Robert Gates, former defense secretary, offers harsh critique of Obama's leadership in ‘Duty’  —  In a new memoir, former defense secretary Robert Gates unleashes harsh judgments about President Obama's leadership and his commitment to the Afghanistan war, writing that by early 2010 …

In surprise, unemployment benefits advance  —  In a surprise, several Senate Republicans on Tuesday morning joined with Democrats to break the filibuster of a bill to extend unemployment benefits for three months.  —  By 60-37, Senate Democrats secured the votes needed to advance the bill …

Burglars Who Took On F.B.I. Abandon Shadows  —  Stealing J. Edgar Hoover's Secrets: One night in 1971, files were stolen from an F.B.I. office near Philadelphia.  They proved that the bureau was spying on thousands of Americans.  The case was unsolved, until now.

Angry Dennis Rodman defends North Korea basketball game  —  (CNN) — Basketball star Dennis Rodman defended his controversial visit to North Korea with a team of former NBA players in a combative exchange Tuesday, saying it was a “great idea for the world.”  —  In an exclusive interview …

Spitzer caught sucking Lis Smith's toes in topless hot tub romp  —  Sleazy Eliot Spitzer turned a resort hot tub into a steamy love cauldron over the weekend — kissing and sucking the toes of his topless mistress, Lis Smith, in front of families with children, mortified witnesses told The Post.

Navy mistakenly sends FOIA plans to reporter  —  The Unites States Navy inadvertently sent a memo to a local NBC News reporter this week detailing how it intended to try and deter requests he had filed under the Freedom Of Information Act.  —  Scott MacFarlane, a reporter for NBC 4 in Washington …

What happened to US life expectancy?  —  Here's another chart from the JAMA study “The Anatomy of Health Care in the United States”:  —  Why did the US fall behind the OECD median in the mid-1980s for men and the early 1990s for women?  Note, the answer need not point to the health system.

Republicans Really Could Win It All This Year  —  A definitive guide to the 2014 elections from our new columnist. … Another midterm election beckons, and over the next 10 months we'll see headlines about a thousand supposedly critical developments—the “game changers” and the “tipping points.”

Surprise!  Walmart health plan is cheaper, offers more coverage than Obamacare  —  WATCHDOG OBAMACARE HEALTH CARE ACCOUNTABILITY WALMART  —  New Obamacare health insurance enrollees may feel a pang of envy when they eye the coverage plans offered by Walmart to its employees.

Senate Conversations: Paul Broun ‘Fighting For Liberty’  —  The primary race for Georgia's open U.S. Senate seat heats up in the first weeks of 2014 with the election looming May 20.  —  For Rep. Paul Broun (R-Athens), the race is all about liberty.  —  “What I'm fighting for is liberty.

2013 Guns Sales Set New Record  —  The FBI has released new statistics on NICS background checks showing 2013 gun sales hit a new record.  The total number of background checks conducted for gun sales last year add up to 21,093,273, beating the previous 2012 record of 19,592,303 by 1,500,970.

Rachel Maddow Is Crazy, Too  —  MSNBC has had a hard time lately.  The network fired Martin Bashir and Alec Baldwin for craziness, on-air and off-air respectively.  Melissa Harris-Perry was forced to apologize, first on Twitter and then, tearfully, on the air, for making political hay out of Mitt Romney's adopted grandson.

What the heck is a polar vortex?  —  (CNN) — Americans in two dozen states from the Midwest to the Southeast and Northeast are shivering this week courtesy of a distorted polar vortex.  The rush of cold air it's sending southward is the biggest visitor from the North Pole since Santa Claus.

Why Women Aren't Welcome on the Internet  —  “Ignore the barrage of violent threats and harassing messages that confront you online every day.”  That's what women are told.  But these relentless messages are an assault on women's careers, their psychological bandwidth, and their freedom to live online.

McCain Thinks Obama Is The One Who ‘Blew The Whole Thing’ In Iraq  —  Rising bloodshed in Iraq has Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) convinced that failure of the American military effort there now falls on President Obama's shoulders.  —  McCain went on Fox News on Tuesday morning to once again blast Obama …

Christie heralds DREAM Act as message to Washington  —  Union City, New Jersey (CNN) - Flanked by Hispanic leaders, students, and immigration reform advocates, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie celebrated the signing of his state's so-called DREAM Act on Tuesday, hailing the new law …

John Allen, legendary Vatican reporter, to join staff of The Boston Globe  —  John Allen, a senior correspondent for the highly respected National Catholic Reporter, will be joining the staff of The Boston Globe in early February.  —  Allen, widely hailed as the best-sourced …

Ten freshman governors who have shrunk their states' bureaucracies  —  In 2010, Americans went to the polls and elected a whole crop of new governors — 26 in all, if you count the election of governors who had previously served non-consecutive terms in Iowa and Oregon.