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.

AT&T Whistleblower: Telecom Immunity Is A Cover-Up  —  Earlier today we flagged that Mark Klein, who uncovered a secret surveillance room run by the NSA while employed as a San Francisco-based technician for AT&T, is in Washington to lobby against granting retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies.

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 …

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 …

Pat Loves Rudy  —  Back in mid-2001, when Mayor Rudy Giuliani was busy committing adultery, lurching into his divorce and third marriage and rooming with a gay couple he promised to marry as soon as the law allowed, who among us would have imagined that one day he would be endorsed for president by Pat Robertson?

Tax Proposal From Rangel Could Benefit His Donors  —  The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee has proposed legislation that would effectively halt some current tax audits of people who get a tax break for living and operating a business in the United States Virgin Islands.

'Date rape' drug-tainted toys recalled  —  NEW YORK (CNN) — U.S. safety officials have recalled about 4.2 million Chinese-made Aqua Dots bead toys that contain a chemical that has caused some children to vomit and become comatose after swallowing them.  —  Scientists have found …

Clinton's Tipping Point?  —  ABC News' Eloise Harper Reports: Rule number one when campaigning at a diner: always leave a good tip — and, apparently, make sure it gets properly 'disbursed'.  —  In early October, Sen. Hillary Clinton's 'Middle Class Express' made a pit stop at the Maid Rite diner in Marshalltown, Iowa.

Iraq Plans to Confront Security Firms on Guns  —  The Iraqi interior minister said Wednesday that he would authorize raids by his security forces on Western security firms to ensure that they were complying with tightened licensing requirements on guns and other weaponry …

'This Pretty Much Kills the Iran Democracy Program'  —  WASHINGTON — The former director of President Bush's flagship democracy program for the Middle East is saying that the State Department has "effectively killed" a program to disburse millions of dollars to Iran's liberal opposition.

US fears Israeli strike against Iran over latest nuclear claim  —  Tom Baldwin in Washington, James Hider in Jerusalem and Francis Elliott, Deputy Political Editor  —  A claim by President Ahmadinejad that Iran has 3,000 working uranium-enriching centrifuges sent a tremor across …