Thompson motivation hard to pinpoint  —  Fred Thompson prefers plain talk.  So he might bridle at using a famous Winston Churchill quote to sum up his presidential campaign: "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma."  —  But with fewer than 50 days to go until the Iowa caucuses …

New boss turns the tables on Al Qaeda  —  Ex-Sunni insurgent becomes U.S. ally  —  The once-dreaded Al Qaeda in Iraq stronghold of Amariyah has a new boss, and he's not shy about telling the story of the shootout that turned him into a local legend and helped change the tenor of the Iraq war.

Hillary criticized for press strategy  —  When Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton wants to get a message out, her presidential campaign handpicks news outlets.  Or, in some cases, bypasses the media entirely.  —  The New York Democrat's third-quarter fundraising blowout was leaked to the Drudge Report.

Iraqi school guard, wife beheaded as children watch  —  BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three suspected al Qaeda militants, including two sisters, beheaded their uncle and his wife, forcing the couple's children to watch, Iraqi police said on Friday.  —  The militants considered that school guard Youssef al-Hayali …

Column One: American folly  —  The mood is dark in the IDF's General Staff ahead of next week's "peace" conference in Annapolis.  As one senior officer directly involved in the negotiations with the Palestinians and the Americans said, "As bad as it might look from the outside, the truth is 10 times worse.

Political crisis deepens in Lebanon  —  BEIRUT, Lebanon - Lebanon's political tumult intensified as President Emile Lahoud said the country is in a "state of emergency" and handed security powers to the army before he left office late Friday without a successor.  The rival, pro-Western Cabinet rejected the declaration.

A Warm and Fuzzy Taliban?  —  I guess the Taliban isn't so bad after all, well..... that's what Islamic activist and journalist Yvonne Ridley implies as she recounts her experiences as captive.  As I wrote in my submission to New University, Ridley painted a rosy picture of the regime:

Huckabee: I'm Against Illegal Immigration, But I'm Not A Lunatic About It  —  ABC News has posted a pretty compelling interview with Mike Huckabee about immigration.  In it, Huckabee was asked about charges from rivals that he's soft on immigration because he supported the children …

Sarkozy's Triumph  —  New French President Nicolas Sarkozy has won an impressive and historic victory over the French unionists.  After announcing his economic reforms, union activists tried to invoke 40 years of successive victories for French socialism by once again rushing to the barricades …

French prosecutors throw out Rumsfeld torture case  —  PARIS (Reuters) - The Paris prosecutors' office has dismissed a suit against Donald Rumsfeld accusing the former U.S. defense secretary of torture, human rights groups who brought the case said on Friday.

Can You See Me Now?  —  Federal agents routinely request tracking data from cellphone companies to determine the travel and assembly habits of suspects, and courts have granted them unusual leeway in obtaining the data.  Are these terrorist suspects that could present a clear and imminent danger to the lives of Americans?

City Homicides Still Dropping, to Under 500  —  New York City is on track to have fewer than 500 homicides this year, by far the lowest number in a 12-month period since reliable Police Department statistics became available in 1963.  —  But within the city's official crime statistics …

Vanity Fair sued over neo-Nazi interview  —  An interview with one of Germany's most notorious neo-Nazis has landed Vanity Fair magazine in a heap of trouble.  —  Arno Lustiger, a Jewish historian and Holocaust survivor, has started proceedings to sue the magazine's German edition for publishing …

Democrats party of rich, study finds  —  Democrats like to define themselves as the party of poor and middle-income Americans, but a new study says they now represent the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional districts.  —  In a state-by-state, district-by-district comparison …

20,000 vets' brain injuries not listed in Pentagon tally  —  At least 20,000 U.S. troops who were not classified as wounded during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan have been found with signs of brain injuries, according to military and veterans records compiled by USA TODAY.

Funny, poignant questions pour in for GOP debate  —  (CNN) — Huddled around a table for hours, a handful of top journalists at CNN's political unit has been poring over YouTube videos by the thousands.  —  It's a laborious process, but it's necessary to ensure the best questions make the cut …