CNN N.H. Poll: Obama, Clinton tied; Romney remains strong  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — Barack Obama has chipped away at Hillary Clinton's lead in New Hampshire, and the two Democratic presidential hopefuls are now locked in a statistical tie less than one month before the first-in-the-nation primary, a CNN/WMUR Poll released Wednesday shows.

Feeling Heat, Clinton Tries Iowa Up Close  —  DES MOINES — Ten months ago, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton went to East High School here on her first trip to Iowa as a presidential candidate and laid out a case for her candidacy to a cheering crowd in a packed gymnasium.

Paper Trail  —  Who authorized the CIA to destroy interrogation videos?  —  NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE  —  The CIA repeatedly asked White House lawyer Harriet Miers over a two-year period for instructions regarding what to do with "very clinical" videotapes depicting the use of "enhanced" …

Republicans win in Va., Ohio elections  —  Republicans retained two House seats in special elections Tuesday, including a hotly contested Ohio race that the two parties spent nearly $700,000 trying to win.  —  Republican officials immediately pointed to the issue of immigration …

The Pope condemns the climate change prophets  —  Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.  —  The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested …

JEWS' SUBWAY HERO A MUSLIM  —  SAVES 'HANUKKAH' RIDERS FROM THUGS  —  A Brooklyn man whose "Happy Hanukkah" greeting landed him in the hospital said he was saved from a gang of Jew-bashing goons aboard a packed Q train by a total stranger - a modest Muslim from Bangladesh.

A FISA fix  —  One of the most critical matters facing Congress is the need to enact long-term legislation updating our nation's foreign intelligence surveillance laws.  Intercepting the communications of terrorists and other intelligence targets has given us crucial insights into the intentions …

The Dream Is Dead  —  The man crowned by Tommy Franks as "the dumbest [expletive] guy on the planet" just made the dumbest [expletive] speech on the planet.  —  Doug Feith, the former Rummy gofer who drove the neocon plan to get us into Iraq, and then dawdled without a plan as Iraq crashed into chaos …

The Roots of the Mortgage Crisis  —  Bubbles cannot be safely defused by monetary policy before the speculative fever breaks on its own.  —  On Aug. 9, 2007, and the days immediately following, financial markets in much of the world seized up.  Virtually overnight the seemingly insatiable desire …

In Poll, Huckabee Closes on Giuliani  —  Three weeks before the first contest of the 2008 campaign, Republicans remain sharply divided over whom to choose as their presidential nominee and which of the five leading candidates best embodies the core values of a fractured GOP, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Losing Weight in the Gulf  —  Growing up in Minnesota, one of my favorite things was going to the state fair each summer and watching the guy who would guess your weight within 5 pounds.  If you fooled him, you won a stuffed animal.  —  Out here on the Persian Gulf, where small countries learn quickly …