Obama's Once-Disciplined Team Springs Leaks During Transition  —  Rumors Disrupt Plan For Announcing Cabinet Nominees  —  Barack Obama was famously able to impose discipline and control over his presidential campaign, but it didn't take long for him to discover that running a transition is something quite different.

Attorney general collapses  —  Attorney General Michael Mukasey collapsed Thursday night while giving a speech to the Federalist Society in Washington, according to three senior administration officials.  —  Details about Mukasey's condition were not immediately available.

Obama's cell phone records breached  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — Records from a cell phone used by President-elect Obama were improperly breached, apparently by employees of the cell phone company, his transition team said Thursday.  —  Spokesman Robert Gibbs said the team was notified Wednesday …

The Insider's Crusade  —  Jan. 20, 2009, will be a historic day.  Barack Obama (Columbia, Harvard Law) will take the oath of office as his wife, Michelle (Princeton, Harvard Law), looks on proudly.  Nearby, his foreign policy advisers will stand beaming, including perhaps Hillary Clinton …

Recount, Day 2: Coleman, Franken trade gains, losses  —  Today is Day 2 in the Minnesota recount of ballots in the overtime election struggle between Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and Democratic rival Al Franken.  The candidates traded modest gains and losses throughout the day.

e=mc2: 103 years later, Einstein's proven right  —  PARIS (AFP) - It's taken more than a century, but Einstein's celebrated formula e=mc2 has finally been corroborated, thanks to a heroic computational effort by French, German and Hungarian physicists.  —  A brainpower consortium led …

Eric Holder on firearms policy: Earlier this year, Eric Holder—along with Janet Reno and several other former officials from the Clinton Department of Justice—co-signed an amicus brief in District of Columbia v. Heller.  The brief was filed in support of DC's ban on all handguns …

EXCLUSIVE: Obama to delay repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell'  —  Advisers see consensus building before lifting ban on gays  —  President-elect Barack Obama will not move for months, and perhaps not until 2010, to ask Congress to end the military's decades-old ban on open homosexuals in the ranks …

Director's checks on ‘Joe’ called unfounded  —  Job and Family Services head suspended for a month  —  Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland is standing by an agency director who OK'd improper computer checks for confidential information on “Joe the Plumber” and used state e-mails for political fundraising.

Goolsbee out at CEA?  —  I'm flabbergasted.  If true, this is a bloody embarassment: … I take nothing away from Professor Rouse.  But she's a labor economist with a heavy, heavy specialty in returns to education.  Goolsbee, by contrast, focuses on taxation and capital formation.

The Lame-Duck Economy  —  Everyone's talking about a new New Deal, for obvious reasons.  In 2008, as in 1932, a long era of Republican political dominance came to an end in the face of an economic and financial crisis that, in voters' minds, both discredited the G.O.P.'s free-market ideology and undermined its claims of competence.

Colombia tailor offers bespoke bullet-proof jackets for millionaires  —  After Dick Cheney accidentally shot a friend while hunting, Miguel Caballero's protective jackets, blazers and raincoats are in big demand  —  It is Dick Cheney-inspired couture for anxious toffs …

Financial System Suffers Relapse  —  Shattering Lull, Fears of Deep Recession Roil Markets  —  The financial system, which had recently shown glimmers of improvement, is unraveling again.  —  After a few weeks in which credit started flowing more freely through banks, giving relief to financial markets …

Al Qaeda Detainees and Congress's Duty  —  Habeas corpus hearings could set terrorists free inside the U.S.  —  Last June in Boumediene v. Bush, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time in our history that aliens captured and held as enemy combatants abroad (in this case …

The Waxman Democrats  —  What the coup against Dingell means for business.  —  John Dingell's fall from power yesterday is an important inflection point in the history of the modern Democratic Party.  The House purge marks the final triumph of the Congressional generation that came …