After a brief upswing, the stock market is down again, reports the Wall Street Journal. The Dow fell 226 points, a loss of 2.7 percent. Banks JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America lost over 8 percent each; General Motors and General Electric fell 7 and 5.8 percents, respectively. One trader told the Journal: “For most traders, the bottom line is jobs…. That’s what we want to see—this is an economy powered by consumer spending.”

The end is near: The Illinois Senate voted unanimously to remove Rod Blagojevich from office. According to The Washington Post, “With the vote, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, a former running mate who hasn't spoken with the increasingly isolated Blagojevich in 17 months, became Illinois' 41st governor.” After the news broke, Blago capped off a standard press conference by imploring "people in the Latino community" with Cesar Chavez—"Si se puede," a phrase thrown around during Obama's campaign—then waded into the crowd to shake hands and pose for pictures. Curiously, Quinn is also on the record quoting Chavez.

President Obama's first law is a tip of his hat to working women. Signed today, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act eases the path for pay discrimination suits. Obama said he signed the bill in honor of namesake factory supervisor Ledbetter—who was present—as well as his recently deceased grandmother and daughters. According to The New York Times, "The ceremony also marked First Lady Michelle Obama's policy debut; she spoke afterward in a reception in the State Room, where she called Ms. Ledbetter `one of my favorite people.'" Under Bush, the White House opposed and quashed a similar bill.

Might the people of Illinois soon lose their greatest defender? Well, Rod Blagojevich certainly thinks so. "How is it an impeachable offense for helping low income families keep their health?" Blagojevich said during his 47-minute speech before the Illinois Senate at his impeachment hearing. "How can you impeach a governor when what we did was about helping families and kids?" He went on to insist that “I have done nothing wrong... Is it the right precedent to set to take a governor twice elected and throw him out of office when you're not able to prove criminal allegations?" The state chief justice invited Blagojevich to remain after his speech, but he chose to leave the chamber.

Things keep getting worse for former Wall Street titan John Thain, who resigned as CEO of Merrill Lynch last week after the firm posted huge fourth quarter losses and The Daily Beast and CNBC revealed he had spent $1.2 million to refurbish his office. Thain became the poster boy for bailout-related shenanigans after Merrill Lynch doled out $4 billion in bonuses right before being acquired by Bank of America despite the company's desperate financial straits. Now New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is investigating Thain and other board members to find out if they deliberately misled shareholders about the size of the firm's losses in order to keep their bonuses intact. Thain wasn't the only one at the bonus trough—Wall Street bonuses overall were down 44 percent in 2008, but still clocked in at a hefty $18.4 billion.

Having passed in the House already and likely to succeed in the Senate, President Obama's stimulus plan could start pumping cash into the economy "within weeks," according to an analysis by the New York Times. The first effects would come in the form of $275 in tax cuts, reducing money withheld from workers' paychecks, and in unemployment benefits and food stamps, which would immediately be increased. Aid to states would also provide fast relief, staving off cuts to services that might otherwise knock the economy down even further. Some provisions like highway construction and school renovation would take months to get off the ground, however, and only about two-thirds of total spending is expected be completed within 19 months, according to the CBO. If the recession is over by then, the delayed spending could prove a drag on the economy by competing with the private sector, making the longer term components of the package more of a gamble.

Did you love “Barack the Magic Negro”? Good news! Republican National Committee chairman-candidate Chip Saltsman’s holiday CD included a similarly “funny” selection: “The Star Spanglish Banner.” Both songs were written by the same man, “satirist” Paul Shanklin, who is a frequent contributor to Rush Limbaugh’s radio program. Sam Stein at The Huffington Post writes, “Saltsman has contended that the whole thing was meant as a good-humored, albeit ill-conceived, joke. But it hits at the core of what observers inside and out of the GOP see as a major party problem: their incredible failure to win Hispanic votes in the 2008 election.”

So the first peripheral family member to cash in on the new first family’s success is not, sadly, illegal aunt Zeituni, but rather Michelle Obama’s brother, Craig Robinson. Robinson, according to the Associated Press, plans to publish a book “part tribute to his family and part inspirational guide.” Rumor has it that Gotham Books paid around $1 million for the deal and hopes are Michelle will write the introduction. Robinson is the men’s basketball coach at Oregon State University.

With thousands of American troops expected to arrive in Afghanistan in the coming weeks to help fight the resurgent Taliban, Afghan election officials decided on Thursday to hold off on elections an extra four months to allow the soldiers to improve security beforehand. The electoral commission is also short of the necessary cash to properly run the polls, according to its head, Azizullah Lodin. "We have had security problems, budgetary problems and technical problems," Lodin said. The elections, which now are scheduled for August 20 and could be pushed back even further if conditions don't improve, will likely feature current President Hamid Karzai, who is expected to run for a second term.

Come for the homophobia, stay for the show: After a Fort Lauderdale theater announced their production of the gay-themed play The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told earlier this month, word spread that performances would be picketed by the Westboro Baptist Church—the organization well-known for protesting military funerals because America supposedly supports homosexuals. However, when gay-friendly organizations arrived at the theater to counter-protest, the Church was nowhere to be found. The South Florida Blade reports that someone from the theater started the rumor to drum up publicity for the new show. Artistic director David Goldyn, who denies involvement in the protest, told the paper, “You can’t buy this kind of publicity.” This might be the first time the Westboro Church was not to blame.

Even out of office, it seems that Bush has caused another stink. In its final days, the administration imposed a 300 percent duty on Roquefort cheese as retaliation for the EU ban on U.S. beef imports containing hormones. As a result, Roquefort producers are up in arms, complaining that the high U.S. tariffs are rattling the local economy in Roquefort-Sur-Soulzon, France.

Economic historians looking for a comparison for our current woes don’t have to dial their clocks back to the Great Depression just yet: Economic data released today shows that the final quarter of 2008 was the American economy’s worst since at least 1982, contracting at an annualized rate of approximately 6 percent. The decline, according to the Financial Times, “is likely to be broad-based,” with consumption falling at an annualized rate of 4 percent and industrial production declining a whopping 15 percent. Single-family homes also fell in December to a record low—an annual pace of 331,000. In 2008, 482,000 new homes were sold, down from 776,000 a year earlier.

After facing harsh critics and low ratings for two years, Katie Couric's term as anchor of the CBS Evening News actually appears on an upswing. "I was beginning to think only my parents and my brother were watching," Couric told the Washington Post. She recently scored a coup—Chesley Sullenburger, the hero pilot of the downed US Airways flight, will have his first sit-down interview with her on Feb. 8. Tom Shales writes that perhaps her returning popularity is due to her "warmer, more benevolent presence than her two competitors," including NBC's Brian Williams and Charles Gibson at ABC, and the ratings results are noticeable, if not small. Her program has risen 5 percent in the ratings over the past year. Couric added, "I just put on blinders and do my job and try not to let [the press] bother me."

Long a symbol of corporate excess, private jets are becoming a P.R. burden for many businesses amidst the economic downturn, with some companies looking to downsize their fleets as a result. Car companies are selling their fleets after being attacked during bailout hearings for using the planes and Citigroup, also a bailout recipient, recently cancelled an order for a $42 million jet. According to one industry insider, the market is flooded with used jets and prices are down up to 40 percent from just over a year ago. So if you've been eyeing that Gulfstream and have a spare $30 million or so, now might be the time to finally take the plunge.

The infamous shoe-thrower, Muantadhar Al Zeidi, may have disappeared into an Iraqi prison, but he can at take heart that his legacy will survive via the immortality of art: Saddam Hussein’s hometown, Tikrit, unveiled a sofa-sized statue of a shoe today, in honor of Zeidi. The fiber-glass and copper statue of a shoe, which has a tree growing out of it, is inscribed with a poem dedicated to Zeidi.

And the peanut butter plot thickens. The Food and Drug Administration recently told consumers, retailers, and manufacturers to throw away all peanut butter products that came from the Georgia plant during the past two years. The announcement affects products processed at the Peanut Corporation of America, the company under fire for knowingly distributing salmonella-tainted products. "We have been devastated by this, and we have been working around the clock with the FDA to ensure any potentially unsafe products are removed from the market immediately," said president Stewart Parnell. Eight people have died and 500 have become ill because of the violent strain.

On Wednesday, George J. Mitchell arrived in Israel to speak to leaders about how the Obama administration can broker talks between Israel and Palestine, even as their divisions became more evident. The new U.S. envoy met with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert just hours after Israeli warplanes fired on the Gaza Strip, retribution after a bombing on Tuesday breached the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas and killed an Israeli soldier. Mitchell said the United States would "sustain an active commitment for reaching the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security." While reinstituting last week's cease-fire is of "critical importance," Mitchell said that an end to arms smuggling and the lifting of the blockade would be necessary to form a longer truce. The front-runner to be Israel's new prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is uninterested in resolving issues that stand in the way of Palestinian statehood, reports the Los Angeles Times. The election is set for Feb. 10.

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.” 

President Obama raised eyebrows after taking office when the first picture of him at his desk in the Oval Office depicted him (gasp!) without a jacket, a departure from President Bush's strict dress code. According to Obama's senior advisor, David Axelrod, the change reflects Obama's Hawaiian roots—specifically, his preference for high temperatures. "He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there," Axelrod said. Obama has loosened other clothing restrictions as well, encouraging "business casual" on weekends among staff and wearing a sweater over a buttoned-down shirt to briefings. Bush aide Dan Bartlett said that he would "get chewed out for 15 minutes" by the president if he showed up to work in similar attire.

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.

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?