A Senate Foreign Relations Committee report examines Osama bin Laden's escape through the mountains of Tora Bora in December 2001, laying the blame for the terrorist leader's getaway at the feet of Gen. Tommy Franks and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for the lack of troops in the area. The report, commissioned by committee chairman John Kerry—whose 2004 presidential campaign excoriated the Bush administration for failing to capture bin Laden—holds that the al Qaeda chief's flight "allowed bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure," and helped lay "the foundation for today's protracted Afghan insurgency." Bin Laden and his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, were in a Tora Bora cave complex the men had frequented earlier, the report concludes, despite Gen. Franks' continuing uncertainty as to his location at the time.

Some 9,000 Marines may be deployed to southern Afghanistan days after President Obama announces his new war strategy Tuesday, The Washington Post reports. The Marines, intended to renew an assault on a Taliban stronghold in Helmand province, are being sent as part of the president's escalation of the war, and are important components of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's counterinsurgency strategy. One thousand Army trainers, intended to help instruct the Afghan army and police force, will follow the Marines in February. Obama's new plan is expected to call for 30,000 to 35,000 new troops to be deployed over the next 12 to 18 months. The additional troops are intended to stabilize regional Afghan governments and fight off the Taliban, which has made a comeback in recent months.

According to Roman Polanski's sister-in-law, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was instrumental in assuring the director's release from prison. "I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is thanks to the president that Roman has been freed, but he has been super," said Mathilde Seigner, the sister of Polanski's wife Emmanuelle. Some have speculated that Sarkozy's wife, Carla Bruni, who used to run in the same artistic circles as Polanski and Seigner, pressured her husband to intervene. Polanski, arrested by the Swiss at the behest of the U.S. on a 1977 rape warrant, will be moved from prison to his chalet after he puts up his $4.5 million bail, and will be monitored via an electronic bracelet.

Was Black Friday a boom or bust? The National Retail Foundation said that all sectors had “strong crowds” on Friday, and analysts said numbers seemed similar to or slightly better than last year’s levels—but last year’s levels were the worst in decades. According to the NRF, the most popular items were high-definition TVs, laptops, coats and the low-cost Zhu Zhu Pet robotic hamsters.

Kenny Farnsworth has a lot of medical bills: He estimates he owes around $500,000. How does a 59-year-old homeless man end up in such a position? Farnsworth is a "frequent flier," the term paramedics and ER nurses use for patients who use 911 and emergency rooms habitually. Well-known to paramedics around Washington, D.C., Farnsworth uses 911 as his hotline for any number of ailments: a fall, a choking feeling, high blood pressure, broken bones, and other problems. The Washington Post Magazine explores Farnsworth's life, examining how the son of a bank manager became the most frequent 911 caller in the D.C. metro area. There are wider implications to Kenny's story: Farnsworth's case, it seems, is not atypical, and "frequent fliers" like him, who use E.R.s for chronic or nonurgent problems, may cost the country $32 billion a year.

Could Dubai have been just the first domino to fall? After the country defaulted on some debt, there is concern that sovereign-nation debt in places like Russia, Brazil, Mexico, and Turkey could feel an aftershock of the global financial crisis, according to The Wall Street Journal. Now, market watchers are looking to see whether or not the UAE’s oil-rich capital, Abu Dhabi, will bail out Dubai. An Abu Dhabi official tells Reuters that it will only help Dubai on a “case by case” basis—bad news for investors who had assumed Abu Dhabi would just offer blanket assistance. Dubai’s troubles also look like bad news for British banks: Royal Bank of Scotland was the biggest underwriter of loans to Dubai World, while HSBC is the most at risk in the UAE.

At least 26 people are dead and 100 more were injured Saturday after a train derailed between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Authorities say a homemade bomb on the tracks caused the tragedy, but no group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Witnesses said they agreed that a bomb probably caused the derailment, and police have restricted access to the bomb crater. More than a dozen people are still missing. President Dmitry Medvedev called for calm, saying "we need there to be no chaos, because the situation is tense as it is.” In 2007, a deadly explosion caused a derailment on the same line and was ruled a terrorist attack. More than 600 people were aboard the train.

A detention camp operated by the American military at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan is holding prisoners for extended periods of time in windowless concrete single-person cells, according to former prisoners and human-rights workers. The site, which Pentagon officials say is used for high-value detainees, was unaffected by President Obama's executive order to end the "black sites" run by the CIA, because it is administered by the military. Afghans imprisoned there, who call the site the "black jail," tell stories of extended periods of stay, aggressive interrogations, and harsh conditions. Detainees are said to be forbidden to have contact with their families or the Red Cross, and two teenagers have come forward to allege abuse by American troops. Neither the Pentagon nor the White House would officially comment, due to the classified nature of the site.

In a scene familiar to anyone acquainted with World Trade Organization conferences, a group of anti-capitalism protesters smashed windows and set fire to cars in Geneva, denouncing the trade group and shouting anti-globalization slogans. Police in riot gear attempted to drive off the violent protesters, who were a small part of a largely peaceful crowd of 2,000 that had shown up to demonstrate against a WTO conference set for Monday. Some demonstrators said South Korean activists had been refused entry to Switzerland at the airport, and were stripped and body-searched. The protesters, who say the WTO favors corporations and fosters poverty, held signs with slogans like "We will not sell our souls to the multinationals."

The Florida Highway Patrol plans to talk with Tiger Woods today in their investigation of his Friday morning car accident, but an officer said they are treating the incident as a routine car crash, not as part of a domestic dispute. The gossip site TMZ reports that Tiger Woods’ wife, described as a hero for rescuing her husband by smashing a window with a golf club and dragging him out of the vehicle, was the cause of Woods' facial lacerations. According to TMZ, the sports legend's wife became enraged and clawed him after confronting him with reports that he was seeing another woman. The National Enquirer printed a story two days before the accident alleging Woods was seeing a New York nightclub hostess, though the woman denied the affair to the Associated Press. An officer said Woods' wife was "frantic" when they arrived on the scene and Woods was slipping in and out of consciousness. Police tried to talk to the golfer on Friday night, but were turned away by his wife, who said he was sleeping.

Are credit-default swaps once again becoming a problem? Wall Street’s system for determining payments on the derivatives that were partially to blame for the financial crisis is “showing cracks,” according to Bloomberg. In April and July, firms adopted practices to try to standardize settlements and defer risk, but disparities are once again emerging. Flaws in the system, Bloomberg suggests, could be ammunition for Barack Obama as he pushes his plan to overhaul financial regulation.

President Obama has ordered a Secret Service review after an uninvited couple crashed his first state dinner Tuesday night. Perhaps a good place for them to start would be The Washington Post, which profiled the couple at length in Saturday’s paper. The Salahis may have been personae non gratae at the state dinner, but they still are connected in D.C.: Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy spoke at their wedding. Still, the couple seems to be wracked with financial woes, with their winery having gone into bankruptcy protection and several creditors coming forth in recent days. Also, Michaele told a Post reporter in 2008 that she was a Washington Redskins cheerleader, but the Redskins organization has no record of her. The Post says that the Salahis really believed they were invited to the state dinner.

Coming soon to a store near you: Jenny Sanford clothing, mugs, and other items. The wife of cheating South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has trademarked her own name, according to The New York Times—part of a savvy strategy that is giving flight to her career as her husband’s falls apart. Sanford has a book coming out in April, will appear on a Barbara Walters special as one of the “10 most fascinating people of 2009,” has set up JennySanford.com, and endorsed a candidate to succeed her husband. In South Carolina, there is word that she might run for office. Jenny’s political views “are closely aligned with her husband’s,” says the Times.

As of Saturday, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari's amnesty against corruption charges expired, threatening to further destabilize Pakistan's government. The amnesty, called the National Reconciliation Ordinance, was passed in October 2007 under Zardari's predecessor, Pervez Musharraf. With its expiration, Pakistan's supreme court could reopen corruption cases against the president. A spokesman said that Zardari is "absolutely not concerned" about the possibility of corruption charges. The president—the former husband of the late Benazir Bhutto—has been urged to give up many of the powers that Musharraf had bestowed on the office of the president when the former ruler imposed military rule, but despite repeated promises, Zardari has failed to cede his power to dissolve parliament or dismiss the prime minister.

Nazi hunters have had what they’re describing as their best break in years after discovering immigration files in Brazil that are more than 50 years old. The files identify several hundred Germans who moved to Brazil in the decade after World War II ended. Though most are likely to now be dead, the German government plans to investigate the names. “The discovery will probably be our most important find in recent times,” said Kurt Schrimm, the top German justice official who hunts Nazi fugitives.

Two Afghan teenagers have come forward to say that they were abused while being held in a secretive holding center on Bagram Air Base. Issa Mohammed, 17, and Abdul Rashid, who said he is younger than 16, told The Washington Post that U.S. guards in their detention center—which appears to be different from Bagram's main prison, the Bagram Theater Internment Facility, and consistent with other descriptions of a secret "black" prison—beat them, deprived them of sleep, and took photographs of them naked while interrogating them daily. Two detainees died in 2002 after aggressive beatings by U.S. soldiers in the main Bagram prison, where prisoners are held without charge and denied access to lawyers. The Pentagon issued a statement, saying "Department of Defense policy is and always has been to treat detainees humanely."

EBay's founder, Pierre Omidyar, and its second employee, Jeff Skoll, are Nos. 1 and 2 elsewhere this year—on Barron's list of the "25 Best Givers." Barron's list, developed in concert with Daily Beast partner the Global Philanthropy Group, values immediacy and efficiency above all. The more quickly lives are improved thanks to philanthropic efforts, the higher a giver will appear on the list. The Omidyar Network, for example, operates like a venture-capital fund for nonprofits, and will help Tufts University provide nearly $1 billion in microloans to the developing world. Some 20 percent of the list, which includes both well-known names like Bill Gates and Brad Pitt and lesser-known figures like Microsoft exec John Wood, is composed of non-Americans like Indian communications magnate Sunil Mittal.

Pictures of Obama bowing to the Japanese emperor will become an iconic image of his "amateurish" presidency unless he can "right his ship," writes Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal. Obama's support in both the Democratic-journalist establishment and the foreign-policy establishment is eroding, writes Noonan, basing her observation in part on a "fiery denunciation" of the administration by the "often sympathetic" journalist Elizabeth Drew. The columnist also draws evidence from The Daily Beast's Leslie Gelb, who wrote on the site last week that Obama's Asia trip had been a failure and his Afghanistan review "inexcusably clumsy." Noonan agrees with Gelb that Obama should listen to "the voices of experience" of those who have managed American foreign policy successfully in past, but goes on to bemoan the dearth of "wise men." In any event, Obama should be worried: "You can get tagged, typed and pegged in your first year," she writes. "The first year is when indelible impressions are made and iconic photos emerge."

The honeymoon tape that Jennifer Lopez has been fighting to keep private could go public on Monday. Her ex-husband, Ojani Noa, plans to file the tape as evidence in the $10 million legal battle the former couple is waging. If it is accepted as evidence, then the tape will be available on the public record. Noa professes to be confused as to why his ex is fighting so much. "They think I have a sex tape with her and that I'm trying to sell it," he told Radar this week. "My tape is from our honeymoon, the wedding, us hanging out. There's no nudity—maybe one spanking."

Iran's parliament might consider stopping inspections by the IAEA and leaving the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty following a censure from the U.N. nuclear watchdog, according to senior Iranian lawmaker Mohammad Karamirad. The U.N. nuclear agency passed a resolution Friday calling on Iran to cease construction on its nuclear facility near Qom and stop all uranium enrichment. "The parliament, in its first reaction to this illegal and politically motivated resolution, can consider the issue of withdrawing from the NPT," said Karamirad, who doesn't speak for the government. The IAEA resolution, which said in part that the "possibility of military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program" can't be counted out, was approved by 25 of 35 states sitting on the board, including Russia, China, Britain, Germany, France, and the U.S.—a rare show of unity between the six world powers.

Yet more details have emerged on the already-insufferable Salahis, and it turns out that the couple that crashed the White House actually managed to greet President Obama himself. Speculation is swirling on how Michaele and Sareq Salahi managed to get past security and into the receiving line; the Secret Service has already released a statement calling the agency “deeply concerned and embarrassed” by the lapse, and that the couple “should have been prohibited from entering the event entirely.” The pair was photographed shaking hands with the president in the presence of dignitaries and other guests whose names were presumably on the list.

The New Jersey Nets may soon tie the record for least successful start in NBA history. After a loss Friday night, the Nets are 0-16—one loss away from the worst start in NBA history. In order to avoid tying the loss record held by the 1988 Miami Heat and the 1999 Los Angeles Clippers, the Nets will have to beat the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday.