Taliban Attack: In one of Pakistan’s worst terror incidents in recent years, Taliban gunmen are reported to have killed at least 126 people and taken hostages in an assault on a school in northwestern Pakistan. About a half-dozen Taliban gunmen …

Down Under: Police in Sydney have locked down the central business district of Australia’s largest city as they negotiate with a gunman who’s taken hostages in a café. Five people are reported to have escaped but more are inside. The …

Congress Passes a Bill!!!!!: Working instead of attending Christmas parties, the Senate last night passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill that will keep the government running. Some Republicans were angry with their own Ted Cruz from Texas whose procedural maneuver …

Nation: Police early this morning arrested a 22-year-old suspect in the shooting yesterday of four students at a Portland, Ore. high school for troubled kids. They had stopped his car at 1:30 in the morning and found that he had …

The Torture Debate: CIA Director John Brennan gave a rare press conference admitting his agency did “abhorrent” things interrogating terror suspects but that the so-called “enhanced” methods produced information that stopped attacks and saved lives. While saying CIA interrogators “went …

Econ 101: US stocks took a slide yesterday greased by the falling price of oil. The Dow Jones dropped 268 points as oil headed toward $60 a barrel, the lowest in five years. US oil production, among other factors, is …

The Torture Report: The Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday released a blistering report that says the CIA misled the government about the severity of its interrogation techniques and the usefulness of information acquired through torture of terror suspects. The report’s summary …

The Torture Report: The Senate Democrats are expected today to release a detailed report on torture and the activities of the CIA during the war on terror. Republicans and Democrats have been arguing for days about the wisdom of releasing …

Permawar: A South African hostage who was hours from being released for a $200,000 ransom was the other hostage killed in last week’s raid to free an American freelance photographer in Yemen. The family of Pierre Korkie, a teacher, had …

Gitmo: The US has transferred six inmates from the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects to freedom in Uruguay. The six have been held 12 years without being tried or charged. The move reduces the Gitmo population to 136. Sixty-seven …