Mosques torched after worst Iraq bombing  —  BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen bent on revenge burned mosques and homes in a Sunni enclave of Baghdad on Friday as Iraq's leaders pleaded for calm, a day after the worst bomb attack since the U.S. invasion.  —  Some 30 people were killed, police said …

Iran and Syria Helping Hizballah Rearm  —  As Lebanon's government tries to maintain its shaky grip on power, sources tell TIME that Tehran and Damascus are shipping weapons to the militant Shi'ite group  —  Iran is smuggling weapons through Syria to re-arm Lebanese allies Hizballah …

Briefly: Hamas cameraman killed by Israeli troops  —  Israeli troops killed a Hamas militant Friday who was filming the group's operations in Gaza, Palestinian medical officials said.  —  The governing Hamas movement often films its battles and operations against the Israeli Army …

Despite a Year of Ire and Angst, Little Has Changed on Wiretaps  —  When President Bush went on national television one Saturday morning last December to acknowledge the existence of a secret wiretapping program outside the courts, the fallout was fierce and immediate.

Islamic fears kill off children's thriller … A LEADING children's publisher has dumped a novel because of political sensitivity over Islamic issues.  —  Scholastic Australia pulled the plug on the Army of the Pure after booksellers and librarians said they would not stock the adventure thriller …

I am slightly miffed  —  Originally uploaded by dynamist.  —  The kid in the picture above doesn't look very harmful, right?  He's reasonably well-dressed, anyway.  But actually, he is quite a large fellow, and likes to assault random women with the help of an equally vile friend of his.

Is the L.A. Times Repeating Enemy Propaganda?  Or Is There Another Reason The Paper Is Getting Basic Facts Wrong and Failing to Report the Military's Side?  —  Is the L.A. Times reporting unconfirmed enemy propaganda from an Iraqi stringer with ties to the insurgency?

Poisoned ex-spy accuses Putin from beyond grave  —  LONDON (Reuters) - An ex-KGB spy accused Vladimir Putin of his murder in a statement read out on Friday after his death from radiation poisoning, but the Russian president brushed off the accusation as "political provocation".

Stores revert to 'Merry Christmas'  —  Wal-Mart leads way, backing off from 'happy holidays'  —  Christmas is back at Wal-Mart - not that it really ever left.  —  After testing out a generic, yet all-inclusive, "happy holidays" theme last year, the nation's largest retailer announced …

Man with submachine gun arrested after standoff at Miami Herald  —  A 3 ½-hour standoff at The Miami Herald building ended without violence this afternoon as Miami police officers arrested a man — dressed in camouflage and carrying a submachine gun — who barricaded himself in the office of the top editor of El Nuevo Herald.

Tolls could cut congestion, test shows  —  For about eight months, drivers in 275 Seattle-area households agreed to pay for something the rest of us get for free: The right to drive on the region's freeways and streets.  —  They were guinea pigs in a pioneering study that explored …

Pelosi's compulsion  —  Whatever urge impels Nancy Pelosi to consider replacing Jane Harman with Alcee Hastings as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence must be extraordinarily powerful.  Some say that Speaker-elect Pelosi harbors a personal grudge against her fellow Californian …

What Grandma Would Say  —  We don't need to solve the immigration problem forever.  We need to solve it now.  —  It is July 10, 1858, a Saturday evening, and Lincoln is speaking in Chicago.  The night before his opponent in their race for the U.S. Senate, Stephen Douglas …

The real Kramer: That's not me  —  NEW YORK - The first call came from the Midwest.  Before long, the phone was ringing, and ringing, and ringing again: Satellite radio.  Fox News.  Extra.  —  Yada, yada, yada.  —  For Kenny Kramer, role model for the "Seinfeld" character who shared his surname …

Dig That Crazy Beat, Daddy-O!  —  Clearly still smarting from the cancellation of the Mel Torme Show or something, our Red State Brethren are all atwitter after old straight people in Arizona defeated a ban on gay marriage because they wanted to protect their right of "shacking up" …