Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged gunman in the Nov. 5 Fort Hood shootings, has been charged with 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. The suspect has already been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder; the additional charges, according to the Army, stem from the 30 soldiers and two civilian police officers who were injured in the massacre. Since the murder charges already carry the death penalty, the additional charges of attempted murder may not affect the suspect's ultimate punishment, according to the Hasan's lawyer.

Gay marriage will have to wait for another day in New York: The state senate rejected a bill to legalize same-sex marriage on Thursday. The measure, which needed 32 votes to pass, lost 38 to 24.

Maybe they'll be able to find a replacement for resigning chief Ken Lewis now? Bank of America is joining the bailout payback club, announcing late Wednesday that it will repay the $45 billion in taxpayer aid that helped it survive the meltdown—which will get it off the hook on executive pay restrictions. Lewis said the repayment shows the bailout worked: "It is a milestone indicating that public policy has succeeded in helping our industry and the economy begin to recover." But the Treasury won't let them give the cash back just yet: BofA is only allowed to do so if they meet a set of guidelines suggesting good financial health, including raising an additional $4 billion in equity before summer. JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs repaid their federal bailouts last fall.

The Obama administration invoked the separation of powers clause Wednesday with its decision to keep social secretary Desiree Roberts from testifying before Congress about the Virginia socialites who crashed a White House state dinner. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the White House was changing procedures in response to the brouhaha; from now on, a member of the social secretary’s staff will be at each of the Secret Service’s guest checkpoints to keep out any intruders—fame-seeking or otherwise. But, Gibbs said, “the staff here don’t go to testify before Congress.” President George W. Bush infuriated congressional Democrats when he kept adviser Karl Rove from testifying, and now it’s Republicans’ turn to get heated. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) decried the decision as “stonewalling” and warned of a bigger confrontation.

President Obama dispatched his A-team to the Hill on Wednesday to sell Congress on its new plan to send 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen. “Failure in Afghanistan would mean a Taliban takeover of much, if not most of the country,” Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Mullen announced that supplying the extra forces, while there are still soldiers in Iraq, will require a delay in lengthening the amount of time soldiers receive between tours of duty. NATO, meanwhile, pledged to commit at least 5,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

In one of the most aggressive moves the video game industry has seen, Wal-Mart announced it would slash prices on 50 game titles in a temporary sale. The price cuts could affect competitors Toys R Us, Best Buy and GameStop, the last of which saw the price of its shares tumble 8.26 percent the day of the announcement. The discount retailer is offering $10 off many of the most sought-after games this year, including "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2," "Assassin's Creed II," and "New Super Mario Bros. Wii." The cost of Wii games will be lowered to $40 and Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 games to $50. Wal-Mart is also offering a $50 gift card with the purchase of a $199 Wii console. Although it has traditionally favored “everyday low prices” over temporary sales, since October, the store has been announcing fleeting deep discounts in a bid to lure GameStop customers.

Are America’s banks almost ready to stand on their own two feet again? Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday that the administration will soon end the $700 billion financial bailout program. “We can wind down this program,” he told the Senate Agriculture Committee. “Nothing would make me happier.” Geithner did not, however, provide details.

Bid adieu to one of the last few gentlemen in sports: Tiger Woods said on Wednesday that he regrets his "transgressions," that "I have let my family down," and "I offer my profound apology." However, he also fought back, saying, "There is an important principle at stake which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy... Personal sins should not require press releases." His disclosure comes after Us Weekly obtained a voice mail that he left for Los Angeles cocktail waitress Jaimee Grubbs after discovering that his wife had found out about their alleged affair. In the message, left on Nov. 24, the day before reports of his alleged infidelity broke, Woods is heard saying: "Hey, it's Tiger. I need you to do me a huge favor. Can you please take your name off your phone? My wife went through my phone and may be calling you. So if you can, please take your name off that. Just have it as a number on the voicemail. You got to do this for me. Huge. Quickly. Bye." Also, a third woman—a Las Vegas nightclub executive named Kalika Moquin—has come forth and said that she too had an affair with Tiger. A friend of Kalika's tells Life & Style, "they hooked up a bunch of times."

Always the supporting man, and never the leading one, Rupert Everett complains. The actor blames his secondary roles on the fact that he came out of the closet 20 years ago. He's now advising fellow gay actors to keep mum on their sexuality if they want to advance their careers. In the 1997 hit My Best Friend's Wedding, starring Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz, Everett played second fiddle to Dermot Mulroney. "[T]he fact of the matter is, and I don't care who disagrees, it doesn't work if you're gay," the actor said. The downside to being in the closet, Everett predicts, is a slice of happiness. "I may not be as rich or successful, but at least I'm vaguely free to be myself."

Sarah Palin is supposed to be touring the country for her book on a bus, but, as The Daily Beast's Joe McGinniss reported, she's spent much of that time flying from destination to destination. Now, Palin has fired back at the media via—where else?—her Facebook page. Palin wrote that she flew to "some of the stops on my book tour" when it was "impractical or physically impossible to reach the next event on time by bus," adding, "some news outlets are behaving as if my travel was a secret that they didn't know about—despite the fact that I've tweeted about my flights and one local newspaper reported on the arrival of my flight into Rochester, N.Y." Palin called the stories "comical," accusing the media of eschewing serious world-happenings, such as Obama's speech on Afghanistan and the "Climategate" scandal for "the same out-of-proportion obsession with my personal arrangements" that plagued her during the election last year.

Heads continue to roll over the State Dinner party-crasher fiasco. Though White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs initially placed the blame on the Secret Service for the improper admission of ambitious D.C. socialites Tareq and Michaele Salahi to the event, a new memo suggests the White House shares blame. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina says an investigation's "preliminary findings" suggest that, though the Secret Service "failed" at their job, the White House "did not do everything we could have done to assist the United States Secret Service." Messina outlines a new protocol for official White House events, including requiring White House staffers to be physically stationed at Secret Service checkpoints and to confirm every guest's presence on the guest list.

Is Google bowing to Rupert Murdoch? The Internet giant has announced plans to allow newspaper publishers to limit the number of free news articles that people can read through Google. Publishers will now be able to limit users to no more than five articles a day, should they choose. The announcement comes as Murdoch, the chairman of News Corp., has been attacking companies like Google, saying that their offering of free news articles amounts to “theft.”

They may not want to be called "The White House Party Crashers," but apparently that's what they are. The Associated Press has obtained emails between a Pentagon official and the Salahis that suggest that the erstwhile Tareq and Michaele showed up to the state dinner Obama threw for the Indian Prime Minister without an invite. Four days before the event, the Salahis began pressing a friendly Pentagon aide in order to score tickets, then showed up at the White House gates at 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 24 sans invitation "to just check in, in case it got approved since we didn't know, and our name was indeed on the list!" Hours after the event, the couple emailed to say that due to a dead cell phone battery, they didn't get the aide's message that they hadn't made the cut. For her part, the aide assumed they'd found another way to nab an event invitation.

Despite her lingerie-clad photo shoots and raunchy dance moves, Lady Gaga says in an interview with Elle magazine that she does not want to be "another sexy pop star writhing in the sand, covered in grease, touching herself." Gaga graces Elle's cover for the first time in their January issue and talks about her past, present, and future—ranging from her waitressing days, when she “always got big tips” and “kept it romantic” for couples on dates—to how no man can shake her career drive. “In eight to 10 years, I want to have babies for my Dad to hold… And I want to have a husband who loves and supports me, just the way anyone else does. I would never leave my career for a man right now, and I would never follow a man around,” she says.

Did Sacha Baron Cohen take his absurdist sense of humor too far? Ayman Abu Aita, a Palestinian who was falsely portrayed as a terrorist leader of the the al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade in Brüno, is fighting back with charges of libel and slander. Abu Aita names Baron Cohen and NBC Universal in his suit, which seeks at least $110 million in damages. Abu Aita, who is Christian and owns a grocery store near Bethlehem, claims that he has been the target of death threats, because the movie's depiction of gays runs counter to his community's values and beliefs. Though Abu Aita was jailed by Israelis in 2003, he was never charged with any wrongdoing.

The Wall Street Journal is beefing up and positioning itself to take over the space left open by The New York Times after the paper of record folded its metro section last year. Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp., has set a $15 million budget for the planned New York edition of The Wall Street Journal. Scheduled for launch in April, the section will span local politics, culture, news, and sports. Former New York Sun editor John Seeley is spearheading the initiative. As the Times struggles with budget woes, it has shifted its focus to national coverage, leaving it vulnerable to competition from the Journal, and consultants say the time to strike is right.

Rihanna may have just about zero privacy left. The singer went on air with Ryan Seacrest's radio show Tuesday morning to address nude photos of her that were leaked earlier this year. The singer explains that the racy pics were intended at the time for her then-boyfriend Chris Brown, now infamous for his February 7 assault on the singer. In defense of the photos, Rihanna said, "if you don’t send your boyfriend naked pictures, then I feel bad for him.” Rihanna calls her relationship with her fellow R&B singer a "learning experience," going on to say, "[t]here was a lot of insecurity and a lot of control issues. In relationships in the future I know how to watch out for certain things. A lot of those were signs. I learned that in the end.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has tasked Senator Tom Carper of Delaware with making over the public option: The current opt-out version in the Senate bill lacks 60 votes. Carper has been working closely, apparently, with conservative Democrats and Republican Senator Olympia Snowe. Carper recently touted a proposal that would establish a public-insurance program with government money, but would hand control of it over to a non-governmental board and which would be ineligible for any public dollars beyond its initial seed money. Carper expects that he’ll be able to unveil his compromise next week.

No shouts of “you lie” this time: “Afghanistan is not lost,” President Obama told cadets at West Point on Tuesday night as he announced his plan for 30,000 new troops in Afghanistan and to begin a withdrawal by July 2011. "If I did not think that the security of the United States and the safety of the American people were at stake in Afghanistan, I would gladly order every single one of our troops home tomorrow." The new strategy, according to the Post, will cost at least $30 billion and will tip the total cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq over $1 trillion. General Stanley McChrystal praised Obama’s plan, saying “The Afghanistan-Pakistan review led by the President has provided me with a clear military mission and the resources to accomplish our task.”

Fool us once, shame on you; fool us twice? The Financial Times reports that Wall Street is bringing back some of its most controversial debt practices—the same ones that caused the financial crisis. Covenant-light loans, for example, give credit with few or no conditions. Now there are fears that government efforts to spur lending have caused a “best-of-all-possible-worlds” mentality on Wall Street. “We have had a huge rally in debt,” said Dino Kos, a former New York Federal Reserve Bank official. “Everything needs to be just right for that rally to be validated.”

Sometimes you have to break up the bank in order to save it. The Wall Street Journal reports that at least two candidates for the top job at Bank of America have suggested breaking the giant bank up to the board of directors, but so far the board has rejected the idea. One of the candidates floating the idea is Michael O’Neill, a Citigroup Inc. director and former CEO of Bank of Hawaii Corp. and Barclays PLC. He was rejected as a candidate for the job. Bank of America’s current CEO, Ken Lewis, will step down at the New Year.

First Rick Wagoner, now Fritz Henderson. The heads continue to roll over at General Motors, as a second chief executive is stepping down in less than a year. Wagoner was pressured to resign after the government bailed out the troubled automaker earlier this year. The decision was announced Tuesday following a board meeting. GM Chairman Ed Whitacre will serve as interim chief executive while the company searches for a new president and CEO. The move is intended as a way to fast track the company on the road to profitability and repaying taxpayers the $50 billion the government loaned it to recover. It is rumored that Whitacre, a former AT&T exec, and Henderson didn't get along.

This story won't be boosting anyone's holiday spirits. In a blow to Baltimore's image, Mayor Sheila Dixon was convicted Tuesday of embezzlement for stealing approximately $1,500 worth of gift cards meant for the poor. The gift cards were donated by developers, one of whom was an ex-boyfriend of Dixon's. Prosecutors said the mayor used the gift cards to buy items such as a PlayStation 2, a digital camcorder, DVDs, and CDs. The defense argued that Dixon simply misunderstood the gift cards to be a personal gift. State law mandates that Dixon be suspended from her post after sentencing, but her lawyers may appeal the verdict. Dixon's supporters say the case is racially motivated, and object to the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent prosecuting a crime of $1,500.

Marilyn Monroe gives new meaning to “running wild:” A new video of her smoking pot at a friend’s house in the late ’50s surfaced Tuesday. And it’s already up for sale: A New York-based collector purchased the silent home video for $275,000—and plans to sell it on eBay (presumably for much more than that) later this week. In the grainy video, which takes place in New Jersey, Monroe takes the cigarette from a friend, takes a quick puff and—here’s the kicker—sniffs her armpit. Not convinced? The filmmaker confirms it was more than just a cigarette, telling The Daily News: “I got [the pot]. It was mine. It was just passed around… It was not a party. It was just a get-together. You know, come over and hang out.”

It may be time to ditch those lonely friends. A new study published in the December issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology reveals that loneliness is contagious, and can spread to up to three degrees of separation (so, avoid lonely neighbors, too). The study finds that lonely people tend to cluster with other lonelies, heightening their sense of isolation. Lonely people are described as those who feel a constant and pervasive state of loneliness, compared with the average person who feels lonely only 48 days of the year. It may also go without saying that lonely people have fewer friends, and tend to lose more friends over time. Women, the study found, are more susceptible than men to feelings of loneliness.

News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch doesn't take kindly to content rustling, and he made that clear during a Washington forum on newspapers on Tuesday. He said that the "almost wholesale misappropriation of our stories is not fair use. To be impolite, it's theft." The remark was Murdoch's latest zinger in his ongoing game of media chicken with aggregation sites such as Google, which gather headlines in a single place on the Web, usually without paying news organizations for their content. Murdoch could scare Google into paying, or else lose a huge chunk of his audience. The Australian magnate is searching for ways to stem the hemorrhaging, perhaps by forming a newspaper consortium—such publishers as the New York Times Co., Washington Post Co., Hearst Corp., and Tribune Co. have already been approached—to charge for distribution online and to portable readers. News Corp. is also reportedly in talks with Microsoft, which would pay News Corp. to prevent articles from being listed in Google, providing their content instead to Microsoft search engine Bing.

A federal jury failed to convict John Gotti on Tuesday for the fourth time in four years, besting his father’s record of avoiding conviction three times. After a federal judge declared a mistrial, the mob boss, who stood accused of racketeering and murder conspiracy, walked out of the court house and said, “I want to go home and see my children.” The government has not yet decided whether or not it will prosecute Gotti a fifth time.

When General Electric soon sells NBC-Universal to Comcast, the network’s oft-ridiculed head, Jeff Zucker, will survive the transition. How is this the case, given NBC’s ratings struggles? Forget about Jay Leno. The New York Times points to Zucker’s good work with the company’s cable networks: Under him, USA Network became a powerhouse, Bravo and Syfy emerged with distinct identities, and MSNBC became the liberal alternative to Fox News. The cable channels are expected to produce more than $2.3 billion in operating profit in 2009, and they are what made the deal attractive to Comcast. Still, Zucker may not last long. “It’s almost unfathomable that the day after the approval Comcast won’t make a change and Jeff will be out,” says one longtime senior Hollywood executive.