In a move that allows the White House to provide emergency aid without going through Congress, the Obama administration said Thursday that it would provide unlimited financial assistance to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The companies were taken over by the Bush administration last year as they teetered on bankruptcy, one of the key events en route to the financial meltdown in September. Under the latest decision, the administration's commitment will expire in 2012, at the end of Obama's term. The two mortgage giants have already received $111 billion combined in federal assistance and the White House's decision to commit further aid frees up as much as $200 billion more apiece if needed, although the aid is not expected to be used in such quantities. The administration's support comes at a time when federal regulators have given Fannie and Freddie permission to give their top 12 executives $42 million in what the Washington Post describes as "Wall Street-style compensation packages." In a statement, the Treasury Department said the move "should leave no uncertainty about the Treasury's commitment to support these firms as they continue to play a vital role in the housing market during this current crisis."

Six months after disappearing from his post in Afghanistan, American Pfc. Bowe Robert Bergdahl may have resurfaced as a hostage of the Taliban in a newly released video. A video by the insurgent group purports to show Bergdahl, who identifies himself in the film and says he has been treated humanely. His identity has been confirmed by his family, who released a statement telling him to "stay strong." Bergdahl also was seen in a 28-minute online video in July by the Taliban.

A Nigerian man aboard a flight en route to Detroit allegedly tried to ignite a powdery substance as the plane neared its destination on Friday in an effort to blow up the aircraft, a senior U.S. counter-terror official told the AP. The White House released a statement calling it an "attempted act of terrorism." Multiple law enforcement officials identified the passenger as Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, a 23-year-old student at the University College London. He reportedly said Al Qaeda instructed him to cause an explosion on the flight from Amsterdam once over U.S. soil. The suspect also told authorities the substance, which he said he acquired in Yemen, was taped to his leg and that he had used a syringe of chemicals to combine with the powder to cause an explosion, a method consistent with terrorist techniques. The failed explosion “sounded like a firecracker in a pillowcase,” said one man on the flight. Jasper Schuringa, a director from Amsterdam, helped extinguish the burning object and dragged the suspect to the front of the plane, where he was handcuffed. Mutallab is being held at the Detroit airport and the FBI is interviewing him, along with others on board. Officials are attempting to confirm the validity of the suspect’s terrorist claims and determine his mental state. The Transportation Security Administration said that the aircraft and all baggage were being re-screened. President Obama and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano have both been briefed on the incident.

Sad news out of Little Rock, Arkansas: Two unknown men shot and killed a Salvation Army major in front of his three young children on Christmas Eve. Police are looking for the suspected killers, who reportedly accosted the man, Philip Wise, and his four-, six-, and eight-year-old children at 4 p.m. on Thursday near a Salvation Army center. One of the men pulled a gun and demanded money from Wise, the county coroner says, before firing at him. The major’s wife, Cindy, who is also a Salvation Army major, called 911 from inside the center, where she was at the time of the shooting. Wise had been working in the Little Rock community running youth programs, a food pantry, and church services for the past three years.

Charlie Sheen revisited his bad boy past Christmas Day, spending time behind bars in a Colorado prison on counts of domestic abuse, police say. The Two and a Half Men star was arrested in Aspen at 8:30 a.m., according to law officials. RadarOnline.com reported the actor, who has allegedly struggled with abuse and illegal substances in the past, had a dispute with his wife of a year and half, Brooke Mueller. Sheen reportedly flew from Los Angeles to Colorado, where she was renting a home, to be with his wife for the holidays, despite their alleged quarrel. But their issues reportedly resurfaced upon his arrival. A source told Radar that Mueller, who gave birth to the couple’s twin boys earlier this year, called police after Sheen pushed her. One of television’s highest paid actors was caged in Pitkin County Jail, charged with second-degree assault, menacing, and criminal mischief, police say.

Those in the Midwest hoping for a winter wonderland this holiday may have wanted to rescind their wish when snow and ice left many stranded as highways and airports closed Friday. Blizzard conditions were forecast for North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin on Christmas Day and into the evening, according to the National Weather Service. As those in the country’s midsection dealt with stormy conditions this week, 18 died in collisions on slippery roads, leading to highway closing in Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas. Oklahoma was particularly hard hit with a record-breaking 14 inches of snow and the loss of power for thousands of homes on Christmas morning, leading the governor to declare a state of emergency. Some Midwest churches canceled Christmas Eve services, with one Iowa reverend saying, “I don’t think God wants anyone to get killed or break a hip or break a knee.”

The Arizona Department of Public Safety issued an Amber alert Friday after a five-year-old girl was kidnapped, Phoenix police report. A man in a brown Ford pickup truck reportedly took Natalie Rose Flores from a northwest Phoenix apartment complex in the afternoon of Christmas Day. The suspect was allegedly seen taking pictures of children at the Saddleback Mountain Apartments, where Flores was abducted. Police say she has shoulder-length red hair and freckles and was wearing a pink top and blue pants with pink and white tennis shoes. The suspect, a 30 to 40-year-old white male with light hair, measuring about 5 feet 8 inches and about 185 pounds, was wearing a grey shirt and peach knee-length shorts, reportedly headed south in his vehicle (Arizona license plate number 3HG774). Police ask that anyone who sees the victim or suspect call 911 immediately.

Besides leaving behind mystified fans, a heartbroken on-again-off-again fiancée, and a young girl who hardly knew her father, Heath Ledger’s death nearly two years ago resulted in a half-finished film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam directed the twisted tale, made even more complex when Ledger passed, leaving colleagues Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell to finish the role he started. Though Gilliam reportedly first thought of abandoning what reviewer Kenneth Turan says is “one of his most original and accessible works,” he was eventually convinced to continue. The film’s title character is a shaman leading a traveling show, which features a mirror allowing audiences to experience either the good or evil dimension of their minds. Because the only Ledger scenes left to shoot when he died were those of his character, Tony behind the mirror, Gilliam reworked the script, to depict the physical changes those looking into the glass experience. Apparently, the trio of actors stepped in so seamlessly, Gilliam said, that one member of the postproduction team thought the film had been written that way. Though Ledger reportedly plays his morally challenged character well, Christopher Plummer (as Parnassus) and Tom Waits (as Mr. Nick, representative of the devil) are the true stars of the film.

After a five-year legal battle to reclaim his son, David Goldman and nine-year-old Sean Goldman finally returned to America together Thursday—and they did so in style, on a private jet chartered by the NBC television network. "It is now time for our new beginning, the rebirth of our family at such a special time of the year," Goldman said in a written statement. "I hope the momentum keeps growing and the attention does not fade because there are more fathers and mothers and children to reunite." Goldman's late ex-wife, Bruna Bianchi, took their son to Brazil in 2004 on a purported vacation only to phone Goldman asking for a divorce. Her family claimed the boy after she died, and her new husband, a leading attorney, sought to prevent Sean's father from reclaiming him. A judge in Brazil ruled on Tuesday that the boy belonged with his biological father.

The string of bad luck encountered by world leaders in Italy continued Thursday as Pope Benedict XVI was knocked down by a woman jumping the crowd barriers in St. Peter's, while he walked down the aisle to say Christmas Eve Mass. The pontiff arose quickly and was unhurt, according to the Vatican; the woman, Swiss and Italian citizen Susanna Maiolo, 25, is said to be mentally unstable. However, a cardinal's leg was broken during the scuffle. This was the second year in a row that such an event has occurred and the previous time involved Maiolo as well: At the end of the Mass last year, she jumped the barriers and came near the pope before being blocked by security.

Good news for American troops serving in northern Iraq this Christmas—you won't have to face a court martial if you get pregnant. The military dropped the controversial provision from a set of updated guidelines originally created by Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo, the top commander in the region. The rule, which he established so combatants would “think before they act,” applies to 22,000 soldiers under his watch—1,682 of whom are women. Under the policy, those who became pregnant or impregnated another would be redeployed, though violators could have been court-martialed. Cucolo, however, said he never intended for that to be the punishment for pregnancy. Under his command, there have been eight cases of female soldiers becoming pregnant—four were given letters of reprimand, while the others were not disciplined because they discovered they were expecting soon after being deployed. All of the women were sent back to America for medical attention, as military policy insists.

If passed, health-care reform may be the most sweeping social legislation in at least four decades, but for tens of millions of Americans, life under the proposed law may seem little different. President Obama pledged during his push for health-care reform that under any plan that passed, "If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan" and many of the 160 million workers who get insurance through their employer will likely do just that. Many of the bill's chief components—including an individual mandate to buy health insurance, a ban on barring those with pre-existing conditions from obtaining coverage, and subsidies for the uninsured to get coverage through a newly created exchange—will only be noticed by the uninsured and many of its cost-cutting components will likely be felt indirectly over an extended period of time. The bill nevertheless provides for increased security, as employees who lose their job would now have a regulated market to turn to find health insurance and government aid to help them pay for it.

Christmas Eve was anything but celebratory for family and close friends of Brittany Murphy, the 32-year-old actress who died suddenly on Sunday. Murphy’s loved ones buried her at a private ceremony at twilight on Thursday at the Hollywood Hills Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles. Those in attendance recited the Kaddish, a Jewish prayer of mourning and sang the Christian hymn “Amazing Grace,” according to a family statement. During the ceremony, her husband, Simon Monjack reportedly called his wife his “soul mate,” adding that love is by nature mysterious and that one can never know how quickly it can be taken from you. Others shared memories of Murphy and concluded the funeral with a reading from The Little Prince. Though Murphy apparently died of cardiac arrest, the official cause of death awaits toxicology results from the L.A. coroner, expected weeks from now.

A Chinese court convicted democracy activist Liu Xiaobo of subversion and sentenced him to 11 years on Friday in a powerful demonstration of the government's authoritarian grip on its citizens. Liu, a 53-year-old former professor of literature, had drafted a petition in 2008 demanding free speech, free elections, and the rule of law only to be arrested the same year in response. “Persecution of individuals for the peaceful expression of political views is inconsistent with internationally recognized norms of human rights,” the first secretary with the American embassy, Gregory May told the New York Times, calling for his release. Liu's lawyer said that after being held in secret for more than a year, he was given less than two weeks to prepare his defense with an attorney ahead of his trial. Liu was previously jailed for 21 months for taking part in the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, which ended with a violent crackdown, and later served three years in a labor camp for demanding the release of other prisoners.

All Obama wants for Christmas is a little peace and quiet, a White House spokesman told reporters as Air Force One made its way from Washington to the president’s birthplace of Hawaii Thursday. Bill Burton said Obama would like to spend his holiday away from current occupational stresses and has not scheduled any public events during his time on the island. The president, as Burton told reporters, “would like for you to relax and to not anticipate any public announcements or news-making events,” causing some to laugh in disbelief. As they know, the news stops for no one—a lesson Obama learned during his summer vacation to Martha’s Vineyard during which Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was renominated and Senator Ted Kennedy passed away. His journey to Hawaii was even delayed on the day of Christmas Eve as top advisers reportedly wanted him to witness the U.S. Senate health-care bill passing. But once everyone finally boarded America’s most famous jet—with every seat full—Burton suggested this would be his last White House briefing of 2009. Obama’s sister, brother-in-law, and their daughters awaited the first family’s arrival on the tarmac, as the president himself awaited some calm on the golf course—though red phones remain wired and emergency binders sit on shelves, prepared for any breaking situation.

One of the most important senators behind the health-care bill that passed Thursday was unable to cast his vote, but his presence loomed large over the event. "This is for my friend Ted Kennedy," 92-year-old Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) called out as he cast his "aye" vote for the legislation. The Washington Post's Dana Millbank notes that a number of lawmakers paid tribute Thursday to Kennedy, who for decades had pushed for universal health care. "[This] vote brings us one step closer to making Ted Kennedy's dream a reality," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said. President Obama began a round of thank-you calls after the bill passed by reaching out to Vicki Kennedy, widow of the late senator who died of brain cancer in August at age 77.

Many churches closed their doors in Iraq for midnight Mass this year amid fears of sectarian and anti-Christian violence. "We don't have the Christmas spirit like we did before," George Judo, whose family lives in Baghdad, told the Los Angeles Times. "We hoped to do more than this but the explosions, assassinations and bad security prevent us from having a normal everyday life and celebrating Christmas in a normal way." Judo skipped services this year and his fears appeared to be realized around the country—one Christian was killed in Mosul while 27 were killed in an attack on Shiite pilgrims en route to Karbala for a separate Muslim holy day. "As a Christian, I don't feel safe," one Mosul resident said. "I put the scarf on my head when I go to work, so no one will know that I am Christian."

A passenger on a Northwest Airlines flight ignited several firecrackers as the plane approached its destination of Detroit on Friday. The passenger sparked a brief commotion at the end of the trip from Amsterdam by setting off the small explosives, a spokeswoman for the airline said. According to her report, the passenger was immediately restrained after the incident, which did result in some minor injuries on the plane carrying 278 holiday travelers. The FBI has opened an investigation.