Eight Americans were killed in a suicide bomb attack on a military base in eastern Afghanistan, according to a senior U.S. official. The Americans, who were not from the military, are thought to have been working for the CIA, and were killed when the bomber, wearing an explosive vest, walked into either the base's gym or dining facility. Four Canadian soldiers and a reporter from the Calgary Herald were also killed after hitting a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, the most Canadians killed in a single incident since July 2007.

American intelligence is not alone in blowing it: Though the London police have increased their observation of Islamic extremists, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who allegedly attempted to bomb a Northwest plane on Christmas Day, somehow slipped through the cracks. A British security official said Tuesday that the former student president of his university's Islamic Society "never show[ed] up on the radar screen," even though British intelligence monitors Muslim student groups. Before joining the University College London's Islamic Society, Abdulmutallab posted on Islamic Web sites, often describing loneliness. While serving as the society's president, he helped sponsor "War on Terror Week," harshly criticizing America's approach in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's suspected that Abdulmutallab attended the London Muslim Center, which has historically been involved with fundamentalists including the Yemeni cleric who is believed to have emailed with the alleged Fort Hood shooter.

In the wake of news about the Christmas bomber’s vast al Qaeda network in Yemen, Yemeni security forces attacked an al Qaeda hideout, wounding several and arresting one, as a high-ranking official vowed to wipe out the terrorist group in that country. "The [Interior] Ministry will continue tracking down al Qaeda terrorists and continue its strikes against the group until it is totally eliminated," Deputy Interior Minister Brig. Gen. Saleh al-Zawari told military officials in the province of Mareb, one of three areas said to be home to al Qaeda operatives. The raid on the safe house came thanks to a tip; the house's owner was arrested, and security forces are pursuing those who fled.

A radio show staffer has confirmed that Rush Limbaugh was taken to a Honolulu hospital with chest pains late Wednesday, but said the conservative talk-show host is now "resting comfortably," CNN reports. Medics reportedly ferried Limbaugh from the Kahala Hotel and Resort, where he was vacationing, to Queen's Medical Center in serious condition. The hospital would not confirm or deny Limbaugh's presence. Earlier this week, Limbaugh was seen golfing at a nearby country club.

Former VP Dick Cheney accused President Obama of "trying to pretend" the nation isn't at war with terror—and the Obama administration is fighting back via the White House blog. In a post entitled "The Same Old Washington Blame Game," communications director Dan Pfeiffer said not only does Obama understand the gravity of the situation, but he understands it better than Cheney did: "The difference is this: President Obama doesn't need to beat his chest to prove it, and—unlike the last administration—we are not at war with a tactic ("terrorism"), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies. ... Vice President Cheney and others seem to be more focused on criticizing the administration than condemning the attackers, this president is not interested in bellicose rhetoric, he is focused on action. Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country." Yowza.

As New York City prepped for New Year's Eve celebrations, part of Times Square was briefly shut down and the NASDAQ was evacuated for a short time on Wednesday afternoon in response to a suspicious van that had been parked in the area for two days or more. The area has since reopened. Bomb squad and Emergency Services Unit officers were called in to investigate the vehicle, a white 1992 Dodge van with tarps over the windows, temporary license plates, and a fake law-enforcement parking placard. The van’s vehicle identification number was not visible to officers, who brought in a robot with a camera to search for possible explosives.

Pulling a knife on someone on Christmas—nothing a good heart-to-heart can't get over, right? Brooke Mueller, wife of Charlie Sheen, has asked the judge who placed a restraining order on Sheen to modify the order and allow her and the actor to contact each other "so they can work on resolving the conflicts in their marriage." According to Mueller's lawyer, Yale Galanter, the domestic disturbance on Christmas was "one bad night," and the two still love each other.

In May, SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro said she wanted to spring surprise inspections on almost 10,000 money managers to make sure they weren’t following in Bernard Madoff’s footsteps. On December 16, she settled on a rule that requires about 1,600 U.S. fund managers to comply with unannounced audits. What happened to the other 8,400? “The revision came after lobbying by fund companies,” according to Bloomberg. It’s the fourth rule that Schapiro has announced and then had to scale back or delay.

She waited two years to announce her split from Kelli Carpenter, and during that time Rosie O’Donnell found a new love interest, artist Tracy Kachtick-Anders. The pair were recently photographed holding hands. Kachtick-Anders is a gay-rights activist and mother of six—both of which she has in common with O’Donnell, who is vocal in the gay-rights fight and has four children of her own. Kachtick-Anders also founded the Open Arms Campaign, a nonprofit that recruits families for adoption. O’Donnell’s rep confirmed the relationship rumors after the couple was seen vacationing together in Miami.

Technology expert Peter Moore will be having the happiest of new years, now that the Iraqi militants who kidnapped him in 2007 have set him free—and in good health. In May 2007, militants disguised as Iraqi policeman abducted him and his four bodyguards outside the finance ministry in Baghdad, after which he was only seen a few times on video. The bodies of three bodyguards have been returned to Britain, and the whereabouts of the fourth are unknown, although U.K. Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Moore believed that bodyguard had been killed. Moore's father Graeme said he was "so relieved," and "breaking down, I'm just so overjoyed for the lad."

Nine has tanked at the box office: Could it bring Harvey and Bob Weinstein down along with it? The New York Post reports that the brothers who run Weinstein Co. are considering several deals to restructure their finances so they can repay creditors. They owe Goldman Sachs $500 million. The company that has insured that debt, Ambac, is having financial troubles and is unlikely to be able to repay the debt in full. The studio’s current assets are likely worth less than that amount. The company had hoped that Nine would gross enough money to generate to cash to fund continuing and new productions, but it took in just $7 million at U.S. box offices last weekend.

As airport security becomes an ever-hotter North American flashpoint, The Toronto Star examines Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, which has long toiled against terrorism. "It is mind-boggling for us Israelis to look at what happens in North America, because we went through this 50 years ago," said one Israeli security expert. As Israel clamped down on airports, they refused to let go of efficiency—so, instead of an elaborate and exhaustive pre-gate screening, there are six smaller security checks embedded into the travel process: a roadside check en route to the airport, multiple checks before getting to the gate, and another just before boarding the plane. Officers use behavioral screening to pinpoint nervous or distressed passengers, including at the roadside check where the only questions are “How are you?” and “Where are you going?” Screening areas are blastproof and equipped with "bomb boxes" so that suspicious packages can be neutralized in a split-second without needing to throw the entire airport into disarray.

The reason so many celebrity Twitter accounts were hacked this year could have something to do with the 370 passwords the online site recently banned, as posted by TechCrunch.com. The extensive list sheds some light on just how un-failproof or sexually charged many users' passwords are. Though Twitter says "The harder to remember, the better," when developing a secure password, some still tried to use "password" or "twitter," prompting those two to be among the banned. Besides the painfully obvious, most of the forbidden passwords include common names, cities, and sports teams. But the more disturbing include childlike offenses, such as "butthead" or "biteme," while "sexsex" and "nipples" also made the list. For the cocky user, "theman" is now barred and the sci-fi nerd can no longer use "gandalf" either. Unfortunately for the skeptical, "trustno1" is also not available anymore. But this ironic prohibited password really says it all: "stupid."

It was so hard for veteran NPR journalist Carl Kasell to say goodbye after more than three decades at the radio Wednesday that he didn't. "I'm not saying goodbye, because I'll still be around," Kasell told listeners at the end of his final newscast. "I'm just saying, 'I'm Carl Kasell, NPR News, Washington.'" The 75-year-old journalist will continue to be the official judge and scorekeeper on the nationally syndicated station's quiz show, Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me!, but will no longer be the iconic voice America wakes up to on Morning Edition. Kasell began at the network in 1975 as a newscaster on NPR's Weekend All Things Considered before moving to his most recent home, Morning Edition, when it launched four years later.

Dick Cheney thinks President Obama is “trying to pretend we are not at war.” In a statement to Politico, Cheney repeatedly said that the U.S. is at war, "and when President Obama pretends we aren't, it makes us less safe," adding that Obama doesn't want to admit the nation is at war because "it doesn't fit the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn't fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency—social transformation—the restructuring of American society." Cheney also said that Obama "seems to think if he has a low key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won't be at war," and that Obama thinks that "if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and read them their Miranda rights, we won't be at war." Senior Democrats noted that Cheney failed to condemn the Christmas Day attack in his statement, and that Obama had referred to the "war" on terror in several public speeches, including his inaugural. So who’s pretending now?

Start saving: According to Gizmodo, which has screen grabs, Google will sell its upcoming smart phone, the Nexus One, itself. Unlocked and unsubsidizied, it will cost $530. With a two-year T-Mobile plan, it will cost $180 with a one-rate monthly plane of $39.99 (with texting and web access, that goes up to $79.99). Other sites are reporting that Google will begin taking orders on January 5 at 9 a.m.

Get in line, 50 Cent—the world's favorite vinyl underpants-wearing music star is ready to wrestle you for the right to sing with Susan Boyle. Lady Gaga recently called Susan Boyle "my woman of the year" for achieving "more in this year than most artists will in a lifetime," adding, "this time last year nobody even knew who she was and now she is knocking the world's most established artists off the album and singles charts." Gaga owned that Boyle's style is "different" from her own, adding "I don't know if we could work together, but never say never. It would be great to work with somebody of that talent."

Could Tiger Woods make an appearance at the trial of Joe Halderman, the T.V. producer who allegedly extorted David Letterman? Well, not in person, but perhaps in spirit: In court papers filed on Tuesday, Halderman’s lawyer said that Tiger allegedly paid his mistresses millions to keep quiet, and that, since the woman in the Letterman case hasn’t been charged with a crime, Halderman shouldn’t be either. "Evidence of celebrity misdeeds has a significant fair market value," the lawyer wrote. He says Halderman, who stands accused of demanding $2 million in hush money from Letterman, was simply trying to sell his “very marketable story” to Letterman, with an agreement to keep it confidential as part of the deal.

Al Qaeda probably recruited alleged underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, while he was a student at University College London, according to The Times of London. U.S. authorities are investigating conversations between Abdulmutallab and at least one al Qaeda member, and last night it emerged that he was peripherally implicated in a British counterterrorism program. While at school, Abdulmutallab immersed himself in radical politics and served as the president of a London student Islamic society. He is the fourth president of that society to face terrorist charges in three years, including two people who have been convicted of terrorist offenses since 2007, and one person facing retrial in a 2006 liquid airline bomb case.

In the aftermath of the botched al Qaeda-linked Christmas Day bombing over Detroit, the U.S. and Yemen are now searching for targets for a potential retaliatory strike. Unnamed officials said that target options are being prepared in case President Obama orders a strike, and that the government is trying to figure out whether targets in Yemen can be linked to the execution and planning of the Christmas Day attack. Reportedly, U.S. intelligence agencies and Special Ops have teamed with their Yemeni counterparts in a classified agreement under which both countries will search for potential al Qaeda targets, and the U.S. will fly cruise missiles, fighter jets, or unmanned drones against targets in Yemen with the government's consent. The U.S.'s public silence on the agreement is apparently part of the deal.

Another reversal from the Bush-Cheney era: President Obama announced on Tuesday that “no information may remain classified indefinitely”—part of his administration’s efforts to overhaul the executive branch’s system of protecting national-security info. Obama’s executive order also rescinds an earlier order by President Bush that allows the leader of the intelligence community to veto decisions by an interagency panel to declassify information; now he will have to appeal to the president. In addition, agencies will be required to regularly review the kinds of information that they classify and to scrap obsolete secrecy requirements. Obama also set up a new National Declassification Center at the National Archives to help speed up declassification.

Thanks to the attempted Christmas Day bombing, the Netherlands will immediately begin screening passengers on U.S.-bound flights using a full-body scanner. The Dutch government released a report on the attack on Wednesday calling the Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's plan to blow up a flight over Detroit a professional venture with "amateurish" execution. Interior Minister Guusje Ter Horst said "it is not exaggerating to say the world has escaped a disaster." He added that Dutch authorities found no "suspicious matters" that would have given them reason to classify Abdulmutallab as "a high-risk passenger."

When Richard Reid attempted to blow up an airplane using explosives in his shoe in 2001, President Bush was on vacation and did not comment for six days. The Democrats and the press hardly complained. In contrast, President Obama almost immediately took flak for the failed Christmas Day underwear bombing, particularly from Congressmen Peter King and Pete Hoekstra. Hitting back, the Democrats noted that Hoekstra invoked the attack to raise campaign money. They also blamed Republicans for holding up the nomination of the man Obama has appointed to head the TSA—and Harry Reid has now moved to break the hold on the nomination. “This hypocrisy demonstrates Republicans are playing politics with issues of national security and terrorism,” DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan said. “That they would use this incident as an opportunity to fan partisan flames.”

At long last, the mystery as to why Vincent van Gogh severed his own ear may have been solved. According to a new theory by van Gogh scholar Martin Bailey, the distraught artist decided to spite his face after learning that his brother Theo was engaged. Bailey based his analysis on the presence of a letter in a painting van Gogh completed soon after the self-inflicted injury. Van Gogh depended on his younger sibling financially and emotionally and the news was more than the mentally unstable van Gogh could bear. The letter in question was sent from Theo in Paris in 1888, alerting his brother of his impending marriage. Earlier claims regarding van Gogh’s drastic Christmas 1888 mutilation blamed mental illness, lead paint fumes, and a failing friendship with Paul Gauguin. Though his psychological state was surely an issue, considering the artist shot himself two years later, Bailey’s in-depth look at van Gogh’s Still Life: Drawing Board With Onions shows it was more despair than insanity that drove him to destruction.

Two staggered explosions in the Anbar province capital of Ramadi killed 23 people and wounded 57, including the Anbar governor, on Wednesday. A suicide bomber in a car caused the first blast near a checkpoint close to Iraqi provincial administration buildings. When officials, including the deputy police chief and governor, came out to inspect the damage, a second bomber on foot detonated his explosive vest, killing the deputy police chief and wounding the governor. The violence is the worst in months to hit Anbar, which is a strategically important former insurgent stronghold.

Ten months ago, President Obama announced a $75 billion program to help as many as four-million Americans to refinance their mortgages. Since then, lenders have accepted over one-million applications and cut three month deals with 759,000 people—but only 31,000 have received the new mortgages that are the program’s goal. Who’s to blame? No surprise here: Critics are fingering the lenders, which are subsidiaries of big banks like Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and J.P. Morgan. Some accuse these lenders of piling on delay after delay, steering homeowners toward mortgages with onerous terms, and even doing things that Obama’s program is supposed to prohibit, like forcing homeowners to waive their right to sue. The Obama administration pays the lenders $1,000 for each new loan and then another $1,000 per year for three years if the homeowner avoids foreclosure. The lenders say the homeowners, many of whom fail to show proof of income and fail to make even modified payments, are to blame.

The CIA was keeping tabs on a man they called “The Nigerian” who was meeting with “terrorist elements” in August, months before his father contacted the U.S. embassy, concerned his son was getting mixed up with Islamic radicals, CBS News reports. “The Nigerian” was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the man who attempted to blow up Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day, but the connection was not made among U.S. intelligence authorities until Abdulmutallab’s post-flight arrest at Detroit's airport. The CIA did not dispute the CBS News report. President Obama criticized on Tuesday the "systemic failure" of the nation's security apparatus. 

President Obama gave Iran a 10-month year-end deadline to shape up on the nuclear issue, and with time running out, his administration is beginning to draw up sanctions, which will target the Iranian government, particularly those branches involved in the brutal crackdown on Iranian protesters. The U.S. is likely to pursue targeted sanctions in the U.N. Security Council with allies and also unilaterally. The pressure imposed on Iran will be intended to force it back into negotiations. Although the prospective sanctions have not yet been unveiled, the Obama administration has already taken a more aggressive posture toward Iran: Obama interrupted his Hawaiian vacation to condemn Tehran for its reaction to protesters shot by security forces.