China scrambles fighter jets towards US and Japan planes in airspace  —  Washington tells airlines to notify Chinese authorities if flying through area amid escalating tensions in South China Sea  —  China scrambled fighter jets to investigate US and Japanese aircraft flying through …

CNN/ORC Poll: Jump in percentage of those saying things not going well  —  Washington (CNN) - Americans views on the state of the nation are turning increasingly sour, according to a new national poll.  —  And a CNN/ORC International survey released Friday also indicates that less than a quarter …

Pressure builds on Boehner for NSA vote  —  House Republican leaders are under pressure to allow a vote on legislation that would curb the National Security Agency (NSA).  —  Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has defended the NSA's spying programs, but a growing bloc of his conference is signing …

Revisionaries  —  How a group of Texas conservatives is rewriting your kids' textbooks.  —  Don McLeroy is a balding, paunchy man with a thick broom-handle mustache who lives in a rambling two-story brick home in a suburb near Bryan, Texas.  When he greeted me at the door one evening last October …

U.S. man in hot water in Dubai over parody video  —  (CNN) — It was intended as a piece of comedy, but it's turned into a drama.  —  A young American living in the United Arab Emirates has been imprisoned since April, his family says, for posting what was intended to be a funny video on the Internet.

Peter Kaplan, Who Brought a Cutting Edge to The New York Observer, Dies at 59  —  Peter W. Kaplan, who in his 15 years as editor was credited with making The New York Observer both pertinent and impertinent as it gleefully chronicled the every move and shake of the city's movers and shakers, died on Friday in Manhattan.

Former KKK Leader And His Mother Indicted After Alabama Cross Burning  —  A 28-year-old alleged “former Exalted Cyclops” of the Ku Klux Klan and his mother have both been arrested and are facing federal charges relating to a 2009 cross burning in a predominantly African-American neighborhood in Ozark, Ala.

The Best Walmart Thanksgiving Day Fight Videos  —  According to a Walmart press release, Thanksgiving was a day of record-breaking sales, sales that were “bigger, better, faster, cheaper and safer than ever.”  —  Safer, huh?  Let's examine the video evidence.

Obamacare's Secret Success  —  The law establishing Obamacare was officially titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  And the “affordable” bit wasn't just about subsidizing premiums.  It was also supposed to be about “bending the curve” — slowing the seemingly inexorable rise in health costs.

Black Friday flurry for UK retailers in discounting push  —  A flurry of promotions tied to Black Friday have caused a frenzy for some UK retailers, with a fight breaking out in one Asda shop apparently over discounted televisions.  —  Asda, owned by the US consumer giant Wal-Mart …

Birther preacher claims Obama had mother of his ‘love child’ killed outside White House  —  A birther preacher is pushing the conspiracy theory that Miriam Carey, who was shot to death Oct. 3 after police said she tried to ram her car into a barrier outside the White House, was the mother of President Barack Obama's illegitimate child.

President: Obamacare ‘to Be a Legacy I Am ... Proud Of’ … Despite facing a disastrous rollout of his health care plan, criticism over his policies and approval ratings that have plunged to an all-time low, President Obama said he remains confident that his signature health care law …