Bush Revokes Pardon Of GOP Donors' Relative  —  President Bush took the remarkable step yesterday of reversing a pardon that he granted the day before to a Brooklyn, N.Y., real estate developer, whose relatives contributed more than $40,000 to Republicans before his clemency petition was filed with the White House.

Harold Pinter, Nobel-Winning Playwright, Dies at 78  —  Harold Pinter, the British playwright whose gifts for finding the ominous in the everyday and the noise within silence made him the most influential and imitated dramatist of his generation, died on Wednesday.  He was 78 and lived in London.

Iraq Declares Christmas an Official Holiday for First Year  —  BAGHDAD — Iraq's Christians, a small minority in the overwhelmingly Muslim country, quietly celebrated Christmas on Thursday with a present from the government, which declared it an official holiday for the first time.

Bush a catalyst in America's declining influence  —  The president oversaw a period of eroding economic and political power, in which the rise of China, India and others was a major factor, but assisted by an aversion to him and his policies.  —  Reporting from Washington …

Holiday Sales in U.S. Fell as Much as 4%, SpendingPulse Says  —  A A A  —  Dec. 25 (Bloomberg) — U.S. retail sales fell as much as 4 percent this holiday season as consumers limited purchases to necessities and cut back on clothing, electronics and jewelry, according to SpendingPulse.

Singer, actress Eartha Kitt dies at 81  —  (CNN) — Singer and actress Eartha Kitt has died, her publicist, Patty Freedman, told CNN on Thursday.  —  Kitt, 81, died in New York, where she was being treated for colon cancer, Freedman said.  Her daughter, Kitt Shapiro, was by her side.

Joe and Jill feed the homeless  —  Vice President-elect Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, slipped on aprons Wednesday afternoon to serve meatloaf to a few hundred homeless people at a soup kitchen in Wilmington, Del.  —  Biden told a local news station that the long lines outside …

Blog ‘miracle’ saves Christmas for hard-luck family  —  (CNN) — A family facing foreclosure is anything but a unique story in these troubled economic times.  —  But this is a happier story of one family whose financial ruin was averted by the actions of a friend, the compassion of strangers …

BARACK NAME LOSES ‘CLASS’ ON LI  —  SCHOOL NIXES CHANGE TO ‘OBAMA ELEMENTARY’  —  They said NO-bama.  —  A proposal to change the name of a Long Island public school to Barack Obama Elementary was scrapped this week after running into fierce public opposition.

8 Katyusha rockets defused in Lebanon  —  The Lebanese army on Thursday discovered and defused eight Katyusha rockets that had been placed near the southern town of Nakoura and were about to be fired at Israel.  —  The 107-millimeter projectiles were fitted with timers and were defused …

Hamas mocks Israel's nonresponse to Kassams  —  Hamas on Wednesday remained as defiant as ever and said it would continue to fire rockets at Israel as an act of “self-defense.”  —  Hamas also mocked what it described as the “state of confusion” in Israel over how to react to the latest spree of rocket and mortar attacks.