Exclusive: FBI: Al Qaeda May Strike U.S. Shopping Malls in LA, Chicago  —  Richard Esposito and Vic Walter Report:  —  The FBI is warning that al Qaeda may be preparing a series of holiday attacks on U.S. shopping malls in Los Angeles and Chicago, according to an intelligence report distributed …

Militant Group Is Out of Baghdad, U.S. Says  —  American forces have routed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the Iraqi militant network, from every neighborhood of Baghdad, a top American general said today, allowing American troops involved in the "surge" to depart as planned.

Cheney's Impeachment Literally Fell 'Off the Table'  —  Maybe now we know what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) meant when she said impeachment was "off the table."  —  Lawmakers' voting cards on the issue were literally just that — off the table — during Tuesday's brouhaha …

British Muslim woman convicted of penning poems about beheadings  —  An airport worker who wrote poems about beheadings is the first woman to be found guilty under new terror laws.  —  Samina Malik, who liked to call herself a "lyrical terrorist", called for attacks on the West and described …

Tidal wave heading for England's east coast poses 'extreme danger to life'  —  Tens of thousands of householders are today preparing for some of the worst coastal floods in decades.  —  Sea levels could rise up to 9ft this morning along part of the East Coast, putting lives at risk.

PROGRESS vs. SUPPORT....Via Andrew Sullivan, here's a series of public opinon charts compiled by Charles Franklin showing that support for the war has ticked upward over the past few months.  No, strike that.  Here's the interesting thing: the trendlines show that opinons about how well the war …

In First Bush Veto Override, Senate Enacts Water Bill  —  The Senate voted overwhelmingly today for a popular $23 billion water projects measure affecting locales across the country, thereby handing President Bush his first defeat in a veto showdown with Congress.

Centrism  —  Let's be clear that "centrism" is, for the most part, a cosmetic pose for the benefit of Beltways journalists who know that The Most Important Thing Is To Be A Centrist.  —  In terms of what those centrists actually support in terms of policy, I'd say there are roughly 3 kinds of things.

Poll: Clinton lags in quest for male voters  —  WASHINGTON — More than eight in 10 Republicans and more than half the married men in a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll say they definitely wouldn't vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton for president.  —  The poll provides an early snapshot of who's ruling out Clinton …

Lieberman: 'Paranoid, Hyper-Partisan' 'Left-Wing Blogs' Wrote 'Conspiracy Theories' On Iran  —  Speaking today at the Johns Hopkins Center for Politics and Foreign Relations, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) accused "left-wing blogs" of making up "conspiracy theories" about the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which passed the Senate last month.

Veteran Interrogator: You Don't Need to Torture Even in 'Ticking Bomb' Case  —  During today's hearing in the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), fresh off an intellectually stimulating comparison of torture to abortion (he questioned why the committee isn't concerned about abortion …

Bush's Disastrous Dollar Policy  —  President Bush doesn't talk about the dollar much, but when he does, he's got exactly one thing to say about it: "We have a strong dollar policy."  —  It's becoming increasingly clear, however, that Bush's "strong dollar policy" is driving the greenback into the ground.

Paul vs. Bernanke on Value of the Dollar  —  Candidate Rep. Ron Paul Faces Off With Fed Chairman  —  When you are Ron Paul, your public enemy No. 1 is the chairman of the Federal Reserve.  —  Because when you are Ron Paul, although you are technically a Republican, you are really a libertarian …

House Approves Peru Free Trade Pact  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Thursday approved a free trade agreement with Peru, the first under a Democratic majority in Congress that has declared that labor rights and the environment must be central parts of all such pacts.

AND SOLVES THE MYSTERIES OF DATING.  —  When economists began broadly applying their theories of rational choice-making, love and marriage were among the first areas they colonized.  Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker laid the foundations back in 1973 with his two-part article "A Theory of Marriage."

The Comeback of a War President  —  He may be America's most unpopular politician, but George W. Bush is no lame duck.  As a wartime president, Bush dominates the political agenda.  He is discreetly influencing his party's choice of presidential candidate while committing his country …

Iraqi passengers sue airline, claim discrimination  —  A group of Iraqi Pentagon contractors is suing American Airlines claiming racial discrimination for delaying its flight, but a police report shows that some of the men might have been intoxicated, behaved in a frightening and belligerent manner and scared one family off the plane.