Retail Sales Plummet  —  Price-slashing failed to rescue a bleak holiday season for beleaguered retailers, as sales plunged across most categories on shrinking consumer spending, according to new data released Thursday.  —  Despite a flurry of last-minute shoppers lured by the deep discounts …

Little Blue Pills Among the Ways CIA Wins Friends in Afghanistan  —  The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women.  His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity …

Poll: Obama is man Americans admire most  —  WASHINGTON — A month before his inauguration, Americans choose Barack Obama as the man they admire most in the world, according to a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll.  It's the first time a president-elect has topped the annual survey in more than a half-century.

Dollar Shift: Chinese Pockets Filled as Americans' Emptied  —  “Usually it's the rich country lending to the poor.  This time, it's the poor country lending to the rich.”  —  WASHINGTON — In March 2005, a low-key Princeton economist who had become a Federal Reserve governor coined …

Barack Be Good  —  Times have changed.  In 1996, President Bill Clinton, under siege from the right, declared that “the era of big government is over.”  But President-elect Barack Obama, riding a wave of revulsion over what conservatism has wrought, has said that he wants to “make government cool again.”

Expansion of Clinics Shapes a Bush Legacy  —  NASHVILLE — Although the number of uninsured and the cost of coverage have ballooned under his watch, President Bush leaves office with a health care legacy in bricks and mortar: he has doubled federal financing for community health centers …

Blagojevich Attorney Asks Illinois Panel to Subpoena Emanuel and Others  —  An attorney for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) has asked the legislative panel considering impeachment of the governor to subpoena more than a dozen witnesses, including President-elect Barack Obama's incoming chief of staff.

On the Revocation of Pardons  —  “Experts said they knew of no other instance in which a presidential pardon had been revoked.  They said it was not clear whether Bush was legally allowed to do so.”  - Chicago Tribune, December 25, 2008  —  One can hardly blame the Tribune for printing this statement.

Jindal in 2012?  —  Bobby Jindal is seen by many in his party as the Next Big Thing, a political comer who at 37 offers competence, reform and a fresh face for a Republican Party in dire need of all three.  —  But even as he basks in the media glow from his maiden foray to Iowa last month, Jindal is far from a sure thing in 2012.

Obama Follows a Tradition of Testifying for Prosecutors  —  Every president for more than three decades has had to talk with federal prosecutors at one time or another.  President-elect Barack Obama may have set a land-speed record by giving his first interview to investigators even before taking the oath of office.

E.P.A.'s Doctor No  —  On April 2, 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal Clean Air Act plainly empowered the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases from cars and trucks — and, by inference, other sources like power plants.  —  There was great hope …