Congress has passed President Obama's sweeping credit card reform bill, after a 361-64 House vote on Wednesday and 90-5 Senate vote on Tuesday. The bill adds protections for debt-stricken credit card users, including limiting credit company's hidden charges and fees and restricting the ability of people under the age of 21 to acquire credit cards. The banking industry opposed the bill, arguing that it would limit credit at a time when consumers need it most. However Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT), chairman of the Banking Committee said the bill is a landmark success for consumers: "Many Americans depend on credit cards to get by in this eceonomy, and today they have won a giant victory that ensures they are protected from practices that would drive them further into debt, while also making our economy stronger." White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said President Obama will sign the bill as soon as he can.

Kris Allen is the new American Idol in an upset victory over better-known Adam Lambert. Allen, an Arkansas native, sang “Kiss a Girl” with country star Keith Urban while Lambert joined KISS for an interpretation of “Detroit Rock City” during the two-hour season finale (which drew in the lowest ratings in Idol history. Lambert and Allen performed “We Are the Champions” with surprise guest of the night Queen. The surprise results came after nearly 100 million votes were cast.

Four men attempted to bomb a synagogue in the Bronx Wednesday night—what the Post calls a "mission from hell"—only to be thwarted by the FBI. The men, from Newburgh, NY, planted explosive devices at the Riverdale Temple and Jewish Center just after 9 p.m. One problem: the explosives were fake, supplied by authorities as a part of an elaborate sting operation. The accused men are James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams, and Laguerre Payen. Cromitie told an informant that his parents had lived in Afghanistan and he was angry about the U.S. presence there. The men were apparently also planning to bring down a military plane with a stinger missile.

Is trouble brewing in Tehran? A missile test-fired in Iran is the longest-range weapon of its type to be launched by the Islamic Republic, U.S. officials confirm. The solid-propellent missile has a range of 1200 to 1500 miles, meaning that Israel, U.S. bases in the Middle East, and parts of Eastern Europe are within Iran's striking distance. Unlike liquid-propelled rockets, solid-propelled rockets can be fueled in advance and moved or hidden in silos, enabling the owner to defy preemptive strikes. Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed on Wednesday that the test was "successful," but noted that technical issues continue to plague Tehran's weaponry. The presence of advanced long-range missiles in Iran may fortify arguments for American-supported anti-missile defenses in Israel. Speaking before a stadium audience in the province where the missile launched, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held no punches: "Iran will send enemies to hell before they strike... Iranian people are so powerful now. If a bullet wants to be shot toward it, Iran will destroy the base and all its members before they shoot."

President Obama will have to use all his powers of eloquence tomorrow in a speech explaining why he believes Guantanamo must be closed and the reasons behind his recent decisions on detainees that have left both sides of the aisle angry. Democrats blocked $80 million today needed to close the facility; arguing that Obama had presented no clear plan addressing the political and security risks of transferring suspected terrorists to U.S. prisons. FBI Director Robert Mueller testified to Congress today about those risks, saying the transferred detainees could organize attacks on the U.S., while a leaked Pentagon memo reports that 1 in 7 transferred Guantanamo detainees have rejoined terrorism. Obama faces criticism from the right for jeopardizing national security and from the left for wanting to continue to detain an estimated 100 prisoners without charging them with war crimes. On Tuesday, a federal court sided with the administration to allow the government to indefinitely detain the captives.

Wayne Allwine, the man voiced Mickey Mouse for over thirty years died from complications due to diabetes Monday, The Hollywood Reporter announced in a heartfelt obituary Wednesday. His wife Russi Taylor, who voices Minnie Mouse, was by his side at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. Allwine first lent his famous falsetto to the character for The New Mickey Mouse Club. He was an Emmy-winning sound effects editor whose voice reverberates at Disney parks, on television and in stage broadcasts around the world. When Allwine took over from original Mickey Jimmy Macdonald in 1977, Macdonald said: “Just remember kid, you're only filling in for the boss.”

Out with the old, in with the new: Bankrupt car company Chrysler LLC announced that C. Robert Kidder, the former chairman of Borden Chemical Inc. and Duracell, will replace Bob Nardelli as chairman of the troubled automaker. Kidder has very little professional experience with the auto industry. His only contact came while working for McKinsey and Co. Inc., where he had a client in the industry, according to the Detroit News. The new chairman expressed confidence that Chrysler will "will emerge from Chapter 11 a lean and powerful competitor." When the company finalizes its alliance with Fiat, it will appoint a new chief executive.

The 21-year-old Cambridge man who was gunned down in the basement of one of Harvard's dorms earlier this week might have been supplying its inhabitants with drugs. The Harvard Crimson reports that text messages sent from Justin Crosby's phone to a student suggest he was selling marijuana to Harvard kids. The student was given the man's number because he was told he could provide drugs, and received messages like, "Im gud allday today just hit me up asap stuffs gunna b goin fast” from the number. The student said he bought drugs from Crosby before. Crosby was arrested in 2007 for possession of drugs, and he was visiting an unidentified student at the dorm before he was shot.

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm’s appearance in D.C. two days ago had people speculating that she was President Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court. But Federal Appeals Court Judge Diane Wood, one of the leading contenders, is also in Washington today. Her ostensible reason is to attend a legal conference at Georgetown, but she did not provide advance notice to her students at the University of Chicago Law School before cancelling class yesterday, and at the conference “she is not on the program as a panelist or participant,” according to Jan Crawford Greenberg at ABC News. According to Greenberg, Wood has undergone vetting and an FBI background check along with candidates Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Greenberg says Obama has not yet made his pick.

Kay Bailey Hutchinson supporters are demanding an apology from Texas Governor Rick Perry, whose top political strategist insulted her by throwing around the word 'whorehouse" in reference to moderate Republicans. In an interview last weekend, Dave Carney said the GOP should welcome new voters, but "that doesn't mean you take your principles and throw them out the door and become a whorehouse and let anybody in who wants to come in, regardless." Perry is backing off the statement, saying his adviser wasn't speaking for him and certainly wasn't referring to Hutchinson, his upcoming rival for the 2010 governor's race. Hutchinson, who is pro-choice, has said that the party shouldn't focus on social issues like abortion, but instead should rally around economic issues like lower taxes and smaller government.

When Michael Jackson announced an end-of-career concert spree in London that would begin this summer, some said it was too good to be true. Turns out the doubters may have been right: The Wrap reports that Jacko is postponing his first four concerts, pushing his first show back five days and rescheduling the other shows for March of 2010. Promoters say they need more time to set up complicated stage machinations, but The Wrap reports that sources close to the King of Pop say he is "physically, emotionally and professionally unable to perform." If Jacko pulls it together, expect show-stopping performances, with "fantastic elements including a jungle with elephants, monkeys and parrots, a high-wire act with Jackson performing like an airborne Peter Pan—and even a duet with his 12-year-old son Prince."

What would Mao think? China’s Communist party is changing with the times, according to a new in-depth article in The Guardian, and now boasts millionaire members, branches in Wal-marts, and plans to open a Party office in a Chinese space station. Critics argued that China’s Communist party would die out with its older, mostly-male members, but the Party has evolved—gaining strength as it swells its ranks with young, well-educated citizens. The Red Party has cultivated a cache these days, as they only accept about 5 percent of those who apply for membership. Its willingness to respond to public opinion is part of the reason the system remains so strong. Though they don’t let them vote, its in the country’s interest to keep its people happy. The government uses extensive opinion polling to stay in touch with popular opinion, responding to incidents like the tainted milk scandal by firing officials.

"Room Service Entertainment" is not nearly as titillating a name for a prostitution ring as "The Emperor's Club"—the business preferred by Eliot Spitzer. A Queens, NY-based prostitution ring that advertised exclusively on Craigslist was broken up Wednesday, delivering yet another blow to the site's tarnished reputation. The ring, owned by two men, had five female bookers that would dispatch call girls throughout NYC as well Long Island and Westchester County. The customers would use code words like "GFE" for girlfriend experience and "skiing" and "rock climbing" for drugs. If convicted, the accused face up to 25 years in prison.

Somewhere, Michael Phelps is laughing. People can’t help noticing that Vancouver’s high-tech design for the 2010 Winter Olympics looks like a hand-rolled marijuana cigarette, but organizers are staying cool. “We're not worried about it at all," the executive vice-president of the Vancouver Organizing Committee told reporters. The torch is supposed to "represent Canada through the contours of winter landscapes and lines of winter sports,” but its pinched edges seem to represent something else entirely. The torch will travel almost 30,000 miles in a relay across Canada that will end with the lighting of the Olympic Flame in Vancouver in February.

President Obama has scheduled a speech on national security tomorrow to counter Dick Cheney's address on the same topic at the American Enterprise Institute. Who will win? Obama's speech is meant as an olive branch to his fellow Democrats, who dealt him his first major setback by pulling funding for the closing of Gitmo after Republicans successfully argued that U.S. prisons are not prepared to accommodate suspected terrorists. Cheney's speech, meanwhile, will likely be yet another addition to the former V.P.'s intense campaign to convince Americans that they are less safe under the Obama administration.

After a few early stumbles, new Democrat Arlen Specter seems to be earning his stripes: The senator from Pennsylvania seems to have sided with Nancy Pelosi in the controversy over whether or not she was briefed about waterboarding in 2002. “The CIA has a very bad record when it comes … to honesty. It goes back a long time,” Specter said in a speech today. “It’s a real problem as to how you get the information.” After the speech, Specter said Pelosi is “reliable” and “entitled to have as much light on this as possible,” including the release of CIA notes on her briefing.

Conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day with this one. Earlier this month, some of the world's wealthiest people met in NYC to discuss philanthropy. The meeting featured high-profile attendees such as Oprah Winfrey, Ted Turner, Michael Bloomberg and David Rockefeller. The gathering was coordinated by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Much mystery surrounds how so many wealthy people were able to mark their calendars for the big meeting without the media finding out. The subject addressed was how best to distribute their ample fortunes during a time when many non-profits are struggling to stay afloat. One observer told ABC News that a gathering of this nature was "unprecedented."

After spending 18 months in the slammer for running a dog-fighting ring, former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick is headed home to Virginia. Somehow, the 28-year-old slipped by the media unnoticed, and will now begin serving two months of home confinement. Vick still has a long road ahead of him as he tries to recover from a substantial amount of debt, rejoin the NFL, and repair his reputation. Far from the days when he had a $130 million contract with the Falcons, Vick will be working a $10-an-hour construction job. The undeniably talented athlete has yet to announce any meetings with NFL personnel and is currently focused on spending time with "his children and loved ones," his lawyer said.

It might be funny, but it can't be a good career move. Speaking before ABC's advertisers at a presentation of the network's new fall lineup of shows, Jimmy Kimmel launched into a devastating monologue that walked the line between a roasting of his bosses and professional suicide. Kimmel said that 90 percent of ABC's new shows would be canceled, and that the network has made a habit of lying to its advertisers. The late night host then told the advertisers in attendance that they "needed therapy" for "coming back for more" every season. Kimmel also took shots at other networks, saving his best zinger for Fox's show 24. He said that in the upcoming episodes "Jack Bauer would have a new sidekick 'played by Kiefer Sutherland's probation officer.'"

Twenty years after the release of Ghostbusters II, the original cast will reunite for a second sequel to the 1984 classic. Ghostbusters 3 could be in production as early as winter, said Dan Aykroyd, who confirmed that original cast members Sigourney Weaver, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson are on board for the project. The script is by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, the writing team behind the upcoming Jack Black/Michael Cera movie Year One. Not surprisingly, the premise of the movie will be a new generation of Ghostbusters taking over the duties of the aging team. “I'd like it to be a passing-of-the-torch movie”, said Aykrod. “Let's revisit the old characters briefly and happily and have them there as family but let's pass it on to a new generation.” The details of story have not been decided, but Aykroyd is hoping the new team will include several female members.

Robbers gunned down a U.S. priest and international rights activist in Guatemala in order to steal a little over $100 on Monday. Lawrence Rosebaugh, a U.S. priest who brought international attention to human rights abuses in Brazil in the 1970s, had spent 10 years as a missionary in Guatemala where he ministered to HIV patients. Robbers stole $125, a cell phone and religious ornaments from the car full of Oblates priests. Another priest was injured in the incident. Rosebaugh, 74, was jailed and brutally beaten in 1977 in Brazil where he ran a small soup kitchen. He informed First Lady Rosalynn Carter, who publicized the abuses, infuriating the Brazilian dictatorship.

President Obama is staying the course on the Bush administration’s aggressive border enforcement strategies. The president will expand a $1.1 billion program begun under Bush to check the immigration status of virtually all people booked into local jails over the next four years. The current administration will also continue a "zero-tolerance" program that charges and jails any illegal immigrant caught crossing parts of the U.S.-Mexico border. Construction of a $8 billion "virtual" fence of tower-mounted sensors and cameras along the border is also set to resume. However, the administration has announced one formal change from Bush immigration policy; controversial workplace raids will be limited. Obama has vowed, instead, to focus on employers, smuggling networks, and criminals and illegal immigrants who repeatedly violate the law. This means that overall deportations may decrease, because those are the groups that are harder and costlier to catch.

Just one year ago, the auto industry was powerful enough to block new fuel efficiency standards. Today, not so much. Yesterday, President Obama announced the creation of a single nationwide 35.5 miles per gallon standard, and Detroit went along because it is “flat on its back,” reports The New York Times. General Motors, meanwhile, is planning for a bankruptcy filing that will include a sale of all its healthy assets to a company owned by the U.S. government. The government’s company would honor the claims of its lenders, perhaps in full, while “the remaining assets of GM would stay in bankruptcy protection to satisfy other outstanding claims.”

After a judge ruled that a Minnesota teenager could not treat his Hodgkin’s Lymphoma solely with vitamins, his mother has absconded with the boy to an unknown location. A judge issued a warrant for the mother’s arrest, and wants 13-year-old Daniel Hauser, who vowed he would fight Western treatment, to be placed in a foster home and immediately treated for the curable disease. The debate over whether parents should have complete control over their children’s medical care is an ethical and religious minefield. The question of what’s in a child’s “best interest” is complicated: someone who believes Western medical practices will send their child to hell is likely to think treatment is more harmful than letting their child die of a curable disease. The Hausers follow “do no harm” Native American healing practices called Nemenhah.

A spokesman for Donald Rumsfeld released a statement denying the former Secretary of Defense was involved in the Bible quotes adorning the “World Intelligence Update” security reports GQ revealed last weekend. “The report was briefed regularly to senior military officials in the Pentagon—only occasionally to the Secretary of Defense and not to the President of the United States,” the spokesman, Keith Urbahn, wrote. Rumsfeld did not compose, approve of, or personally show any of the covers to President Bush, he continued. “When [Robert] Draper goes back and checks reality against his reporting, he might also check whether GQ is in need of a new gossip columnist,” Urbahn said in a dig at the article’s writer. Draper wrote that Rumsfeld used inspirational quotes on security briefings he hand-delivered to the president in order to curry favor with his religious boss.

President Obama isn’t finished with the credit card companies yet. “The Obama administration, trying to crack down on abuses exposed by the financial crisis, is considering creation of a regulatory commission to protect consumers of financial products such as credit cards and mortgages, according to administration and industry officials,” reports the Associated Press. The goal is to centralize the enforcement of laws to protect consumers of financial products like credit cards, mortgages, and mutual funds—a job that is currently spread over the Federal Reserve, the SEC, and the Federal Trade Commission. Senators Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer, and Ted Kennedy have already introduced legislation that would create such a commission and which the administration supports.

The United States originally armed the Taliban when it fought against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Today, though we may now be its enemy, the Taliban still has a way of getting its hands on our weapons, apparently: After discovering that the weapons on 17 or 30 insurgent corpses in Afghanistan were identical to weapons the U.S. had provided to the Afghan government, The New York Times reports that it is likely “that munitions procured by the Pentagon have leaked from Afghan forces for use against American troops.” The United States has failed to account for thousands of rifles issued to Afghan Security forces. “With only spotty American and Afghan controls on the vast inventory of weapons and ammunition sent into Afghanistan during an eight-year conflict, poor discipline and outright corruption among Afghan forces may have helped insurgents stay supplied.”

If you’ve been enjoying the Michael Steele media circus, you may want to get ready to say farewell: The RNC chairman told Fox News that he would quit if the committee strips his authority to manage funding, as it has threatened to do. "They can contemplate all they want to, but the reality is if they want a figurehead chairman you can have a figurehead chairman, but it won't be Michael Steele," he said. His aides insist that he was not threatening to quit but merely to fight over retaining his authority. What Steele “objected to was the possibility of increasing the powers of the comptroller-treasurer, in turn minimizing his own authority. That issue will probably be pushed off until July, but it's not going away yet.”

The resignation of Speaker Michael Martin may have shocked Britain yesterday, but our friends across the pond should get used to it: As the MP expense scandal continues to spread, Prime Minister Gordon Brown pronounced himself “angry” and “appalled,” and  promised, "There are many cases where people will be suspended and people will have to stand down and not be candidates at the next election." In the Guardian, Jonathan Freedland opines, “in Britain, power still belongs at the top—with the crown and the palace of Westminster—unless our rulers deign to "devolve" some of it outward. That's why MPs could claim hundreds of thousands of pounds of our money: on some gut level, they believed it belonged to them.”

Clinton administration secrets are so 2000, but it looks like there's a chance that we might soon be served some more: A hard drive from the Clinton administration that could include millions of pieces of information, including personal info about one of Al Gore’s daughters, has disappeared from the National Archives. It includes social security numbers and home addresses of several administration officials, as well as security procedures used by the Secret Service during the Clinton years. It is unclear whether the hard drive was stolen or misplaced.

It had seemed that Guantanamo Bay would be leaving the national conversation, but on the heels of the Democrats’ stripping of funding for the prison’s closure, a federal judge has said that the United States can continue to hold some prisoners at Guantanamo Bay without charges. “U.S. District Judge John Bates' opinion issued Tuesday night limited the Obama administration's definition of who can be held,” according to the Associated Press. “But he said Congress in the days after Sept. 11, 2001 gave the president the authority to hold anyone involved in planning, aiding or carrying out the terrorist attacks.” In his decision, Bates wrote "the president has the authority to detain persons that the president determines planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, and persons who harbored those responsible for those attacks.”

Despite Israel's objections, the U.N. will be investigating possible war crimes during the country's conflict in Gaza five months ago. The investigation will be carried out by the U.N. Human Rights Council, which has faced a barrage of criticism for unfairly focusing on Israel. The head of the inquiry is Richard Goldstone, a respected South African war crimes prosecutor who is Jewish. Goldstone's excellent reputation has not changed Israel's stance, and all signs point to the country not cooperating with the investigation. During the recent conflict in Gaza, Israel bombed U.N. property and is accused of unlawfully targeting civilians. Israel's own inquiry into its actions found no evidence of wrongdoing. 1,300 Palestinians died in the conflict, along with ten Israeli soldiers.

A survey of people hospitalized because of swine flu in California seems to show that obesity is a factor for serious complications. "We were surprised by the frequency of obesity among the severe cases that we've been tracking," said Anne Schuchat, an epidemiologist with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pregnant women in the third trimester are known to be at a higher risk for serious complications from the flu. The fetus and womb compress the lower parts of the lungs during pregnancy, making it harder to breathe deeply and cough forcefully, as well as altering blood flow in the chest. Experts speculate that something similar may be happening in obese people. This has scientists "looking into" the possibility that obese people should be at the head of the line along with other high-risk groups if a swine flu vaccine becomes available. Other high-risk groups include people with diabetes and those suffering from heart disease.

Utah Governor John Huntsman was supposed to be President Obama’s biggest threat in 2012 … until he accepted a job as the administration’s ambassador to China last week. What gives? "We all thought it was going to be [former State Department counselor] Wendy Sherman," a State Department official tells The New Republic. "Huntsman is incredibly fit for the job and will be well-received in China, but were there political motivations behind this? Everybody here thinks so." Huntsman campaigned as a conventional Republican in 2004, but first broke with his party on the environment, before taking relatively liberal stances on immigration, unions, education, Obama’s stimulus, and civil unions (he now favors repealing the gay marriage and civil union ban he supported in 2004). He has called the GOP “devoid of ideas,” “gasping for air,” and “a very narrow party of angry people.” TNR writes, “[B]y sending Huntsman to China, Obama ensures that Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney remain the chief Republican spokesmen, further alienating the party from mainstream voters in time for the 2010 midterms and even the 2012 elections.”

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Wednesday that Iran had test launched a missile with a range of 1,200 miles, making it within striking distance of Israel. American bases in the Persian Gulf would also be within range, according to The New York Times. Ahmadinejad boasted that the surface to surface missile was made with "advanced technology" and "landed exactly on target." The announcement reinforces Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu's concerns over Iran's growing military might in the region. The launch also comes as Ahmadinejad prepares for elections in June.

Pope Benedict has another controversy on his hands. An inquiry has revealed that up until the 1980s the Irish Catholic Church presided over an out-of-control school system that covered up rampant physical and sexual abuse. Boys' institutions were the sites of the most "endemic" abuse, where "beatings, rapes and humiliation" were the norm. The study, which comprises five volumes and examined a 60-year period, finds that "a culture of self-serving secrecy" created an environment of pervasive pedophilia. The study also says that abuse was even directed at the staff of the Catholic institutions. Overall, 2,000 people told the inquiry that they remained traumatized, leading to the conclusion that "the entire system treated children more like prison inmates and slaves than people."

It never turned out this way in the movies: “California voters rejected a package of budget-balancing measures that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said were needed to keep a $15 billion deficit from widening to $21 billion,” according to the Associated Press. The proposals would have capped spending and extended temporary tax increases, directed future surplus money toward education, created bonds backed by lottery profits, and diverted revenue to the budget. “I respect the will of the people who are frustrated with the dysfunction in our budget system,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement. “In order to prevent a fiscal disaster, Democrats and Republicans must collaborate and work together to address this shortfall.” One proposal that won voter approval? “A proposal to limit lawmaker pay passed.”