FEMA under fire for 'faking' news conference  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House scolded the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday for staging a phony news conference about assistance to victims of wildfires in southern California.  —  The agency — much maligned for its sluggish response …

USS Cole bomber released from jail  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — U.S. law enforcement officials Friday blasted Yemen's release of one of the leaders of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 U.S. soldiers.  —  "We are dismayed and deeply disappointed in the government of Yemen's decision …

The Mitt-Brownback spat carries on  —  Sam Brownback may be out of the race, but his very public dangling of an endorsement for Rudy is angering at least one prominent Romney backer.  To set the stage: These two camps, Brownback and Romney, are not fond of each other and did battle …

State Dept. To Order Diplomats To Iraq  —  As Many as 50 Positions Are Expected to Be Open  —  The State Department will order as many as 50 U.S. diplomats to take posts in Iraq next year because of expected shortfalls in filling openings there, the first such large-scale forced assignment since the Vietnam War.

Some cool graphs of rich states and poor states  —  I'll take advantage of Paul Krugman's recent link to our paper on income and voting by putting up some cool scatterplots that we made recently.  It started with our maps of which states Bush and Kerry would've won if only the votes of the poor, middle-income, and rich were counted:

Donald Rumsfeld charged with torture during trip to France  —  Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld got an unpleasant surprise during his visit to France today when human rights groups filed a complaint with the Paris Prosecutor before the "Court of First Instance" (Tribunal de Grande Instance) …

Human race will 'split into two different species'  —  The human race will one day split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures, according to a top scientist.  —  100,000 years into the future …

Facebook reveals the BBC as a liberal hotbed  —  The BBC has frequently been accused of having a liberal bias.  —  But now the corporation's own staff appear to have confirmed this by revealing their political views on the networking website Facebook.  —  A survey of BBC employees …

Sen. Craig will argue against constitutionality of his bust  —  Idaho Sen. Larry Craig will argue before an appeals court that Minnesota's disorderly conduct law is unconstitutional as it applies to his conviction in a bathroom sex sting, according to a new court filing.

Why Democrats are afraid to raise taxes on the rich  —  New data from the Internal Revenue Service show that income inequality continues to widen.  The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans earn more than 21 percent of all income.  That's a postwar record.  The bottom 50 percent of all Americans …

Putin invokes Cuban missile crisis  —  Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, on Friday compared US plans to build a missile defence shield near Russia's borders to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.  —  Mr Putin quickly qualified his remarks …

Democrats Plan a Shorter Workweek  —  Shortly after winning a majority last year, Democrats triumphantly declared that they would put Congress back to work, promising an "end to the two-day workweek."  And indeed, the House has clocked more time in Washington this year than in any other session since 1995 …

Genarlow Wilson released  —  Georgia Supreme Court rules his sentence was cruel and unusual  —  Genarlow Wilson walked out of prison a free man Friday afternoon, hours after the Georgia Supreme Court tossed out his 10-year sentence for having consensual oral sex when he was 17 with a girl who was 15.

McCarthy: Waterboarding and Torture  —  Again, we do not know the details of waterboarding as practiced (if, as reported, it is or has been practiced) by the CIA.  Yet, we know generally that waterboarding is very rough stuff.  It is not especially painful physically and causes no lasting bodily injury …

INHOFE NOT OK.  —  Reading about yet another terrible stand taken by Senator James "global warming is the second-largest hoax ever played on the American people, after the separation of church and state" Inhofe (leading the fight against the law of the sea), I wondered if there was much chance …