label

Other News of Note
Baseball drug results to be announced

Fox News
Suggestive Panties Get Yanked
Maine Shoe Company Founder Leaves Every Child Born in State $500 College Down Payment
FOXBusiness: Wall Street Rally Reversed, Oil Soars
Salvation Army Kettle Gets Anonymous $3,000 Donation
Paris Hilton Wears Nothing but Gold Paint for Champagne Ad
Hulk Hogan Says in TV Interview: 'I Just Pray That Things Get Better for My Family'

Reuters
Video helps troubled borrowers spot fraud
Full Coverage: The Housing Market
Economic gamble
Factbox: How will the measures work?
Full Coverage: Crisis in Credit
Credibility and the dollar
IOC strips Jones' 2000 Olympic medals
Mitchell report set for Thursday release
Kids don't make you happier in early years
Marie Antoinette's necklace fails to sell
Three wise men hit a barrier in Bethlehem
Mexicans crowd shrine despite church's troubles
Will Smith looks to save Hollywood at box offices
Without writers, TV loads up on reality, reruns
Airline shares down following weaker profit outlook
GE shares rise after conservative 2008 forecast
Schering, Merck shares fall on congressional probe
Oil jumps $4 on central bank move
Stocks edge higher on Fed plan optimism
DealTalk: Asia hungry for resources
M&A Today: Read the latest deal news
Battling for offshore funds
US STOCKS-Wall St indexes edge higher on Fed plan optimism
Britain's FTSE ends up on joint central bank move
Central banks join forces to ease credit crisis - Video
Bank of America, Wachovia shares down on warnings - Video
Dow Jones proxy count shows buyout approved: report
Century 21 seeks overseas buyers of U.S. homes
Toyota USA sees '08 sales growth of roughly 3 percent
Retail season off to solid start: SpendingPulse

AP World News
Musician Ike Turner dies at 76
Tejada traded to Orioles for 5 players
Paris Hilton is looking for 'a nice boy' (A nice boy who likes gold paint, apparently...)
Stocks erase sharp gains sparked by Fed

CENTCOM: News Releases
IRAQI FORCES, U.S. SPECIAL FORCES DETAIN SUSPECTED AL-QAEDA IN IRAQ LEADER
COALITION FORCES DISRUPT AL-QAEDA OPERATIONS; ONE TERRORIST KILLED, 19 DETAINED

USJFCOM
U.S. Joint Forces Command, IBM sign new cooperative research and development agreement
More about CRADAs
Ribbon cut for new SOCJFCOM headquarters - podcast
Newsmaker Profile: SOCJFCOM Commander Army Col. Wesley Rehorn - podcast
More about SOCJFCOM
Capability development leadership to change
More about Capability Development

Multi-National Force-Iraq
Support Battalion Brings Medical Care to Zoo Employees, Families
Soldiers Attend Tree Lighting Ceremony
Suspected sniper seized (Baghdad)
Operation detains 2, sets up Concerned Local Citizen headquarters (Aby Salman)
Iraqi Army Soldiers clear caches, detain extremists (Hawr Rajab)
Coalition Forces kill AQI operative (Adwaniyah)
Iraqi Forces, U.S. Special Forces detain suspected al-Qaeda in Iraq leader (Karmah)
Coalition forces disrupt al-Qaeda operations; 14 terrorists killed, 12 detained

DefenseLink
TOP NEWS
New Year Brings Boost In Housing Allowance
DoD Notifies Congress of Future Furloughs

IRAQ NEWS
4th Infantry to Take Over at Headquarters
Coalition, Iraqi Troops Kill 14, Detain 13

AFGHANISTAN NEWS
Forces Treat More Than 700 Villagers

FACE OF DEFENSE
‘Doc’ Becker Commands Respect as Medic
Cancer Didn't End Dream of Military Service

MILITARY NEWS
All Components Meet November Recruiting Goals
Iraq Command Dedicates Studio to Fallen Marine

WHY WE SERVE
Iraq Alters Big City Marine

AMERICA SUPPORTS YOU
From Wine to Phone Cards
Computers Boost Morale

Weather
Afghanistan
Bost/Laskar Ghurian Herat Kabul Qandahar

Germany
Ansbach Aschaffenburg Berlin Berlin-Tempelhof Berlin/Schonefeld Bremerhaven
Darmstadt Frankfurt Frankfurt/Main Freiburg/Breisgau Garmisch
Garmisch-Partenkirchen Geilenkirchen Gelnhausen Giessen Kitzingen
Hanau Am Main Heidelberg Mainz Mannheim Nurnberg Stuttgart Trier
Wiesbaden Wurzburg

Gitmo

Guam
Agana Agana Heights Agat Andersen AFB Asan Barrigada

Iraq
Al Azamiyah Al Basrah Al Hillah Al Karkh Al Kazimiyah Al Kut
An Nasiriyah Baghdad Baqubah Mosul Najaf Nineveh Tall Kayf

Japan
Kadena Air Base Okinawa Tokyo Yokohama

Today in History
0627 - Battle at Nineveh: Byzantine emperor Heraclius beats Perzen
1098 - 1st Crusaders capture & plunder Mara Syria
1474 - Isabella crowns herself queen of Castile & Aragon
1479 - Jews are expelled from Schlettstadt Alsace by Emperor Frederick III
1524 - Pope Clement VII approves Organization of Jewish Community of Rome
1653 - Barebone-parliament ends
1677 - Brandenburgs army occupies Stettin
1715 - Russian/Prussian troops occupy Stralsund
1777 - Reverend Benjamin Russen executed at Tyburn, England for rape
1787 - Pennsylvania becomes 2nd state to ratify US constitution
1791 - Bank of the US opens
1792 - In Vienna, Ludwig van Beethoven (21) receives 1st lesson in music composition from Franz Joseph Haydn
1800 - Washington, DC established as capital of US
1822 - México officially recognized as an independent nation by US
1858 - 1st Canadian coins circulated (1¢, 5¢, 10¢ & 20¢)
1862 - Battle of Dumfries, VA; Naval Engagement at Yazoo River, MS (USS Cairo torpedoed)
1870 - Joseph Rainey (South Carolina) becomes the first Black sworn into House of Representatives
1871 - Jules Janssen discovers dark lines in solar corona spectrum
1897 - Anti-Jewish violence breaks out in Bucharest Romania; Rudolph Dirks' 1st Katzenjammer cartoon strip in New York Journal
1899 - George F. Grant of Boston (first black graduate of Harvard College, and a dentist) patents the wooden golf tee; 1st case of plague on Oahu, HI
1901 - Marconi receives 1st transatlantic radio signal, England to US
1903 - Roger Casement completes report about abuses in Belgian Congo
1906 - Oscar Straus, 1st Jewish cabinet member, appointed Secretary of Commerce
1913 - "Mona Lisa", recovered after being stolen from the Louvre Museum in 1911; Hebrew language officially used to teach in Palestinian schools
1915 - 1st all-metal aircraft (Junkers J.1) test flown at Dessau Germany; Aristide Briand forms French war government; Russian troops overrun Hamadan, Persia
1917 - Worst train disaster (derailment near mouth of Mount Cenis tunnel) ever (Modane France-543 French troops killed); Reverend Edward Flanagan founds Boys Town outside Omaha NE
1925 - Arthur Heinman coins term "motel", opens Motel Inn, San Luis Obispo; Last Qajar Shah of Iran deposed; Rexa Shah Pahlavi takes over; Cossack officer/ex-premier Reza Chan becomes shah of Persia
1930 - Baseball Rules Committee greatly revises the rule book, when a ball bounces into stands now a double, not a homerun
1931 - Japanese Government of Imukai forms
1932 - USSR & China resume diplomatic relations
1936 - Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek declares war on Japan
1937 - Japanese aircraft shell & sink US gunboat Panay on Yangtze River in China. (Japan apologized & eventually paid US $2.2 million in reparations); NBC & RCA send the 1st mobile-TV vans onto the streets of New York
1939 - Soviet prison ship Indigirka, carrying 2,500 prisoners, capsizes in blizzard off Japanese coast; 2,470 die
1940 - British troops conquer Sidi el-Barrani
1941 - German occupying army do a house search in Paris looking for Jews; European reservists on Java mobilize; Russian 20th army recaptures Soljetsjnogorsk
1942 - German offensive in South Western Stalingrad
1945 - Special Court of justice convicts NSB-leader Mussert; sentenced to death
1946 - Ice plant collapses, shearing a tenement building & burying 38; UN accepts 6 Manhattan blocks as a gift from John D Rockefeller, Jr.; Tide detergent introduced
1947 - United Mine Workers union withdrew from AFL
1951 - Joe DiMaggio announces his retirement
1953 - Chuck Yeager reaches Mach 2.43 in Bell X-1A rocket plane
1955 - 1st prototype of hovercraft patented by British engineer Christoper Cockerell
1957 - US announces manufacture of Borazon (harder than diamond); rocker Jerry Lee Lewis weds his cousin Myra Gale Brown, 13, while still married to his 1st wife, Jane Mitcham; Major Adrian Drew flies 1,943 kph in F-101 Voodoo
1958 - Dutch social democratic party-ministers/premier Drees dismissed
1959 - UN Committee on Peaceful Use of Outer Space is established
1961 - Ham radio satellite Oscar 1 launched with military Discoverer 36; Martin Luther King Jr & 700 demonstrators arrested in Albany GA
1963 - Frank Sinatra, Jr., is returned after being kidnapped; Argentina asks for extradition of ex-President Peron; Kenya (formerly British East Africa) declares independence from UK
1967 - US launches Pioneer 8 into solar orbit
1968 - Arthur Ashe becomes the first African-American to be ranked #1 in tennis
1969 - Bomb attack on bank in Milan, 14 killed
1970 - Small Astronomy Satellite Explorer 42 launched to study X-rays
1973 - Canada begins selling Olympic coins ($5 & $10 silver coins)
1975 - Gas stove explodes & starts fire killing 138 (Mecca Saudi Arabia); Sara Jane Moore pleads guilty to trying to kill President Gerald Ford
1979 - Rhodesia becomes the independent nation of Zimbabwe
1980 - US's copyright law amended to include computer programs
1981 - Gambia & Senegal sign agreement to be known as Senegambia in Feb 1982
1982 - $9,800,000 in cash stolen from money transport car in New York NY
1983 - A truck bomb explodes at the US Embassy in Kuwait
1985 - 248 US soldiers & 8 crew members die in Arrow Air DC-8 charter crash (Gander, Newfoundland); NASA launches space vehicle S-207
1986 - Microlite aircraft circles world non-stop; Russian Tupolev-134 crashes in East Berlin, 70 killed; South African journalist Zwelakhe Sisulu arrested
1988 - PLO leader Yasser Arafat accepts Israel's right to exist
1990 - US ambassador to Kuwait, Nathaniel Howell, leaves Kuwait; US accuses Iraq of dragging its feet on dates for talks
1991 - Maastricht Treaty signed to create a European Community
1992 - 6.8-7.5 earthquake strikes Flores Island (tsunami kills 3,000)
1993 - Ultra-Nationalists make strong gains in Russian elections
1995 - Amendment to make it illegal to physically desecrate the flag turned down by senate 63-36; Israeli PM Shimon Peres addresses both houses of US Congress
1996 - Assassination attempt on Uday (Iraqi heir - Saddam's son)
1997 - Carlos the Jackal, "professional revolutionary," goes on trial in Paris; Japanese train builders (Maglev) claim world speed record at 332 MPH; SWAT team shoots John E Armstrong in Florida, freeing 2 young hostage; TWA 800 hearings end in Baltimore, MD

Birthdays
1560 - Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully / Baron of Rosny / PM of France
1673 - Ahmed III, 23rd sultan (Turkey, 1703-30)
1712 - Charles Alexander, Duke of Lotharingen
1745 - John Jay, diplomat (NY-Governor)
1792 - Alexandros Ypsilanti, Greek resistance fighter
1805 - Henry Wells, founder (American Express Company / Wells Fargo & Company); William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist publisher (The Liberator)
1806 - Stand Watie, Confederate Brigadier-General
1818 - Paul Octave Hebert, Confederate Brigadier-General
1821 - Gustave Flaubert Rouen, novelist (Madame Bovary)
1830 - Joseph Orville Shelby, Confederate Brigadier-General
1832 - Abraham C. Wertheim, Dutch banker/MP
1833 - Matthias Hohner, German manufacturer (harmonica)
1838 - Sherburne W. Burnham, US astronomer (binary stars)
1848 - William Vanderbilt, yachtsman (donated Vanderbilt Cup)
1859 - Edward Bradley, racehorse owner (1st to own 4 Kentucky Derby winners)
1863 - Edvard Munch Norway, painter/print maker (The Scream)
1866 - Alfred Werner, Swiss chemist (Nobel 1913)
1879 - Friedrich Christiansen, Nazi commander, Wehrmacht, Netherlands
1913 - Jesse Owens, US track star who spoiled Hitler's Olympics (4 golds in 1936)
1922 - Arthur R. Hawkins, US pilot/captain (WWII, downed 14 Japanese planes)
1924 - Edward I. Koch, (Mayor-NY, 1977-89)/judge (People's Court)
1946 - Emerson Fittipaldi, Indy-car racer (over 10 wins)
1951 - Steven Alan Hawley, Ph.D. / astronaut (STS 41-D, STS 61-C, STS 31, STS 82)
1952 - Cathy Rigby McCoy, gymnast (Olympics-4th-1968, 1972)
1959 - Scott D. Vangen, astronaut

Passings
0884 - Carloman, co-king of France (879, 882-884)
1112 - Tancred, monarch of Galilea/Edessa/Antioch
1204 - Maimonides, (Moses Ben Maimon), Jewish philosopher/talmudic scholar, dies in Cairo at 69
1263 - Hakon IV Gamli, King of Norway (1217-63), dies
1600 - John Craig, Scottish church reformer/James VI's court vicar
1677 - Jacob Binckes/Benckes, Dutch admiral (Chatham), dies in battle
1843 - Willem I, Frederik King of Netherlands (1814-40), dies at 71
1872 - Willem A. Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, Dutch politician, dies at 72
1877 - José M. de Alencar, Brazilian writer/minister of Justice, dies at 48
1912 - Luitpold von Bayern, prince-regent of Bayern, dies at 91
1961 - Daiun Sogaku, Harada Zen founder of Sanbo Kyodan lineage, dies at 91
1971 - David Sarnoff, US TV pioneer (RCA), dies at 80; Jack Barnhill, Northern Ireland senator, assassinated
1988 - John Canning, "New York Post" managing editor, dies at 56
1993 - Gerard "Gé" Nabrink Dutch anarchist/NVSH-founder, dies at 90; Jozsef Antall, historian/premier of Hungary (1990-93), dies at 61
1994 - Antoine Pinay, French PM (1952)/foreign minister, dies at 102; Stuart Allen Roosa, astronaut (Apollo 14), dies of pancreatitis at 46
1995 - David Lincoln Lightbown, politician, dies at 63; David Saul Marshall, diplomat lawyer/politician, dies at 97; James Altgens, JFK assassination photographer, dies at 76

Reported Missing in Action
1963
Angell, Marshall J., US Army (VA); CH37B shot down (flight engineer)

1966
Flesher, Hubert K., USAF (WV); F4C shot down, released by DRV February, 1973 - retired as a Lt. Colonel - alive as of 1998

1970
Duckett, Thomas A., USAF (GA); O2A shot down (w/Skinner)

Skinner, Owen G., USAF (OH); O2A shot down (w/Duckett)

Labels: Headlines, History