Can a Mormon be President?  —  Why Mitt Romney will have to explain a faith that remains mysterious to many  —  A mormon church official and a public relations executive shuttled recently from the Fox News Washington bureau to the Washington Post to the online political digest the Hotline.

Rep. Frank Accuses Fox News Host of Bias  —  Following in President Clinton's footsteps, a prominent Democratic congressman yesterday accused a Fox News anchor of conducting a skewed interview designed to make Democrats look bad.  —  "I've got to say, Chris, you have an odd view of balance …

History Offers Post-Midterm Survival Tips For President  —  The president was in a funk.  Morose from midterm elections that handed Congress to the opposition, he stewed in private, vented to friends, turned on aides and summoned self-help gurus to help him understand just what went wrong.

Angry Shiites hurl stones at Maliki's motorcade  —  BAGHDAD — Angry Shiite Muslims pelted Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's motorcade with stones today after the Iraqi leader pleaded for national reconciliation at a memorial in Sadr City held for victims of a large-scale bombing attack last week.

Iraq Study Group Weighs Overture to Iran and Syria  —  A draft report on strategies for Iraq, which will be debated here by a bipartisan commission beginning Monday, urges an aggressive regional diplomatic initiative that includes direct talks with Iran and Syria but sets no timetables …

Hurricane Predictions Off Track As Tranquil Season Wafts Away  —  More from this channel:  —  This feature requires the Macromedia Flash Plugin.  Please visit http://www.macromedia.com/go/ getflashplayer to download this plugin.  —  It was not the hurricane season we expected, thank you.

Chilling Echo for Lebanon, Mirror of Regional Tension  —  In April 1975, gunmen fired on a church in East Beirut in what appeared to be an attempt to kill Pierre Gemayel, founder of the main right-wing Lebanese Christian militia.  He was not killed, but the shooting set off a cycle of revenge that became a 15-year civil war.

Obama lifted by hand of God  —  Rising black star of Democrats connects with evangelicals  —  IN THE latest sign that the "God gap" between Republicans and Democrats is narrowing, one of America's biggest evangelical churches will this week welcome Senator Barack Obama …

Bring back Saddam Hussein  —  Restoring the dictator to power may give Iraqis the jolt of authority they need.  Have a better solution?  —  THE DEBATE about Iraq has moved past the question of whether it was a mistake (everybody knows it was) to the more depressing question of whether it is possible to avert total disaster.

Sending a Grim Message  —  The Nobel Peace Prize Concert will be held in Oslo on December 11 and broadcast around the world.  The Norwegian Nobel Committee doesn't much care for Americans these days (except for 2002 laureate Jimmy Carter), but it knows who's an international draw and who isn't …

Gaza cease-fire raises hopes for peace  —  JERUSALEM (AP) — A new truce was holding, stopping Palestinian rocket fire and Israeli operations in Gaza for the first time in five months, sparking hopes that it might lead to resumption of long-frozen peace negotiations.

'Makings of bomb' found in airport car  —  A worker discovered the device in the trunk of a returned rental car.  It didn't contain explosives but the FBI is investigating.  —  A bomb-like device was found in a rental car Sunday morning at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport …

Woman faces fines for wreath peace sign  —  DENVER - A homeowners association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is an anti- Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan.

At the Inquirer, Shrink Globally, Slash Locally?  —  Brian Tierney, a onetime critic of the Philadelphia Inquirer who wound up buying the paper, is determined to take his new property in a different direction.  —  "We don't need a Jerusalem bureau," he says.  "What we need are more people in the South Jersey bureau."

50 Shots Fired, and the Experts Offer a Theory  —  It is known in police parlance as "contagious shooting" — gunfire that spreads among officers who believe that they, or their colleagues, are facing a threat.  It spreads like germs, like laughter, or fear.  An officer fires, so his colleagues do, too.