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.

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

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.

Mukasey all but a shoo-in for approval  —  Two Democrats on the judiciary panel express concerns but say they will vote to confirm him as attorney general.  —  WASHINGTON — Michael B. Mukasey appeared on Friday to be all but assured of becoming the nation's 81st attorney general …

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 …

Iraq surge brings hope for a day without death  —  Tom Baldwin in Washington, Deborah Haynes in Baghdad and Anna Stroman  —  It is whispered about at the margins of meetings and discussed in Washington parties where rumour is passed around with the wine and canapés.  It even appears, fleetingly, to be fact.

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.

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

We're twinseparable!  Happy with his brother, the boy who refused to die  —  They say twins share a strong bond - but the one between Gabriel and Ieuan Jones was unbreakable.  —  When doctors found that Gabriel was weaker than his brother, with an enlarged heart,and believed he was going to die …

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.

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.

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 …

Factoid of the Day: Hillary's name  —  This is more or less just sad, but it does give you a sense of the depth to which Hillary is embedded in American culture.  —  The chart above measures the rank of the name "Hillary" among the top 1,000 American baby names.

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.