Six Taliban gunmen dressed as Pakistani soldiers brazenly attacked Pakistan's military headquarters Saturday in a 45-minute shootout that resulted in the deaths of four gunmen and six soldiers. Two of the men escaped and have not been found. By attacking the military's headquarters, the Pakistan Taliban (an offshoot of the Afghan Taliban that has been responsible for the majority of terrorist attacks in Pakistan in the last two years), sent an explicit message that they will target anyone, at any time. The group later exposed its identity through a phone call to private television station Geo TV. The Pakistan military is planning an offensive in the South Waziristan tribal area, a large Islamist militant base, in response. The militants, who released grenades and gunfire from a white van during broad daylight, are currently holding up to fifteen men hostage inside the headquarters, reports the Times Online.

President Barack Obama sought to refocus the conversation toward health care today after his Nobel Prize victory dominated the news cycle Friday. In his weekly radio address, Obama told lawmakers to act quickly and vote on health-care reform, which he said was growing in popularity. "The historic movement to bring real, meaningful health-insurance reform to the American people gathered momentum this week as we approach the final days of this debate," Obama said. He referenced recent declarations of support from two prominent Republicans, former Sens. Bob Dole (R-KS) and Bill Frist (R-TN), both of whom served as Senate Majority Leader during their time in office. "These distinguished leaders understand that health-insurance reform isn’t a Democratic issue or a Republican issue, but an American issue that demands a solution," he said.

President Obama addressed the largest gay-rights group Saturday night, raising huge applause when he promised to end Don't Ask, Don't Tell and to tell Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. Obama said his commitment was "unwavering" to achieving equal rights for the gay community and that a time will come when relationships between same-sex couples are acknowledged as "just as real and admirable" as heterosexual relationships. "It's not for me to tell you to be patient," he told the Human Rights Campaign on Saturday, addressing frustration that his administration has moved too slowly on issues like Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act. Obama did not include a timeline for repealing either of the policies. Thousands are expected to march on Washington to demand gay equality on Sunday. Obama highlighted the soon-to-be-passed hate-crime legislation that will redefine a hate crime to include attacks based on gender and sexual orientation, but raised the most applause when he said he will end the Don't Ask, Don't Tell military policy and when he said he would call on Congress to end the Defense of Marriage Act.

Three defendants have been sentenced to death in Iran’s mass trial of opposition figures accused of stirring up unrest after the country’s June 12 election. More than 100 prominent activists are being tried for crimes—from rioting to planning a “soft overthrow” of the Iranian government—related to post-election street protests, which were triggered by allegations of fraud. These are the first death sentences since the trial began in August; all were convicted of ties to opposition groups, and the defendants’ names were not released. Amnesty International says one of them is Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani, 37, who confessed to meeting an American spy named Frank in Iraqi Kurdistan and giving him information on Tehran and student movements in exchange for money and a phone. Rights groups say these confessions are coerced and the proceedings are a show trial.

Billionaire George Soros will invest $1 billion in clean-energy technology and form an organization to further legislative action on climate change. “I want to apply rather stringent criteria to the investments,” Soros told Bloomberg. “They should be profitable but should also actually make a contribution to solving the problem.” Soros announced the investment in Copenhagen at a meeting on climate change. The Climate Policy Initiative will be established in San Francisco, he said, and he'll donate $10 million a year for 10 years to the project. “We will be part advisory service, part policy developer, and part watchdog,” said Thomas Heller, who is heading the climate initiative. “The problem of global warming is primarily a political problem at this point,” Soros said. “The science is beyond dispute, but how do we achieve the objectives we all know are necessary? That is a political problem.”

Nearly 100 banks have failed this year, straining the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which has had to seize their assets. Worsening commercial real-estate loans are crippling small banks, whose balance sheets are not improving at the same rate as large institutions like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and U.S. Bancorp. Almost every Friday, the FDIC has swooped in to handle troubled lenders, causing its fund, which had $50 billion just two years ago, to fall into the red. The FDIC has sought new ways to replenish the fund by asking for higher and earlier payments from healthy banks. Its chairman, Sheila Bair, defends the high amount of bank closures, saying that although bank failures are painful in the short term, a bank on the edge of collapse is unlikely to lend, and “that’s not good for the economy.”

The American mission in Afghanistan should be made narrower, and more modest, so the U.S. can focus more resources on strengthening Pakistan, argues Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. The Afghan war is a war of choice, Haass writes in The Washington Post, and several key assumptions about it are wrong. Contrary to conventional wisdom, al Qaeda can re-form anywhere, not just in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Instead of sending in more troops, the military should refocus on training the Afghan army and police, reflecting “the Afghan reality of a weak center coexisting with strong warlords.” The goal should be a government than can limit the presence of terrorists. On the other hand, aid to Pakistan should rise dramatically, to help the country remain intact with tight control over both its nuclear weapons and the terrorists within its borders. “Anyone who thinks this is not bold enough should keep in mind that even modest objectives tend to be ambitious in this part of the world,” Haass warns.

A former flight attendant for Oprah Winfrey has filed a lawsuit alleging she was wrongfully fired over allegations that she had sex with a married pilot while Oprah was fast asleep on her private jet. Corrine Gehrls said she worked as a flight attendant on the plane alongside Myron Gooch and Kirby Bumpus since she was hired in May 2007 by Oprah's production company, Harpo Inc. Gehrls says that Gooch and Bumpus conspired to get her and the pilot fired because of work-related disputes. Bumpus is Oprah's goddaughter and the daughter of Oprah's best friend, Gayle King. Gehrls says Bumpus and Gooch told Winfrey that she and the pilot had sex outside the plane's cockpit on June 14. Winfrey fired both Gehrls and the pilot on July 7. Gehrls says Winfrey knew the allegations were "obviously false" because the plane was on the ground refueling when the alleged contact would have been made, and the plane's passengers were dozing. The suit seeks more than $300,000 in damages. The pilot has reportedly resolved his dispute with Harpo.

Turkey and Armenia have agreed to establish normal diplomatic negotiations, after the deal was nearly thwarted by last-minute wrangling over its language. The neighboring countries have had chilly relations for a century, in large part because of mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had planned to merely witness the signing ceremony in Switzerland, but when she arrived, the deal was crumbling. Clinton worked frantically till the last minute to resolve differences, and the countries’ foreign ministers eventually shook hands. Many Armenians insist there should be no agreement until Turkey admits the World War I-era killings were a genocide, which Turkey denies. The agreement stipulates that both countries will establish an international commission to research the war’s archives to clarify what really happened.

Despite attacks from RNC Chairman Michael Steele and pundit Rush Limbaugh that were criticized as anti-American, Republicans have remained eerily silent since Obama's surprise Nobel Peace Prize win. "There will be an outcry from those on the right who will say that Obama's nomination, made two weeks into his presidency, is impossible to justify, but I think such an outcry will sound like right-wing whining," former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee predicted Friday morning. Huckabee said the best response was to let those on the left explain why the president deserved the award. Minn Gov. Tim Pawlenty said on his weekly radio address that "anytime someone wins a Nobel Prize, I think it's an appropriate response to say congratulations." Radio silence emanated from rumored 2012 presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal, and Sarah Palin. Even the ever-vocal Newt Gingrich declined comment, and President George W. Bush has also stayed silent. Sen. John McCain led the pack for graciousness, saying the country is "proud" of the president. Republicans might be plotting a counterattack over the long weekend, Talking Points Memo reports, but most recognize they're in a tough spot of not wanting to seem anti-American in their critique of the president's inexperience.

This isn't necessarily the endorsement President Obama was looking for, but former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has called Obama's controversial Nobel win a "positive step" away from the policies of previous presidents. Castro, a longtime enemy of Washington, has frequently praised Obama since he took office, in a sharp turnaround from his stance on George W. Bush. "Many believe that he still has not earned the right to receive such a distinction," Castro wrote in the state media. "But we would like to see, more than a prize for the U.S. president, a criticism of the genocidal policies that have been followed by more than a few presidents of that country." RNC Chairman Michael Steele, meanwhile, continued his attack of the prize, sending out a fundraising letter to Republicans that mocked the committee's decision to award Obama.

It's the never-ending vacation from hell. An Afghan driver named Ziaulhaq, and two other Afghani men were brought to the U.S. under false pretenses in 2008 and have since been forced to remain in the country for over a year as potential witnesses in a bribery case involving U.S. servicemen and Afghan contractors. The men were told that they were embarking on all-expenses-paid trip to Columbus, Ohio, to attend a conference honoring Afghan businesses, but have instead been stuck inside an airport hotel in Chicago, where they must follow nightly curfews and check in with probation officers. Ziaulhaq has not been accused of any crime but has been legally required to stay in the country, despite a sick wife and six children at home in Afghanistan, because of a post-9/11 Bush statute that says prosecutors can hold material witnesses in ongoing investigations, even if they have not been charged with a criminal act.

Turns out these BFFs have a little more than an acting habit in common. It’s been discovered that notoriously close buddies Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are related by blood. Genealogists have dug up an ancestral history that Damon and Affleck probably aren’t aware of themselves. In addition to both descending from an Ipswich, Massachusetts, bricklayer named William Knowlton Jr. (making them 10th cousins, once-removed), Affleck is also related to Princess Diana and 16 U.S. presidents, including Barack Obama, who is his 11th cousin. Damon’s lineage is only slightly less impressive—he is related to 11 former presidents. "It might be kind of one of those neat things to say at cocktail parties," said one New England genealogist. Or perfect fodder for another screenplay.

He was just convicted of a crime that could send him to prison for a quarter century, but the troubles of the 85-year-old son of philanthropist Brooke Astor don't end there. After the six-month trial finally concluded Thursday, Anthony Marshall found himself owing his legal team $4.7 million in fees, and he has yet to pay up, reports the New York Post. That sum could as much as double as the appeals process drags on. Marshall's wife, Charlene, is signed on as the debt's guarantor, which means that if the ailing Marshall dies, his lawyers could come after her. "She didn't have to agree to do that, but she wanted to help her husband," the source close to the case said.

Civilian deaths are down this year in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and residents face fewer disruptions in their daily lives. The secret? American counterinsurgency tactics imported from Iraq that emphasize building up living conditions over simply hunting down militants. As part of the shift, Israel has made less use of artillery and air strikes, formerly a common tactic, turning instead to less damaging commando raids. "Part of our philosophy is to fight the terrorists with M-16 [rifles], not F-16 [jets]," Israeli Brig. General Noam Tivon told The Wall Street Journal. "The Americans brought to this region a lot of new ideas." While 78 civilian casualties occurred last year before the new strategy, 12 have been killed the first six months of this year and there are fewer roadblocks and checkpoints. Observers are worried that with the generals in charge of the new plan on the way out, their successors might not continue their approach.

The world track and field governing body has the daunting task of discussing the definition of a female athlete as the controversy continues to surround South African runner Caster Semenya’s gender tests. The IAAF announced that it will meet next week to begin defining a female athlete, a task that might take the organization’s medical experts up to a year to complete. "We are obliged to react. It would have been better if we had been prepared to, but we were not prepared,” said IAAF General Secretary Pierre Weiss of Semenya’s 800-meter win in the world championships at Berlin this summer. Semenya’s gender test results will be released in November of this year.

Book 'em, Moonves. CBS will revive beloved '70s cop show Hawaii Five-O, breathing new life into a series well remembered for its catchy theme song and straight-arrow leading man Jack Lord. Superstar screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, known for recently penning the J.J. Abrams-directed smash hit Star Trek, are signed on to write the pilot. (No word yet on who might star as McGarrett, Kono, or Danno.) Hawaii Five-O, which debuted in 1968 and ran for 12 years, was the longest-running crime drama in television history until Law & Order overtook it in 2003.

Constantly criticized for his weak postseason performances, Yankees star Alex Rodriguez hit a game-tying two-run home run Friday in the ninth inning to give his team the extra time needed to overcome the Minnesota Twins. Mark Teixeira won the game with an 11th-inning homer of his own as the Yankees moved to 2-0 in the series. It was an especially frustrating loss for Minnesota as earlier in the 11th inning an umpire blew a call on a Joe Mauer line drive that appeared to be solidly in fair territory despite being ruled a foul ball. On the same night, the Anaheim Angels pushed the Red Sox to the brink of elimination thanks to a strong pitching performance by Jared Weaver against Boston ace Josh Beckett.

Numbers don’t lie. Longtime Republican proposals to cap settlements in medical malpractice cases would only reduce health-care spending by 0.5 percent each year, according to new figures from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. It's not insignificant—$54 billion over 10 years—but it isn't going to pay for major health-care reforms and is much lower than earlier estimates by some of its supporters. "These numbers show that this problem deserves more than lip service from policymakers," Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT), who requested the analysis, said in a statement.

A suspected al Qaeda operative who was arrested with his brother Thursday in Paris had been working on projects for a nuclear-research facility near Geneva. French intelligence investigators said the physicist, 32 and of Algerian origin, was “very high level” while working on analysis projects related to the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN. Officials say he had been in contact with people linked to al Qaeda’s North African wing about potential targets for terrorism in France, and he had expressed a desire to carry out attacks but had “not committed material preparatory acts.” The interior minister said the brothers were a big enough threat to be hauled in, ending the French government’s 18-month-long surveillance of them. CERN issued a statement saying that none of its research had any military application.

Thanks in no small part to Keyboard Cat and other obsessively watched viral videos, YouTube is now bringing in 1 billion views per day, no doubt to the chagrin of struggling Web sites everywhere. The Google-owned site immediately advertised the benchmark with a McDonald's-esque "1 Billion Views Per Day!" tagline on its logo and a gushing post on the official YouTube blog chronicling its history in the world of online video.

President Obama is expected to highlight the soon-to-be-passed hate crime legislation when he speaks to the nation's largest gay rights group Saturday night. Obama might face a tough crowd at the Human Rights Campaign dinner—he's been criticized by the gay community for moving too slowly on issues like Don't Ask Don't Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act. The Senate is expected to pass legislation that broadens the current definition of a hate crime to include attacks based on gender and sexual orientation next week. Similar bills languished in Congress under former President George W. Bush. But the bill might not be enough. Aides tell the Washington Post that Obama will not make any major announcements about Don't Ask Don't Tell or the Defense of Marriage Act in his speech, though he supports reversing both policies. Thousands of gay rights advocates are expected to descend on Washington in a march to demand equality.