US News

Treasury two-year notes advanced, pushing the yield to its lowest level in 11 months, after Dubai' s proposal to delay debt payments sparked a global slide in stocks and higher-yielding assets.

Space shuttle Atlantis gracefully returned to Earth at Kennedy Space Center today, bringing to an end 11 days in space and a jam-packed year of five successful shuttle missions for NASA.

Seven and a half months into Ta-Shai Pendleton's first pregnancy , her child was stillborn. Then in early 2008, she bore a daughter prematurely.

Soon after, Ms. Pendleton moved from a community in Racine that was thick with poverty to a better neighborhood in Madison. Here, for the first time, she had a full-term pregnancy.

Beneath the waters off the coast of Maine lie hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of wire lobster traps. Lost over the years to storms, boats or the knives of fishermen who have cut them from their buoys to settle scores, some of these “ghost traps” continue catching lobsters.

The Chinese government announced Thursday that it had set a target to slow the growth of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, a day after the Obama administration set a provisional target for reducing United States emissions.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai called on the Taliban and other extremist groups Friday to lay down their weapons and participate in rebuilding the battered country, as part of reconciliation efforts he has said will be his main objective during his second term.

Troubled by the rising jobless rate, President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress are assembling a jobs package that would devote billions of dollars to projects meant to put people back on payrolls in 2010 and keep them working.

Thousands of drivers on the nation's roads don't carry auto insurance, despite laws in all but two states requiring it.

Sarah Palin is spending Thanksgiving with relatives in Washington state before resuming book signing over the weekend.

The GOP released its weekly address on Thursday, marking the Thanksgiving holiday.

The United States is continuing to review its policy on the use of land mines, a State Department spokesman said Wednesday, clarifying an earlier comment in which he said that the Obama administration had concluded it needed the weapons.

The serendipitous occurrence of this year's Thanksgiving holiday on the same evening as the Muslim Eid-ul-Adha is a festive occasion to reflect on the place of Islam in American collective consciousness and on Muslims as Americans.

Senior White House officials on Wednesday brushed aside criticism that Democrats aren't tackling cost containment in their health-care reform bills, although they acknowledged room for improvement as the bills move forward..

Three leading scientists who on Tuesday released a report documenting the accelerating pace of climate change said the scandal that erupted last week over hacked emails from climate scientists is nothing more than a "smear ...

Nutty Putty Cave sounds like it's a made-up name, but it is not. Nutty Putty cave in a tourist attraction in Stansbury Park, UT, and John Edward Jones, 26, was stuck in a narrow crevice.

Climate realists are painfully aware that Nobel Laureate Al Gore has repeatedly refused to debate the issue of anthropogenic global warming.

One of the skeptics that has regularly challenged Gore to a one-on-one is England's Lord Christopher Monckton.

So fearful of Monckton is the Nobel Laureate that he refused to appear at a Congressional hearing on climate change in April if the British Lord was present.

As a result, Monckton's invitation was disgracefully revoked by Democrats at the last minute.

With this in mind, the good folks at The Juice Media have created a fabulous video wherein a mock Gore rap battles a mock Monckton over many key issues surrounding the global warming debate.

Video Link

We offer our thanks today, and these Thanksgiving blessings from a selection of faiths and religions found in the Birmingham area.

Dear Heavenly Father,

We come into your presence today with hearts full of thanksgiving. God, you are exalted above all things and are worthy of praise. We give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness. Your mercy, loving kindness, forgiveness and grace are beyond measure.

At this season of thanksgiving, may we remember that every good and perfect gift comes from you, Lord. Your outpouring of blessings to us should remind us of our responsibility to others. Let us be your hands and feet to reach out and care for those who are hurting and less fortunate. Let us be your ambassadors as we tangibly share the love of God with others.

Thank you for your Son, Jesus Christ, and may we walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him in every good work.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

-- A prayer from a Baptist minister

Crashing a state dinner at the White House apparently takes a security breakdown as well as some kind of nerve.

The Secret Service is looking into its own security procedures after determining that a Virginia couple, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, managed to slip into Tuesday night's state dinner at the White House even though they were not on the guest list, agency spokesman Ed Donovan said.

President Barack Obama was never in any danger because the party crashers went through the same security screening for weapons as the 300-plus people actually invited to the dinner honoring Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Donovan said.

Donovan confirmed the identities of the couple. The Washington Post, which first reported on their evening out, said the Salahis were well-known in the Virginia horse-country set and were being considered for the Bravo reality TV show "Real Housewives of D.C."

Throughout history there exists an ongoing battle over what cultures celebrate and why. In recent American history the battle lines are often described as pro and anti-Christian. America once was content in allowing civil authorities to select and define its holidays. With the increasing influence of groups which use the courts to challenge any comingling of religion and the function of government, the definition of the some of the nation's holidays have become a war zone.

And while most Americans think of Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas as Christian holidays -- history is clear that Easter and Christmas were originally pagan celebrations, stolen and redefined.

This leaves Thanksgiving as the one American holiday originating within Christian culture. It is a holiday created to remind a nation to thank God. So while talk-show hosts expound upon a war on Christmas -- let's not ignore the war on the one true Christian holiday, Thanksgiving.

On September 11, 2001, my office building, the World Trade Center, was attacked by al Qaeda, a murder cult of Saudi Arabians, funded by Saudi Arabians.