Security Guard: 'God Guided Me And Protected Me'  —  Jeanne Assam Stopped Gunman At New Life Church  —  COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Jeanne Assam appeared before the news media for the first time Monday and said she "did not think for a minute to run away" when a gunman entered the New Life Church …

Coming in From the Cold: CIA Spy Calls Waterboarding Necessary But Torture  —  Former Agent Says the Enhanced Technique Was Used on Al Qaeda Chief Abu Zubaydah  —  A leader of the CIA team that captured and interrogated the first major al Qaeda figure, Abu Zubaydah, says subjecting him to waterboarding was torture but necessary.

Lawyers Cleared Destroying Tapes  —  Lawyers within the clandestine branch of the Central Intelligence Agency gave written approval in advance to the destruction in 2005 of hundreds of hours of videotapes documenting interrogations of two lieutenants from Al Qaeda, according …

G.O.P. Voters Are Uninspired by Candidates  —  Three weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Republicans voters across the country appear uninspired by their field of presidential candidates, with a vast majority saying they have not made a final decision about who to support, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

McCain Attacks Romney's Attack on Huckabee  —  Here's an interesting one.  The Romney campaign is set to release the first negative ad of the season in Iowa tomorrow - an attack on Mike Huckabee on the immigration issue.  Huckabee will certainly respond - and now, he has help from another candidate, John McCain.

NRCC props up its pummeled Ohio candidate  —  Republicans are facing a surprisingly fierce fight in a Tuesday special election to hold on to a conservative northwestern Ohio seat that has been under the party's control for the past 70 years.  —  The GOP expects to win another special election set …

Obama, Under the Clinton Microscope  —  DES MOINES - Presidential campaigns have unlimited appetites for information about their rivals.  They track their whereabouts, they study their records and they obsessively follow nearly every movement.  By this point in the race, though …

MORTGAGE MELTDOWN  —  Interest rate 'freeze' - the real story is fraud  —  Bankers pay lip service to families while scurrying to avert suits, prison  —  New proposals to ease our great mortgage meltdown keep rolling in.  First the Treasury Department urged the creation of a new fund …

Huckabee Hides His Full Gospel?  —  WASHINGTON DISPATCH: Is Mike Huckabee the presidential candidate shunning Mike Huckabee the preacher?  Before entering politics, he was a pastor at two Baptist churches.  Now his campaign tells Mother Jones it won't make his sermons available to the media and the public.

EXCLUSIVE IPT INVESTIGATION UNCOVERS HLF JURY ROOM BULLYING  —  DALLAS - She felt the men were guilty and tried to explain why to the 11 other jurors.  When she finished, one juror spoke up in an angry tone.  —  "If you're going by the evidence in this room," she recalls him snapping, "then you need to go home."

New Jersey moves closer to ending death penalty  —  PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - New Jersey moved closer to eliminating the death penalty on Monday when its Senate and an Assembly committee voted in favor of making life in prison without parole the state's top criminal penalty.

Mortgage Crisis Forces Big Cuts at WaMu  —  Mortgage Problems Force WaMu to Close Offices, Fire Workers and Drop Subprime Loans  —  SEATTLE (AP) — Washington Mutual Inc., the nation's largest savings and loan, said Monday that problems in the mortgage and credit markets are forcing it to close offices …