McCain closing gap with Romney  —  In N.H. poll, Obama inches ahead of Clinton  —  Senator John McCain of Arizona, whose bid for the Republican presidential nomination was all but dead this summer, has made a dramatic recovery in the Granite State 2 1/2 weeks before the 2008 vote …

Rudy Giuliani comments on the outrage of NYC Firefighters: “radio malfunctions”  —  Rudy will be dogged by the firefighters until the race is over and he should be.  Check out his response to some of their major problems with Rudy on ABC's THIS WEEK which include his handling of their radios …

Dec. 23: Ron Paul  —  MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: Our Meet the Candidates 2008 series continues, an exclusive interview with Republican Ron Paul.  He has served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 18 years.  In 1988 he was the Libertarian Party candidate for president.

In Britain, A Respected, If Rowdy, Holiday Ritual  —  LONDON — Just before midnight, the well-dressed, 25-year-old financial trader arrived by ambulance at the makeshift hospital tent pitched at a train station in central London.  Blood oozed from his scalp, staining his elegant pink-striped shirt.

Edwards and Romney Highlight Parties' Views of Wealth  —  A fascinating NYT profile shows how John Edwards and Mitt Romney became very wealthy circa 1984 and drew very different lessons from it. … Now, in fairness, the two men came from very different social backgrounds to begin with …

Times Democratic caucus endorsement: Hillary Clinton passes the test  —  Hillary Clinton passes test after test after test.  This Clinton arrived for the caucus campaign with much, much more experience than the first Clinton to stump across Iowa.  In campaign speeches and in an interview …

Iraqi villagers battle to hold off Al-Qaeda  —  Marie Colvin reports from Diyala province on the desperate battle to fend off an extremist surge  —  THIS is the front line of the war with Al-Qaeda.  In other parts of Iraq their fighters are like ghosts, using car bombs and remotely triggered mines …

How the Queen got well connected  —  In a bid to appeal to the internet generation, the royals launch their own YouTube channel  —  The Queen has taken a bold stride into cyberspace by launching her own channel on the video-sharing website YouTube.  The Royal Channel launches today …

William “The Bloody” Makes His New Year's Predictions  —  Somebody has been hitting the eggnog really hard.  William “The Bloody” Kristol makes his predictions for the coming year.  They would be scary if they weren't just so completely ridiculous, but at least Kristol is continuing his habit of being completely and utterly wrong.

Concord Monitor: ‘Not Romney’  —  CONCORD, N.H. — Newspapers have an historical tradition of endorsing candidates in political races, offering their readers long arguments why they should support a candidate.  But something quite extraordinary could be found on the opinion page of the Concord Monitor Sunday morning.

It's about Hillary, stupid  —  Something was bugging me, but I couldn't figure out what it was.  Then it hit me.  While I was reading about the campaign, the realization came like a thunderbolt: I'm tired of Bill Clinton.  —  Tired of his half-truths and full lies about where he stood on Iraq.