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 …

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 …

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 …

Huckabee: All Hands On Deck In Iowa  —  Ex-AR Gov. Mike Huckabee will spend most of the next 65 days in Iowa and has moved the majority of his staff to the state in an effort to capitalize on a sense that he's gaining ground here.  —  Here's excerpts of an interview I conducted with Huckabee last night.

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 …

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.

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 …

Beshear's win boosts party, candidacies  —  BOSWELL TO CHALLENGE LEWIS  —  RALESSI@HERALD-LEADER.COM  —  FRANKFORT — Fresh off Tuesday's election wins, Democrats turned their focus to 2008 campaigns, with the new governor pledging to take a hands-on role, an expected change …

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.

Rare welcome to a red-blooded conservative  —  And get ready for some unpredictable ideas.  —  'Odd.  " It is, indeed, odd to write a column every other Thursday for a paper that used that very word to describe me.  Actually, odd was one of the nicer terms used in The Inquirer to describe me.

Study: 1 out of 4 homeless are veterans  —  WASHINGTON - Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday.  —  And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans.

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.