Score one for Obama! Congress this evening passed his $819 billion stimulus plan, filled with new spending and tax cuts, by a vote of 244-188. The bill is at the core of the Obama administration’s plan for reviving the flailing economy; the president declared earlier today that “we don’t have a moment to spare.” The stimulus now moves to the Senate, where debate will begin this week on a companion measure. Democrats want the legislation ready for Obama’s signature by mid-February.

He wants it his way: Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who’s so far shunned his own impeachment trial in favor of a media blitz, has just made a request to put in an appearance tomorrow, before the prosecutor’s closing arguments. When Illinois Senate President John Cullerton announced the news—adding that Blago says he’ll offer no testimony and no questions—several state senators smiled and shook their heads, The Chicago Sun-Times reports. The governor is expected to be impeached.

In a case likely to inflame opinion against Americans in the Muslim world, the Justice Department is investigating the CIA station chief in Algeria for allegedly slipping drugs into two Muslim women’s drinks and then raping them, ABC News reports. Officials have discovered more than a dozen secretly recorded videotapes of the CIA officer engaging in sex with various women, including one in which an alleged victim appears to be “semi-conscious.” Investigators are concerned that the station chief may have committed similar crimes while stationed in Egypt, as well. The accused rapist, whose name has not been made public, is a 41-year-old convert to Islam. “This will be seen as the typical ugly American,” former CIA officer Bob Baer said, adding that the failure to discover the alleged rapist’s behavior sooner was “indicative of personnel problems of all sorts that run through the agency.”

American consumer confidence is at an all-time low, which is very bad news for Starbucks. The coffee giant today announced a huge new round of layoffs and store closings—6,700 employees and 300 stores in all this year—after reporting drooping first-quarter profits. Most shocking of all, CEO Howard Schultz is taking a huge pay cut himself, slashing his salary from $1.2 million to $10,000 a year. Starbucks is closing 200 US stores and 100 overseas, on top of the 600-plus locations it shuttered last year. “The slowdown in traffic is reflective of less frequent customer visitation patterns due to the economy,” an analyst with William Blair & Co. in Chicago wrote in a Jan. 26 note.

Want to know how to get on Vladimir Putin’s bad side? Offer him charity. Poor Michael Dell learned that lesson the hard way in Davos. The Russian prime minister delivered a 40-minute speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum devoted to diversifying away from the dollar and investing in a smart energy partnership with Russia. Then he opened to floor to questions. Dell, ever the friendly computer tycoon, asked how he could help expand IT in Russia. Big mistake. Came the withering reply from judo master Putin: “We don’t need help. We are not invalids. We don’t have limited mental capacity.” 

Add the US Postal Service to the growing list of victims of the recession. The USPS—facing declining mail volume, cash-flow problems, and a growing deficit—may drop a day of delivery. (Guess the next postal rate increase, scheduled for May, won’t be enough.) “If current trends continue, we could experience a net loss of $6 billion or more this fiscal year,” Postmaster General John Potter testified before a Senate committee. The USPS could bridge its budget gap, he said, “by suspending delivery on the lightest volume days”—Tuesday or Saturday. Congress mandated the six-day schedule in 1983.

Newsweek nods to Tina Brown’s recent column with an online piece on “the gig economy.” Some 2.5 million jobs have disappeared over the past 13 months; combine that with outsourcing and a lack of corporate loyalty, and you get “gigonomics.” The trend has spread from journalists and musicians, no strangers to freelancing, to professions less known for their creativity: finance, law, and human resources. And the new members of the “gig” class aren’t choosing the lifestyle for the freedom; they’re being forced into it by bosses who don’t want to pay for health insurance and other benefits.

Eric Holder was expected to face a tougher nomination process than any of Barack Obama’s cabinet nominees, due to his role in the pardon of Marc Rich, but the attorney-general appointee won broad bipartisan support today from the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Committee approved Holder 17 to 2, with only Republicans John Cornyn and Tom Coburn rejecting his appointment.

We’ve all heard about all the high-profile no-shows at Davos’ World Economic Forum this week. But what about the people who’ve actually shown up at the Swiss resort? They’re in hiding, journalists report. “Who do you have lined up for interviews?” was journalists’ gossipy question of yesteryear. Now it’s “Who’s canceled on you today?” “The headline guests are dropping like flies,” Portfolio reports. “Behind the scenes in the cocktail circles here—among journalists and CEOs themselves—the big talk is about appearances. How does it look to be standing against a backdrop of snowy Alpine ski slopes with the gliteratti when your company—or your government—is facing massive shortfalls and laying people off?

Sad news today for lovers of book reviews: The Washington Post announced it’s eliminating its Book World as a standalone section beginning Feb. 22. The paper’s books coverage will instead appear in its Style section throughout the week and in its Outlook section on Sundays. In an email to colleagues, Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli wrote: “We will end Book World’s run as a stand-alone print section but will revamp and rebrand our books section online as Book World, where we’ll offer readers a robust, well-organized site dedicated to our coverage and reviews of books.”

As part of a continued effort to secure passage of his stimulus package, President Obama has extended an invite for a cocktail reception at the White House to twelve representatives (six from each party) and ten senators (five from each party). The party at 7:30 tonight happened just after the House approved the president's $825 billion stimulus package. The guest list included Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. John Boehner, Rep. Eric Cantor, Sen. Harry Reid, and Sen. John Thune.

Between this news and Yahoo’s dismal returns, the doom and gloom is adding up today on the Internet. Time Warner said its AOL unit would lay off 700 people, or 10 percent of its work force, as a result of the recession. (It’s probably a bad sign when layoffs can be measured in double digit percentiles.) Online advertising has been an unfortunate casualty of the current economic climate, and AOL will try to reboot itself with a focus on three core areas: advertising, publishing/websites, and social networks. CEO Randy Falco struck a hopeful note in a staff memo, saying the unit is “two years into a three-year turnaround plan.”

The source of a national outbreak of salmonella, a peanut processing plant in Georgia, ignored at least 12 of its own tests that found the bacteria, federal officials said. Eight people have died and over 500 were sickened by the outbreak, which was traced back to the Peanut Corporation of America's facility in Blakely, GA. After each positive salmonella test, the firm took no action to clean the plant.

Total global economic growth is expected to grind to a near halt--just 0.5% this year, the lowest rate since World War II, the International Monetary Fund announced today. Just three months ago, the IMF was forecasting annual growth of 2.2%. That was then. Now, at estimated 51 million jobs could be lost in 2009, according to the International Labour Organization. On the positive side, stocks advanced on hopes that President Obama's "bad bank" plan will be established. Wells Fargo and Citigroup both rose double-digits.

All eyes, so far, have been on the economy, but President Obama has been quietly orchestrating a new strategy for Afghanistan. According to The New York Times, Obama “will put more emphasis on waging war than on development.” The United States will also take a tougher line on President Hamid Karzai, whose government is corrupt, work more closely with provincial leaders, and leave nation-building mostly to its European allies so that it can focus on fighting insurgents. Among those pressing Karzai are special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, and Vice President Joe Biden, who recently told Karzai that the biweekly video conferences he enjoyed with President Bush will be ending and that Obama will expect more from him.

So what was Bill Clinton up to while his wife was running for president? According to Politico, Bill Clinton earned $5.7 million in speaking fees last year, almost all of it from foreign sources, and over $2 million came after rumors began circulating that Hillary would be appointed to secretary of state. Appearances in Kuwait, China, and Malaysia all occurred in the last three-and-a-half months of 2008, while "the Clinton and Obama camps were hammering out the agreement under which President Obama ultimately offered Hillary Clinton the job as top diplomat," and Clinton was compensated over $200,000 for each of those engagements. As part of his wife's confirmation process, former-president Clinton agreed to alert ethics officials to any foreign speaking arrangements.

Surprised that Obama gave his first presidential interview to Arabic news network al Arabiya? You’re not alone: Al Arabiya was surprised, too. Time reports that Hisham Melhem, the journalist who interviewed Obama, first heard from the White House on Sunday regarding an undisclosed “major interview.” Assuming he’d be meeting newly appointed Middle East envoy George Mitchell, Melhem was pleasantly surprised at 9 a.m. on the day of the interview when WH officials called to offer the president’s first post-inauguration interview. The interview was a ratings boon to the Saudi-financed network, which, during the recent Israel-Palestine conflict, has lagged behind its more radical competitor, al Jazeera.

File under strange but true. A new study has determined that "boys in the United States with common names like Michael and David are less likely to commit crimes than those named Ernest or Ivan," according to LiveScience. Two researchers crossed the names of male juvenile delinquents and young males in the general population with their "popularity-name index." Across races, LiveScience reports, "juveniles with unpopular names are more likely to engage in criminal activity. The least popular names were associated with juvenile delinquency among both blacks and whites."

The advertising recession has taken another magazine off the newsstands. Publishing giant Conde Nast announced this morning that it has closed Domino, its home décor magazine. The news comes just two weeks after a new publisher was installed. "This decision to cease publication of the magazine and its website is driven entirely by the economy," explained CEO Chuck Townsend. Editor Deborah Needleman and publisher Beth Brenner are expected to exit the company, though some staff may move to other Conde Nast titles.

During the election Joe Biden warned America to “gird your loins” because, once in office, Barack Obama would be “tested” by a belligerent foreign leader, but, so far, they’ve turned out to be a pretty cooperative bunch. Latest example: Russia announced today that it is suspending plans to deploy missiles in Europe, an olive branch to President Obama for saying he will reconsider former President Bush’s plan to build a missile-defense shield in Eastern Europe. Bush planned to deploy the missiles in Poland, ostensibly in order to protect the United States from attacks from the Middle East. But the move infuriated nearby Russia. According to The Times of London, Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev spoke by phone on Monday.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was a no-show at Day 2 of his impeachment trial, but his voice was heard loud and clear, as state senators listened to taped conversations between their governor and his associates. The recordings lacked the colorful language of other famous Blago phone calls—no cursing out the Obama team—but they did show a governor frantic to beat a year-end deadline before tougher ethics rules about campaign contributions went into effect.

It's good to know the United States is not the only country that's (allegedly) dallying in corruption. Scandal is seeping through the House of Lords in Parliament after the Sunday Times sent investigative reporters to pose as lobbyists, and several top officials were caught on tape suggesting they would accept compensation to change legislation, reports The Washington Post. In one tape, 79-year-old Thomas Taylor claims some companies pay him 100,000 pounds (about $141,000) a year, saying: "That's cheap for what I do. . . . You've got to whet my appetite to get me on board." The drama is dubbed "Erminegate" after the red robes worn by the members, and although the upper chamber does not have the ability to throw out any members who abuse their powers, top leaders are calling for their expulsion.

Call them the mini-Madoffs. They may have stolen from investors a fraction of Bernie Madoff’s $50 billion haul, but others caught running Ponzi schemes have been turning up in record numbers in recent weeks. What’s causing them to surface now? The New York Times reports it’s a “combination of a deteriorating economy and heightened skepticism about outsize returns after the revelations about Mr. Madoff.” Among the gems The Times digs up: New Yorker Nicholas Cosmo (he promised 48 to 80 percent returns), Haitian immigrant George Theodule (“man of God”), and Arthur Nadel (Sarasota philanthropist), as well as disgraced Clinton donor Norman Hsu (remember him?).

Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer have called off their relationship—again. The 31-year-old singer "needed time to himself," Us Weekly reports. The split leaves Aniston alone on her 40th birthday next month. "She's a control freak, and he can be very incommunicative," a source said. "Plus, she feels he plays games with her head." Like the last time they broke up in August, it might not be The End. "They have different needs, and it's hard making it work," said another source.

Authors are popping up across the internet to tip their hats at John Updike, who passed away yesterday afternoon. At Vanity Fair, James Wolcott writes that, when he last heard Updike a few months ago, “he sounded hale, chipper, as pinpoint articulate as ever—ageless… So his death, even at the age of 76, seems abrupt, unjust.” At The New Yorker, several writers weigh in. Julian Barnes writes of reading Updike’s novels during an American book tour: “[they] were a distraction from, and a glittering confirmation of, the vast bustling ordinariness of American life.” And, at The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani, who so often sharpened her critical knives on Updike’s pages, makes nice, praising him as “this country’s one true all-around man of letters.”

Former President Bush’s enemies have so far seemed eager to make nice with President Obama (see Russia’s scrapping of missile plans today), but it looks like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is going to spoil the fun. The Iranian President addressed crowds in Khermenshah today, saying, "Those who speak of change must apologize to the Iranian people and try to repair their past crimes," alluding to Obama's recent interview on Al Arabiya, in which the president said “[if] countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us." Ahmadinejad also said the U.S. should "stop interfering in other people's affairs," referring to U.S. military presence around the world.

Cover your eyes, Google. Yahoo Inc. appears headed down a swift downward slope, as yesterday the company announced quarterly losses of $303 million, a long ways off from the $206 million profit posted one year ago. Last month, the company laid off 1,500 employees and is now predicting revenue could decline up to 16% in the coming year. When asked about a possible sale or merger, newly-christened CEO Carol Bartz, who's held the title for eight days, said, "It's my job to make sure we look at anything that makes sense for the company and creates long-term value for shareholders."

Joaquin Phoenix’ recent antics—wild, matted hair and beard; shambolic partying; proclaimed intentions to give up acting for rapping—have had some fans fearing he might be going crazy. His shambling three-song rap debut, at a Las Vegas nightclub on Jan. 16, only solidified the feeling. But they needn’t have worried: Entertainment Weekly’s Hollywood Insider blog reports the two-time Oscar nominee may be “perpetrating an elaborate Andy Kaufman-style hoax,” all filmed by his friend and brother-in-law Casey Affleck for a faux documentary to “lampoon pompous actors and punk the media.” Phoenix told a source, “It’s a put-on. I’m going to pretend to have a meltdown and change careers, and Casey is going to film it.”

Mark your calendars: The A-Team, set for release by 20th Century Fox, has lined up a director and producer in anticipation of a 2010 tent-pole summer date. Variety reports Joe Carnahan will direct and Ridley Scott will produce the film remake centering around four veterans from the Middle East (a stand-in for the original Vietnam) who escape from prison and become do-gooders. "You can ... make a film that reflects on the real world without losing the great sense of fun and the velocity of action in a classic summer popcorn film," said director Joe Carnahan. We'll see about that.

Today, Obama’s stimulus plan hits the House floor, after the president personally lobbied several House and Senate Republicans. "His presentation was a tour de force,” New Hampshire Senator and tottering stimulus opponent Judd Gregg told Politico. “I felt much better. ... He’s clearly moving forward aggressively on all the different fronts. I was very impressed. If he puts it in the context of an integrated effort, I’d consider it.” The overall package swelled to near $900 billion, meanwhile, as Obama agreed to a $69 billion Republican proposal, spearheaded by Chuck Grassley, that would shield middle and upper-middle class families from the alternative minimum tax.