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.

Meet the women who won't have babies - because they're not eco friendly  —  Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love …

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.

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?

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:

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.

Collapse of Rail, Subway Strike Is a First Success for Sarkozy  —  President Sarkozy of France is on the verge of a breakthrough in his ambitious plan to wean his country off the restrictive working practices he believes stand in the way of national prosperity.

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 …

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.

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 …

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 …

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.