Mentally disabled women used as suicide attackers in Baghdad; Google facing lawsuit for censorship in China...

2 February :: Wash. Post reports "Two mentally disabled women strapped with remote-control explosives — and possibly used as unwitting suicide bombers — brought carnage to the two pet bazaars, in attacks Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said sought to 'turn Baghdad back to the pre-surge period'"; at least 99 people were killed in the two blasts... FT reports "A Chinese scholar who challenged the Communist government by setting up a democratic opposition party has vowed to sue the US internet company Google for excising his name from its local search results"; Google and other internet giants have been criticized by rights activists, Congress, public for aiding Chinese Communist party gov't in censoring internet available to its people; Google, whose company motto is "don't be evil", had promised it would alert users any time information is censored with a message about "local laws", but reportedly did not do so in at least this case... Effort to create wi-fi cooperative at Cambridge Univ., England, could mean new standard for providing inexpensive or even free wireless internet across cities; obstacles persist, but cities, academics, internet users continue to search for viable method for expanding access without reducing security...

3rd undersea internet cable cut in recent days; US economy loses 17,000 jobs, signaling slowdown; eye-tracking tech moves into video-gaming...

1 February :: After two undersea internet cables were cut by unknown means in recent days, in the Mediterranean, a third has been cut in the Persian Gulf, off the emirate of Dubai; two of the cables belong to FLAG Telecom, and the cuts interrupted phone and web traffic from Europe to India... Bloomberg reporting "The U.S. unexpectedly lost jobs for the first time in more than four years, increasing the odds the economy will fall into a recession and making it likely the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates another half point next month [...] Payrolls fell by 17,000 in January after an 82,000 gain in December that was larger than initially reported, the Labor Department said today in Washington. None of the 80 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News predicted a decline"... Advances in eye-tracking and "attention awareness" software-driven mechanisms heighten challenge of video game, or performance of pilots, depending on application; researchers say eye-tracking technology could be an important way to improve the effectiveness of certain tools or services... Violent "mob" of estimated 3,000 in Kenya's Rift Valley reportedly killed a policeman with machetes; gov't security forces have vowed a severe crackdown, to try to end spreading violence; opposition movement says security forces have used brutal tactics against protesters demonstrating against Pres. Mwai Kibaki's gov't o alleging electoral fraud in December vote... Microsoft has offered $44.6 billion in effort to take over internet search giant Yahoo!, whose stocks have struggled as it gives ground to Google in market dominance...

HRW reports US, EU backing "sham democracies" in some cases; Barack Obama sets campaign fundraising record with $32 million in January...

31 January :: Human Rights Watch, in its annual report, criticizes leading democracies, namely US and EU nations, for backing "sham democracies" for the sake of political or strategic expediency; HRW reports "Such divorcing of democracy from the international standards that give it meaning helps to convince autocrats that mere elections, regardless of the circumstances, are sufficient to warrant the democrat label"... Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) sets all-time record taking in $32 million in contributions in month of January; it is expected Obama may continue to raise large amounts, with donations spread out across a large number of small-quantity donors; rival Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) has depended on large donations which put many donors at legal limit already... Republican Sen. John McCain has received the endorsement of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in what may be a key boost ahead of the 24-state "Super Tuesday" primary vote on 5 February... According to Christian Science Monitor, "The snowstorms currently sweeping China have wreaked havoc with millions of people's New Year travel plans and caused $3 billion worth of losses, including thousands of acres of winter crops"...

Ethnic violence spreads in Kenya, US envoy says "ethnic cleansing"; Australia to apologize to Aboriginal minority for past abuses...

30 January :: US envoy to Kenya, visiting to evaluate tribal violence spreading across east African nation, says "clear ethnic cleansing" taking place in efforts to purge certain areas of Kikuyu tribe members, loyal to fellow Kikuyu, Pres. Mwai Kibaki, accused by opposition of rigging December elections... CSM reports on observers' feeling that violence in Kenya can be stemmed, peace restored, before ethnic clashes become full-scale war, in some areas where Kikuyu, Kamba are majority of population, violence has yet to spread, but fears of spreading clashes have ignited tensions, could send entire country into "spiral of violence", driven by ethnic hatred, from which it would be difficult to emerge into peace in coming weeks, months... NY Times reports "The new Australian government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will apologize for past mistreatment of the country’s Aboriginal minority when Parliament convenes next month, addressing an issue that has blighted race relations in Australia for years"... Sen. McCain wins Florida, Romney 2nd, McCain leading among senior citizens, Hispanics and moderates, as well as those who put economy first among concerns, while finishing close to Romney with self-professed conservative Republicans; Sen. Clinton finished ahead of Sen. Obama in the Democratic primary, as record 1.7 million voted, but because Florida's Democratic party violated DNC rules by moving its primary to January, it will send no delegates to the nominating convention... FT reports "The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday slashed its forecast for US growth and warned that no country would be immune from what it termed a 'global slowdown'", warning that US growth would slow to 0.8% in 2008, sharply down from previous projections...

Kennedy to endorse Obama in wake of SC win; IMF warns fiscal crisis could spread, worsen; Kisumu, Kenya, ablaze amid riots...

28 January :: Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) to announce support for candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL); sources tell press Sen. Kennedy will make announcement alongside niece, Caroline Kennedy, youngest daughter of assassinated pres. John F. Kennedy, who wrote in Sunday NY TImes that Obama has the capacity to inspire people the way her father did 5 decades ago... Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the IMF, has warned that the current global fiscal crisis could deepen if more governments to not act to revamp their overall fiscal policy, infuse markets with capital and promote stimulus packages that could bring about fiscal deficits but would loosen the spending potential of consumers and investors; the move is being called an "about-face" for a director and an institution which have promoted fiscal rigor and budget cutting as ways to ensure economic agility; observers now say subprime mortgage crisis could spread to credit cards and other banking services, further tightening available capital, slowing markets across borders, industries... City of Kisumu, Kenya, burns as rioters take to streets in protest against mounting ethnically-driven killings in the region; Kenya has descended into an increasingly indiscernible pattern of tribal and political violence, since the disputed December elections in which opposition leaders allege the sitting government rigged the vote, used violence to suppress opposition, stay in power...

Kenyan violence takes 50 lives since Thursday, Annan meets leaders; Obama wins SC 55% to Clinton's 27%...

27 January :: Tribal violence, spurred by Kenya's disputed election, continues to spread, with 50 dead in recent clashes; VoA reports "Local media report that people have been hacked with machetes, shot with bows and arrows and burned to death in their homes. Shooting in Naivasha continued late Sunday despite the arrival of soldiers and more police", and fmr UN Sec. Gen. Kofi Annan is in Kenya to try to help find a road to peace... Sen. Barack Obama wins Democrats' SC primary, with 55% of the vote, Sen. Clinton finishing 2nd with 27%, and fmr. Sen. John Edwards in 3rd with 18%, as unprecedented numbers of voters turned out to participate... Israeli PM Olmert, Palestinian Pres. Abbas meet to discuss resuming path to peace, reducing Gaza tensions; Olmert promised Abbas Israel would continue to ensure that humanitarian aid and vital supplies reached the isolated territory, to avert a humanitarian crisis...

SPECIAL NEWS ALERT: Center for Public Integrity launches site tracking all false statements made prior to Iraq war

"President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses." [Full Story]

Civil war in DR Congo has claimed 5.6 million lives in 10 years, 45,000 die per month; peace deal signed in eastern DR Congo bet. rival factions...

23 January :: DR Congo death toll since 1998 now stands at 5.6 million, with 45,000 still dying each month in 10-year ongoing civil war; Democracy Now! reports that "Amidst the deadliest conflict since World War II, hundreds of international corporations have reaped enormous profits from extracting and processing Congolese minerals", speculation has long weighed the possibility that neighboring gov'ts are eager to maintain factional rivalries in order to keep DR Congo's natural resource markets open... In eastern DR Congo, a peace deal has been signed between pro-government Mai Mai militia and rebel general Laurent Nkunda's faction; gov't has sanctioned deal which BBC reports "includes an immediate ceasefire and the deployment of UN peacekeepers in 13 key locations"Hamas agents have broken through Egypt-Gaza border wall to permit flow of refugees in search of food, supplies, as border closure continues to strain territory; Bloomberg reports "Hamas militants blew 15 holes in a security fence separating the Gaza Strip and Egypt, enabling thousands of Palestinians to leave the blockaded enclave to search for food and supplies"... US Federal Reserve Bank cuts interest rates a sharp 0.75%, leading to criticism from economists at the Davos Economic Forum; FT reports "Economists at the meeting warned that the monetary easing announced on Tuesday would not succeed in boosting a sickly US economy. Moreover, they said, by reacting to turmoil in equity markets, the Fed seriously risked creating the impression that it was most concerned with ensuring investors did not lose money"...

Food prices expected to rise for prolonged period; panic selling hits world markets; US surpasses EU in green tech investment...

22 January :: British agribusiness report suggests steep rise in food prices to continue over prolonged period; environmental degradation, water scarcity and climbing fuel prices will contribute to short supply, higher cost of production... Panic selling and steep Asian drop, for second day running, have caused massive losses in stocks across the world, as fears of US recession take root; FT reports "Tumbling Asian shares – which continued to fall early on Tuesday – led European stock markets into their biggest one-day fall since 9/11 as the prospect of a US recession and further fall-out from credit market turmoil prompted near panic among investors, who rushed to the safety of government bonds", with $490 billion lost on FTSE Eurofirst 300 index... Boom in Silicon Valley venture capital investment in renewables has US poised to overtake Europe as world leader in green technologies; according to FT, "European investment in clean technology companies last year was only a third of the $3.7bn ploughed into the field in the US, according to Cleantech Group, a specialist US research firm"...

Gaza City in darkness after power plant shutdown forced by border closing; NH recount uncovers human error, overcount of votes for some candidates...

21 January :: Lights out in Gaza City, as Palestinian authorities there are forced to shut down two turbines at Gaza power plant, due to Israel cutting off fuel supplies and other imports into Gaza Strip; officials there have said hospitals and emergency services will also be affected by the blackout; Israel says its effort is designed to slow and/or halt rocket attacks allegedly coming from Gaza, that it has not cut off the 70% of Gaza's electricity supply that comes from Israel itself... "Election integrity activists in New Hampshire are finding all kinds of problems with the electronic vote count in last week's presidential primary, after a first day of recounting the Democratic vote. But the problems so far have not changed the outcome of the race that Hillary Clinton won", according to a 17 January AlterNet report; The Concord Monitor is reporting that human error played a roll in erroneous counts conducted on the day of the primary vote: "A recount of ballots cast in Nashua's Ward 5 show that Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Joe Biden received a total of 110 votes less than originally reported because of human error", though so far the ongoing recounts have not turned up any error or manipulation serious enough to cause a change in the placing of top candidates...

Touchscreen machines fail in 100% of one SC precinct in GOP primary; Clinton wins Nevada narrowly over Obama, Romney with clear GOP win...

20 January :: Electronic voting machines in Horry County, South Carolina, have reportedly failed in 100% of its precincts, creating the real possibility that South Carolina's Republican primary vote cannot be confirmed by any official means; with the machines used already known to be vulnerable to hacking and malfunction, "Late in the week poll workers picked up the iVotronic machines that they are using today. They took them home on voting machine "sleepovers" and then set up the poll sites for today's primary", reports Brad Friedman for the investigative blog BRADBLOG... John McCain declared winner of South Carolina Republican party primary, outpacing close challenger Mike Huckabee 33% to 30%, despite reports of serious problems in touchscreen voting machines, unknown numbers of voters "turned away" at polls... Hillary Clinton has been declared winner of the Nevada caucuses, with Barack Obama finishing second (50% and 45% support among caucus-goers, respectively), in the run for the Democratic nomination; Mitt Romney has reportedly taken 40% more than his nearest rivals, finishing with 55% to Paul and McCain's 13% support... The annual Davos Economic Forum has been overshadowed by concerns of growing international economic instability, and fallout from the subprime mortgage lending crisis that hit US banks in the summer of 2007; The Financial Times reports "Even Klaus Schwab, the founder of the Davos meetings, sounds downbeat: 'The discussions in Davos will certainly be very dominated by the economic challenges we have at the moment — the aftermath of the subprime crisis, the transfer of capital from energy-consuming to energy-producing countries, inflationary tendencies'"... A team of economists in Britain has suggested the EU should implement a broad-based carbon tax in order to spur market adaptation to renewable fuels, instead of setting specific targets for the use of biofuels and renewable energy; the report suggests that specific funding for a transition to the widespread use of biofuels would be "a form of state support for an environmentally and economically harmful activity designed to consolidate existing price support mechanisms for vested interest groups, most notably farmers"... MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews has apologized for "callous" remarks about Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), in which he suggested she was elected in New York because her husband, fmr. pres. Bill Clinton, "messed around"; Matthews explained that his intention was to highlight that she performed well under pressure and gained respect in the public eye and among elected officials...

CIA operative says US, Pakistan agree on Bhutto killer, PPP skeptical, accused denies; UK property fund halts withdrawals amid panic...

18 January :: LA Times quotes unnamed CIA operative as saying US concurs with Pakistan on Bhutto killer; the official is quoted as saying "There are strong indications that Baitullah Mahsud was behind the Bhutto assassination", adding "There is certainly no reason to doubt that Mahsud was behind this", though Mahsud has publicly denied involvement, and political goals of Pakistani Islamists are not clear with regard to opposition groups seeking to depose Musharraf, as was Bhutto's case; Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party has expressed skepticism about the allegation, citing lack of investigation to date, according to LA Times "Party officials say that most, if not all, of the evidence in the case was destroyed by police and firefighters who hosed down the site within hours of the shooting and suicide attack, making it virtually impossible to gather evidence to help determine who else might have been involved"... One of the UK's wealthiest property investment funds was forced to shut its doors yesterday, as panic selloffs and withdrawals threatened its solvency; the Guardian reports "Scottish Equitable said yesterday that 129,000 small investors in its £2bn property fund will not be able to access their money for up to a year, although payments relating to regular income already being paid, retirements and death claims will not be affected"... Allegations emerge in Nevada of voter-intimidation efforts by Culinary Workers Union; no investigation as yet into allegations, which came from Clinton campaign, just hours after a judge ruled the Nevada Democratic party can host caucuses inside casinos and other such venues, where many workers are members of the CWU...

Israel, Palestinians open peace talks; Kucinich calls for manual recount in New Hampshire; China says military buildup is no threat to US...

14 January :: Israel, Palestinians have opened most extensive peace negotiations in more than 7 years, after US pres. Bush toured region in effort to accelerate talks; Reuters reports: "Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said she would keep details of her talks with former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie confidential, but later told parliament she was 'prepared to make significant territorial concessions' to further Israel's interests"... Presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has called for a manual recount of all ballots cast in New Hampshire primaries for his party's nomination, due to what his campaign's press release said were "unexplained disparities between hand-counted ballots and machine-counted ballots"; Kucinich himself wrote "This is not about my candidacy or any other individual candidacy. It is about the integrity of the election process"; mechanized voting technologies have been brought into question in several elections over the last decade, as security flaws, alleged misuse have become apparent... China says its rapid military buildup is not intended as a threat to the United States, with the People's Liberation Army chief of staff even saying "We don't have the ability to make you afraid of us"; statements are perceived as attempt to cool tensions that flared when Beijing attempted to block a ceremonial visit by US ships to Taiwan in 2007... "More than 10 years after her death, Princess Diana's former butler has said he believes there was no royal plot to murder her, and also disputes the rumors that she was engaged to marry Dodi al-Fayed; Reuters reports: "Dodi's father, Harrods luxury storeowner Mohamed al-Fayed, alleges that he and Diana were killed by British security services on the orders of Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth's husband and Diana's former father-in-law", further alleging "that Diana's body was embalmed to cover up evidence she was expecting a baby"; an ongoing inquest into the circumstances leading up to and surrounding her death recently revealed that Prince Philip had allegedly sent "extremely derogatory" and "cruel" letters to Diana, but that they did not contain threats, and her former security chief said he believed her private calls were being monitored by security services...

Indian, Chinese leaders meet in Beijing to discuss economic cooperation; Clinton camp says criticism of remarks about MLK have been "distorted"...

13 January :: IHT reports from Beijing "Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India will arrive in Beijing on Sunday for a three-day visit to China, with each country eager to increase bilateral trade, promote mutual friendship and offer reassurances that Asia is big enough to accommodate the ambitions of both rising powers"; the two nations with more than 1 billion inhabitants each, are foreseen as major economic competitors for unprecedented shares of world resources, as they develop their economies... Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) has complained that Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) campaign has "distorted" her statements regarding the value of Martin Luther King's civil rights movement; while both Sen. Clinton and her husband have long lauded the civil rights movement of the 1960s, she attempted to play down her rival's appeal to hope and American ideals by saying that "It took a president" (Lyndon Johnson) to realize the dream of Dr. King, by forcing legislation through Congress; the Obama campaign has said it has not released any misleading statements about Sen. Clinton's words... An asteroid observers feared could strike Mars is now estimated to miss the Red Planet by a considerably safe distance, reducing likelihood of impact to 1 in 10,000; Discovery reports "Scientists said the best estimate was for the asteroid to pass at a distance of more than 16,000 miles from the surface of Mars, or at worst, no closer than 2,480 miles"...

SPECIAL NEWS ALERT: Touchscreen Voting Machines Put in Question Integrity of US Election Process

Across the United States, problems are being discovered with what are supposed to be the state of the art in balloting technology: digital touchscreen voting machines. Security questions were raised initially when the machines were widely distributed, by a handful of companies, with no hard-copy record of voters' intent, which led to a nationwide movement calling for "verified voting", or voter-verified paper trails.

State after state has accepted that the absolute standard for a truly reliable voting and vote-counting process must be a process where voters can actually see the official record of their votes, verify that their votes were recorded correctly, and where those hard-copies can then be checked by both machine and by human intervention, if such a recount is needed. Florida and California have both scrapped their touchscreen machines, amid mounting concerns about reliability and security.

A team of researchers at Princeton University has demonstrated the ease with which the machines can be hacked and thousands of votes shifted or stolen, leaving little or no trace and with no means by which to return to any record of "voter intent" (a standard which most states require constitutionally). Allegations of suspicious interactions between company executives at Diebold and other voting machine manufacturers or maintenance firms has raised fears that the machines have already been used to sway the outcome of past elections (Ohio in 2004 is one possible case).

In southern California, San Diego election workers were permitted to take the machines home with them on the eve of elections, leading to what is possible the most severe security breach in US elections since the 2000 debacle in Florida raised real concerns about the legitimacy of the vote-counting process. Instances of votes for one candidate actually being recorded for another are infamous and disturbingly frequent.

Clive Thompson has written for The New York Times:

"In the last three election cycles, touch-screen machines have become one of the most mysterious and divisive elements in modern electoral politics. Introduced after the 2000 hanging-chad debacle, the machines were originally intended to add clarity to election results. But in hundreds of instances, the result has been precisely the opposite: they fail unpredictably, and in extremely strange ways; voters report that their choices 'flip' from one candidate to another before their eyes; machines crash or begin to count backward; votes simply vanish."

So, even where the "paper trail" is implemented, to shore up the technology against its own inherent flaws, there are problems with the quality of the manufacturing or maintenance, it would seem, leading to the possibility that votes are simply erased, lost, or never recorded. Roughly one-third of the electorate will cast their votes in November 2008 on touchscreen machines, unless action is taken to prevent this unproven technology from interfering with voters' ability to express their choice.

Suicide bombing spurs further worries about Pakistan security; touchscreen voting machines may be threat to US election integrity...

10 January :: Suicide bomber strikes Lahore, Pakistan, killing at least 23 riot police and injuring dozens of other people, raising fears that political crisis in troubled nuclear state could result in prolonged campaign of violence... Concerns about integrity of US election process spread as more states take action to bar use of touchscreen voting machines, as study after study appear to show they decrease the security of the vote-counting process; Democracy Now! reports "Last spring, California and Florida decided to get rid of their electronic voting machines. In December, Colorado decertified about half of its touch-screen devices. In Ohio, secretary of state Jennifer Brunner undertook an extensive review of electronic voting machines that concluded their use “may jeopardize the integrity of the voting process.” On Capitol Hill, two Senators have sponsored a bill that would ban the use of touch-screen machines across the country by 2012"... US Supreme Court considered yesterday a challenge to a 2005 Indiana law that requires voters present gov't-issued photo-ID before being allowed to cast votes; the fact that such IDs require payment for purchase and that many poorer voters may have difficulty spending the time needed, on working days, to obtain the documents, rase issues of unconstitutional "poll taxes" and possible racial or socio-economic manipulation of the vote; Justices were said to be skeptical about the challengers' argument that the problem of voter-ID fraud is not actually widespread (no evidence of widespread use of this kind of fraud has been found at any time in recent elections)... 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for his party's nomination, the latest in a series of high-profile endorsements announced by the top Democratic contenders in the last 48 hours, as the campaigns struggle to establish their momentum going into the coming primaries...

SPECIAL NEWS ALERT: AT&T Announces Plans to Inspect & Filter Internet Traffic & Content

AT&T is proposing the implementation of new filtering technologies "at the network level" that would essentially interrupt in a definitive way the public's freedom to access online content. The concept known as 'net neutrality' refers to consumers and netizens' ability to freely gain access to any site, paid or unpaid, without major telecommunications companies programming access as they do with cable television.

The movement against net neutrality has been spearheaded by giant internet service providers (ISPs) like AT&T and Verizon, who want to profit from permitting consumers access to specific sites. They already charge for end-user access and for content-providers' access, and they charge more if you want higher speeds (bandwidth). Now they seek to ensure that freedom of access be impeded, in order to allow them to manipulate access and information in order to further line their pockets with a medium they did not develop, did not fund, and have not produced.

Existing law bars such filtering from being implemented by ISPs. The First Amendment to the US Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press". Filtering and restricting access to online content "at the network level" would very directly abridge the freedom of individuals to create and distribute online content, and would limit the ability of the online "press" to freely report the news and generate creative content.

There is no viable legal solution to this issue other than the prohibition of such filtering technologies as a threat to the free market of ideas on which American society, the rule of law as we understand it, and our society of democratic values based on the free expression of ideas, actually do depend.

Pope plans to build global network of 'exorcism squads'; online report suggests aspartame danger to public health...

9 January :: Pope Benedict XVI plans to implement a global network of "specialist exorcism squads", with a team in every diocese around the world to combat Satan; a Vatican spokesman told the press "Too many bishops are not taking this seriously and are not delegating their priests in the fight against the Devil. You have to hunt high and low for a properly trained exorcist", and lauded the Pope's devotion to training clergy to directly confront "the most extreme form of Godlessness"... New online report suggests Aspartame, commonly used in artificial sweeteners, may be more dangerous than previously thought, citing a number of studies; Pupaganda reports "It was originally approved for dry goods on July 26, 1974, but objections filed by neuroscience researcher Dr John W. Olney and Consumer attorney James Turner in August 1974 as well as investigations of G.D. Searle's research practices caused the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to put approval of aspartame on hold (December 5, 1974)"; manufacturers question the validity of the allegations, and the scientific community has mixed reaction to allegations of the dangers of the substance...

NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY: Clinton, McCain declared winners in New Hampshire, Obama, Romney finish 2nd...

Sen. Hillary Clinton declared winner by some news organizations in NH, with 39% of vote while less than 70% of precincts were reporting, CNN waited until Obama campaign said he would speak ahead of Clinton, called NH for Clinton while she led Obama 39% to 36%, with 80% reporting...

McCain declared winner early, with significant margin of victory over Romney, lead of 8 percentage points with under 40% of votes tallied; McCain's lead had shrunk to 39% to 32% with 85% of precincts reporting, as midnight neared...

John Edwards finished with 17% of the vote, while New Mexico gov. Bill Richardson was said to be traveling back to his home state to consider what course of action to take, given the 2nd consecutive 4th-place finish... Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani finished with 11% and 9% respectively, Ron Paul with 8%, and Fred Thompson a distant 6th with 1%...

Benazir Bhutto's son calls for UN investigation; New Jersey legislature officially apologizes for slavery, which it abolished in 1846...

8 January :: Son of Benazir Bhutto calls for UN-led investigative commission to determine responsibility for his mother's assassination, saying Pakistan gov't lacks "transparency" required to conduct an effective and credible investigation... New Jersey's state legislature has officially apologized for practicing slavery, the first state north of the Mason-Dixon line to do so, though it was the last of the northern states to emancipate slaves held there, in 1846; the resolution [pdf] states "the fundamental values of Africans were shattered; they were brutalized, humiliated and dehumanized", the resolution following official apologies by Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia, in 2007... Clinton, McCain declared winners in NH, in what is called "comeback" for both candidates; Obama congratulates Clinton, gives "Yes we can" speech, Romney finishes 2nd in state bordering Massachusetts, where he was governor... Organizers of yesterday's Oklahoma "bipartisanship forum" have said Obama campaign could mean Bloomberg run superfluous; Bloomberg himself suggested what the group of 17 is demanding may have already begun, saying "I hope that all the candidates say to themselves that the public is tired of the partisanship and the special interests, and if I’m going to get elected, I’ve got to stand up and say what I believe, face the big issues, hold myself accountable, and maybe you are seeing that"...