Musharraf Declares State of Emergency  —  The Pakistani leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, declared a state of emergency tonight, suspending the country's constitution, blacking out all independent television news reports and filling the streets of the capital with hundreds of police and soldiers.

Sen. Feinstein: Judge Mukasey has my vote  —  The attorney general nominee's answers on torture are clear, and he will rise to the challenges of the job.  —  During a long career in public service and private practice, Michael B. Mukasey has forged an independent path as a lawyer and federal judge.

The Petraeus Curve  —  Serious success in Iraq is not being recognised as it should be  —  Is no news good news or bad news?  In Iraq, it seems good news is deemed no news.  There has been striking success in the past few months in the attempt to improve security, defeat al-Qaeda sympathisers …

Thousands Return to Safer Iraqi Capital  —  BAGHDAD (AP) - In a dramatic turnaround, more than 3,000 Iraqi families driven out of their Baghdad neighborhoods have returned to their homes in the past three months as sectarian violence has dropped, the government said Saturday.

Survivor  —  In a new NEWSWEEK poll, Hillary Clinton took the heat at this week's Democratic debate and emerged undamaged.  —  Stan Honda / AFP-Getty Images  —  The New York senator listens to John Edwards during the Oct. 30 Democratic debate in Philadelphia

Flag-burning 'lesson' provokes UM student  —  ORONO, Maine - A University of Maine student alleges her former professor offered extra credit to class members if they burned the American flag or the U.S. Constitution or were arrested defending free speech.  —  On the first day of class …

Dissident  —  Natan Sharansky's passion for democracy isn't always welcome in the West.  —  JERUSALEM—An eternity ago, in 2004, the former Soviet refusenik and Israeli government minister Natan Sharansky called George W. Bush "a dissident President"—"jokingly," he tells me, thinking back to that first White House meeting.

The Religious Left Runs Against Porn  —  I like Tom Perriollo, though I find this diatribe on the common good very annoying. … There's lots of stuff that undermines women's rights, sexual health and 'the common good', from legal economic penalties to cultural norms to the sick gender bias …

We've Come A Long Way  —  Remember the commercial:  —  We've come a long way baby.  —  Well, have we?  That's the question American women need to ask themselves.  —  We earn 77 cents for every dollar a man makes.  —  We are 48% more likely to live in poverty than men.

Top US analyst hits back after death threats over Citigroup downgrade  —  Meredith Whitney: The $360bn analyst |  Citigroup fears send Wall Street reeling |  Citigroup chief is about to quit amid mounting woes |  Wall St braced for $10bn more credit crunch hits

Strange Times  —  In the recent silence about Iraq (apparently no bad news is no news at all), we fail to appreciate that we are witnessing one of the most dramatic turnabouts in a war in our history, comparable to the 90 day radical change from June to September 1864.

Al-Qaida's No. 2 threatens Libya  —  CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida's No. 2 figure harshly criticized Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in a new audio tape Saturday, accusing him of being an enemy of Islam and threatening a wave of attacks against the North African country because it improved relations with the U.S.