13 minutes ago in News & Current Events - WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama's decision to fill the nation's top intelligence jobs with two men short on direct experience in intelligence gathering surprised the spy community and signaled the Democrat's intention for a clean ...

13 minutes ago in News & Current Events - WASHINGTON — Parts of three remote and uninhabited Pacific island chains are being set aside by President George W. Bush as national monuments to protect them from oil and gas extraction and commercial fishing in what will be the largest ...

28 minutes ago in News & Current Events - Hunters descended on the range of the tule elk in pursuit of a trophy after the arbiter of bow-hunting records added the tule to its list of recognized targets. ...

tags: elk, hunting and trapping

28 minutes ago in News & Current Events - The choice of Leon E. Panetta, a former congressman and White House chief of staff, raised questions about his limited experience in intelligence matters. ...

tags: central intelligence agency, obama, barack, panetta, leon e, united states politics and government, presidential election of 2008

28 minutes ago in News & Current Events - The Fatah-led Palestinian Authority is deeply worried about popular support for rival Hamas over the conflict in Gaza, to the point of crushing demonstrations. ...

tags: fatah, al, west bank, palestinians, demonstrations and riots, politics and government, hamas, palestinian authority, abbas, mahmoud, fayyad, salam, israel

28 minutes ago in News & Current Events - Gaza’s civilians — particularly those in militant strongholds — are finding it difficult to evacuate their homes before Israeli attacks begin. ...

tags: gaza strip, civilian casualties, palestinians, civil war and guerrilla warfare, armament, defense and military forces, international relations, hamas, israel

33 minutes ago in News & Current Events - Reuters - China risks a wave of protests and riots in 2009 as rising unemployment stokes discontent among migrant workers and university graduates, a state-run magazine has said in one of the bluntest alarms yet of rising unrest. ...

53 minutes ago in News & Current Events - For 1,533 days, parishioners in Massachusetts have been guarding a church so that the archdiocese cannot sell it. ...

tags: shutdowns institutional, roman catholic church, religion and churches, boston mass, st frances xavier cabrini church, christians and christianity, scituate mass

58 minutes ago in News & Current Events - AFP - Clothing-to-food retailer Marks & Spencer is set to axe more than 1,000 jobs, The Times reported Tuesday, bringing further gloom to the British high street as it struggles under the weight of the downturn. ...

58 minutes ago in News & Current Events - AP - As of Monday, Jan. 5, 2009, at least 4,221 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. ...

1 hours ago in News & Current Events - The Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Monday said it had started its $500bn plan to drive down US mortgage rates by buying securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, the government-run mortgage financiers. Mortgage bond ...

1 hours ago in News & Current Events - WASHINGTON -- The new Congress sweeps into town Tuesday with many members comparing themselves to the 1933 Congress that enacted much of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and changed the government's relationship to its citizenry. These times ...

1 hours ago in News & Current Events - Barack Obama is not the only one being inaugurated on January 20th. We all are. And that's not just because Obama has promised to make a call to service "a central cause" of his presidency. It's because this moment in history demands that we stop ...

1 hours ago in News & Current Events - Two iconic images, from two classic films: in Now, Voyager, kindly therapist Claude Rains walks in the garden with troubled patient Bette Davis. He's paternal, insightful and obviously knows what's good for her. In The Three Faces of Eve, Lee J. ...

1 hours ago in News & Current Events - Education secretary designate, Arne Duncan, CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, has named his strategic consultant and sometime spokesman Peter Cunningham to head the education department's office of communications and outreach in Washington. ...

1 hours ago in News & Current Events - LOS ANGELES — Patricia Arquette has filed for divorce from her actor-husband. Arquette filed for divorce from Thomas Jane in Los Angeles on Monday, citing irreconcilable differences. The couple, who were married in May 2006, have a 5-year-old ...

1 hours ago in News & Current Events - Senate appointee Roland Burris says he's planning to travel to Springfield on Thursday after being subpoenaed by the panel considering the impeachment of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Burris was subpoenaed to appear Wednesday, but he'll be in ...

1 hours ago in News & Current Events - AP - A massive landslide tore down the side of a mountain and buried a highway in northern Guatemala, killing nearly three dozen people and leaving rescue workers frantically digging for more victims Monday. ...

1 hours ago in News & Current Events - I paged through the NASA report on the last moments of the Columbia crew's lives this weekend. The main report, published way back in August 2003, focused on what went wrong with the mission (and how it could be prevented). Basically, some ...

1 hours ago in News & Current Events - President-elect elicited a "roar" when he made an unannounced appearance at Sen. Dick Durbin's party for incoming Senators Monday. From the pool report by the Chicago Tribune's Christi Parsons: At 7:40 p.m., Obama left the hotel and dropped by ...