Kennedy Withdraws Senate Bid  —  Caroline Kennedy announced early Thursday that she was withdrawing from consideration for the vacant Senate seat in New York, startling the state's political world after weeks in which she was considered a top contender for the post.

Obama takes presidential oath again after stumble  —  Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition  —  WASHINGTON - After the flub heard around the world, President Barack Obama has taken the oath of office.  Again.  Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the oath to Obama …

Clinton Is Approved, but Vote on Holder Is Delayed  —  WASHINGTON — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York was overwhelmingly confirmed by the Senate as President Obama's secretary of state on Wednesday, but the new president will have to wait at least a week for a vote on his choice to lead the Justice Department.

Mitchell As Envoy Could Split Center … The expected appointment of a special envoy to breathe new life into Israeli-Palestinian negotiations could split the pro-Israel center while pleasing the Jewish left and outraging the right.  The schism could be particularly deep if …

Obama blows off Medal of Honor recipients  —  According to TSO who was at the “Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball”, this newly sworn-in President for the first time in 56 years blew off the ball (that's 14 Inaugurations).  —  Some background on the ball;

A major Bush rule gets scrapped by Obama  —  (CNN) — It's the same Oval Office.  The same desk.  Even the same curtains.  But President Obama has already made one major change: Go through eight years of White House photos, and you won't find one of former President Bush in the Oval Office without his jacket on.

Former French President Chirac hospitalised after mauling by his clinically depressed poodle … Former French president Jacques Chirac was rushed to hospital after being mauled by his own ‘clinically depressed’ pet dog.  —  The 76-year-old statesman was savaged by his white Maltese dog …

EXCLUSIVE: Obama to close terrorist ‘black sites’  —  President Obama on Thursday will order the closure of so-called black sites, where CIA and European security services have interrogated terrorist suspects, under executive orders dismantling much of the Bush admistration's architecture …

Obama to Close Foreign Prisons and Guantánamo Camp  —  WASHINGTON — President Obama is expected to sign executive orders Thursday directing the Central Intelligence Agency to shut what remains of its network of secret prisons and ordering the closing of the Guantánamo detention camp within …

Murtha Says He'd Take Guantanamo Prisoners in His District  —  Rep. Jack Murtha volunteers to house prisoners from Guantanamo Bay in his Pennsylvania district, as President Obama prepares to order the shut-down of the facility.  —  FOXNews.com  —  Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Pa. …

Found - AGAIN - the Poster Source Photo  —  The photographer is MANNIE GARCIA, a Washington DC freelancer for the Associated Press.  —  Driving home from Washington after the inauguration, cruising on adrenalin from covering the historic event and then stopping two or three times for coffee …

TurboTax Doesn't Prompt Users to Pay Self-Employment Taxes?  Or Just Geithner's Copy of the Software?  —  In today's confirmation hearing, Treasury Secretary nominee Tim Geithner said he used TurboTax to prepare his returns for the years in question where he failed to pay self-employment taxes …

Obama inauguration got unprecedented news coverage  —  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's inauguration generated an unprecedented 35,000 stories in the world's major newspapers, television and radio broadcasts over the past day — about 35 times more than the last presidential swearing-in …

Obama Should Quit War on Terror, Talk to Hamas and Taliban  —  Of course, I agree with my passionate friend, Bernard-Henri Levy, who writes elsewhere on this page that Gaza cannot be allowed to become an “advance base for total war against Israel.”  —  But for the current Israeli government …

Obama Will Get His Blackberry  —  President Barack Obama is going to get his blackberry.  —  On Monday, a government agency that the Obama administration — but that is probably the National Security Agency — added to a standard blackberry a super-encryption package. …

GOING, GOING, GONE  —  The mood at the Inauguration was so joyful, so filled with unalloyed expectation and—there's that word again—hope, that it seems almost peevish (and historically repetitive) to sound a sour note, but here it unavoidably is: the hostility among some in the vast crowd toward …

Daily Show - What Differences Between Bush & Obama?  (VIDEO)  —  Tonight Jon Stewart rightly pointed out that there really are no differences when it comes to philosophy about national security, and he demonstrates it with sequential video clips, comparing Barack's speech with past Bush speeches.

Maybe We Should Share Our Stories of antisemitism  —  Reading through the comments generated by my two posts (here and here) on antisemitism so far has gotten me thinking about how many of us-Jewish or not, but especially Jewish-ever really talk about our experiences with antisemitism …

Inaugural Committee Apologizes for Ticket Fiasco  —  The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, which was responsible for planning and executing Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony yesterday, apologized today for keeping thousands of ticket-holders outside the security gates, causing them to miss the ceremony.

Coleman packs, vows to continue Senate seat fight  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. Norm Coleman began packing his Capitol Hill office Wednesday, but said he has no intention of giving up his legal fight to serve another term in Congress.  —  Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota, trails Democrat Al Franken by 225 votes.

Supreme Court revokes ban on Arab parties from national elections  —  Israel's Supreme court overruled on Wednesday a parliamentary panel which had decided to bar Israeli Arab parties from running in next month's parliamentary election.  —  The court issued its decision in response …