EXCLUSIVE: Obama Got Pre-Christmas Intelligence Briefing About Terror Threats to “Homeland”  —  President Barack Obama received a high-level briefing only three days before Christmas about possible holiday-period terrorist threats against the US, Newsweek has learned.

Somali shot in attack on cartoonist  —  Danish police have shot and wounded a man at the home of Kurt Westergaard, whose cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad sparked an international row.  —  Mr Westergaard scrambled into a panic room at his home in Aarhus after a man wielding an axe and a knife broke in.

LIMBAUGH DIAGNOSES HEALTH CARE SYSTEM.... On Wednesday, Rush Limbaugh went to a Hawaii hospital with chest pains, and was released yesterday, with no apparent ailments.  The right-wing radio host said doctors found nothing wrong with his heart or arteries, and it's still unclear what caused his pains.

U.S. Loan Effort Is Seen as Adding to Housing Woes  —  The Obama administration's $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and some economists and real estate experts now contend it has done more harm than good.

Democrats Join Calls for Napolitano to Step Down Following Failed Attack  —  Democrats have joined the ranks of those calling for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to step down following the attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight a week ago.

U.S. Lawyers Knew About Legal Pitfalls in Blackwater Case  —  WASHINGTON — The sudden blow to the case against the former Blackwater security guards over a shooting that killed 17 Iraqis and wounded at least 20 may have come as a surprise to the public in Iraq and the United States …

Doctored Obama Photo Has CDOT Supervisor In Hot Water  —  E-Mail Sent To Several Agency Employees Makes Its Way To Public  —  DENVER — A 73-year-old Colorado Department of Transportation supervisor is in hot water after forwarding a Photoshopped image of President Barack Obama shining the shoes of Sarah Palin.

Minnesota State Senate candidate removes racist comments from his Twitter feed.  —  Local bloggers are reporting that Minnesota State Senate candidate Mike Parry removed more than 43 racist and homophobic tweets from his Twitter feed after progressives began researching and responding to him.

Customs official confirms report of 2nd man held from Flight 253  —  Detroit — A federal customs and border protection official reversed himself today, admitting a passenger from Northwest Flight 253 was placed in handcuffs, searched and released after a canine alerted officers to his carry-on luggage.

For Some in Japan, Home Is a Tiny Plastic Bunk  —  TOKYO — For Atsushi Nakanishi, jobless since Christmas, home is a cubicle barely bigger than a coffin — one of dozens of berths stacked two units high in one of central Tokyo's decrepit “capsule” hotels.  —  “It's just a place to crawl …

Aughts were a lost decade for U.S. economy, workers  —  For most of the past 70 years, the U.S. economy has grown at a steady clip, generating perpetually higher incomes and wealth for American households.  But since 2000, the story is starkly different.  —  The past decade was the worst …

Obama Gives Big Labor Another Gift in Final Days of 2009  —  In November BigGovernment.com, sounded the warning - here's the update.  —  As 2009 fades away, President Obama has decided to let disclosure of hundreds of millions of dollars in forced-union-dues disclosure fade away too.

How Cheney Made America A Torture Nation  —  The comparison with Richard Reid is, of course, instructive.  The Bush administration treated the shoe-bomber exactly as the Obama administration has treated the pantie-bomber - and convicted him the way no one has yet convicted anyone directly connected to 9/11.

Irish atheists test blasphemy laws  —  Secular campaigners publish series of anti-religious quotes and say they will challenge law if charged with blasphemy  —  Secular campaigners in the Irish Republic defied a strict new blasphemy law which came into force today by publishing a series …

Its a Wrap: The Most Underreported Stories of 2009  —  This year saw the birth of the tea party movement, the rise of administrative radicalism, and a suppression of information unlike ever before seen.  Were it not for the new penny presses, blogs and the investigative citizens who author them …