Losing Ground In Iowa, Clinton Assails Obama  —  With a new poll showing her losing ground in the Iowa caucus race, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) mounted a new, more aggressive attack against Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Sunday, raising direct questions about his character …

Sudan's President Pardons British Teacher  —  A British school teacher jailed in Sudan for two weeks after allowing her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad was freed Monday following a pardon by the Sudanese president.  —  President Omar al-Bahir's pardon of Gillian Gibbons allowed …

Venezuela Hands Narrow Defeat to Chávez Plan  —  Voters in this country narrowly defeated a proposed overhaul to the constitution in a contentious referendum over granting President Hugo Chávez sweeping new powers, the Election Commission announced early Monday.

Imus Is Back!  —  Highlights in bold.  —  6:00 A.M.: Charles McCord opens the program.  "The Imus in the Morning program has returned to the air following a hiatus of nearly 8 months."  Wild applause from the live audience assembled in Times Square's Town Hall.

Subprime Debacle Traps Even Very Credit-Worthy  —  As Housing Boomed,  —  Industry Pushed Loans  —  To a Broader Market  —  One common assumption about the subprime mortgage crisis is that it revolves around borrowers with sketchy credit who couldn't have bought a home without paying punitively high interest rates.

Lashing Justice  —  Muslims who wonder why non-Muslims are often baffled, angered, even frightened by some governments' interpretation of Islamic law need only look to the cases of two women in Saudi Arabia and Sudan threatened with barbaric lashings.  —  In Saudi Arabia, a woman who was gang-raped was sentenced to 90 lashes.

Hague museum pulls offensive Muslim art  —  The city museum of The Hague has decided not to include in an exhibition a work of art that may offend Muslims, it was reported on Monday.  —  The picture, made by Iranian artist Sooreh Hera, is entitled Adam and Ewald and shows two gay men wearing masks …

The Meaning of Fiscal Conservatism  —  With economic uncertainty weighing on the minds of many Americans, Congress is preparing to recess after another year of profligate spending, protectionist talk and promises of higher taxes.  No wonder some people feel like we're moving in the wrong direction.

Party's Triumph Raises Question of Putin's Plans  —  With President Vladimir V. Putin's opponents persistently hobbled by the Kremlin, his party swept Sunday to the kind of landslide long predicted for the parliamentary elections.  Yet the results, while a triumph for Mr. Putin …

Pro-Huckabee negative calls flood Iowa  —  A newly-formed group claiming to support Mike Huckabee hit the phones of Iowa Republicans tonight with an automated push-poll attacking Huckabee's GOP opponents and praising the former Arkansas governor.  —  Officials representing the Iowa campaigns …

Innovating Our Way to Financial Crisis  —  The financial crisis that began late last summer, then took a brief vacation in September and October, is back with a vengeance.  —  How bad is it?  Well, I've never seen financial insiders this spooked — not even during the Asian crisis of 1997-98 …

Banking on Holiday Cheer  —  After a one-year hiatus — and a whole lot of water under the bridge since then — the World Bank is bringing back the office Christmas party.  —  Last year, bank leadership, under then-President Paul Wolfowitz, pulled the plug on holiday festivities …

'I will never leave Guantanamo'  —  "WE HAVE important news for you!"  —  Chained to the floor of a cell in Camp Six, Guantanamo, Joseph said nothing.  But he had some news for us, too.  —  The Court of Appeals had decided what record - what pieces of paper - it would examine when it considered his "Detainee Treatment Act" case.

Shocked  —  It took five months and almost 7,000 words, but The New Republic and its editor Franklin Foer have finally retracted the piece "Shock Troops."  —  As most of the blog world knows by now, TNR published "Shock Troops" on July 13 under the byline Scott Thomas …