Massachusetts Senator-elect Scott Brown will be sworn in as the successor to Ted Kennedy as early as Thursday at 5 p.m., a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said. Brown’s attorney had written Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, urging him to certify the election results immediately. Earlier plans set the swearing-in date for February 11. Brown’s election ends the Democrats’ 60-vote filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate once he takes his place as the 41st Republican. (Barack Obama reminded Democrats Wednesday that they still have the largest majority in decades.) Brown has asked for a seat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Can President Obama nudge Congress over the finish line on health care? "Finish the job," he implored Democratic senators at a meeting on Wednesday. "So many of us campaigned on the idea that we were going to change this health-care system," the president declared. "So many of us looked people in the eye who had been denied because of a pre-existing condition, or just didn't have health insurance at all... and we said we were going to change it. Well, here we are with a chance to change it." He also attacked Republicans for feigning an interest in bipartisanship. "They say they want to work with us, and we extend a hand and get a fist in return," he said.

No apologies here: Attorney General Eric Holder is defending his decision to not try the failed Christmas Day bomber as an enemy combatant. In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Holder said the government's legal authority to hold Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab indefinitely was "far from clear." In the letter, Holder takes personal responsibility for Abdulmutallab's detention--a move that is likely to make the attorney general even less popular among Republicans and some Democrats who have criticized the decision to read to Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights.

Following an offer from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Tuesday to free the three American hikers captured in July 2009 in exchange for Iranians jailed in the U.S., Hillary Clinton has publicly denounced such a deal. The Secretary of State called the allegations of spying "unjust," and demanded their immediate release on humanitarian grounds. The Americans were caught at the border between Iraq and Iran, where they were supposedly hiking as tourists. "There is not really an equivalence, if you will, between, say an Iranian citizen who has been indicted and/or convicted of arms trafficking in violation of international law and three hikers who wandered across an unmarked border," Assistant Secretary of State P.J.  Crowley said.

Seventeen years after helping to author "Don’t, Ask Don’t Tell," Colin Powell has reversed himself: He now opposes the policy and supports the rights of gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, he said in a statement on Wednesday. “Attitudes and circumstances have changed,” he said. When Clinton announced his intentions to repeal the ban on gay soldiers in 1993, Powell was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and opposed the move, saying it would undermine discipline and order.

A man walked into a farm supply store in Macomb, Illinois, Wednesday afternoon and opened fire with a semiautomatic weapon. While some shoppers escaped, an unknown number of customers and employees were held hostage. Five hostages, four adults and a small child, were released during the standoff, in which the SWAT team was summoned. The incident ended when the shooter, 19-year-old Jonathan Labbe, turned the gun on himself.

Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa is urging President Obama to declare that China is manipulating its currency, keeping the yuan value artificially low so that Chinese exports are cheap and foreign imports are expensive in the Chinese market. Obama criticized his predecessor George W. Bush for failing to say China is doing so, but has yet to make the call himself, despite two opportunities. The U.S. Treasury Department is required by law to name any country it suspects of manipulating its currency to gain an unfair trade advantage; the next report is due in April. At a meeting with Democratic lawmakers Wednesday, the president said he was concerned such currency rates could put America at a disadvantage. When G-7 finance ministers meet in Canada this weekend, they’ll discuss China’s currency policies, a Treasury official said.

Dr. Conrad Murray will be arraigned Friday and charged with involuntary manslaughter for his alleged role in Michael Jackson's death last summer. Murray will turn himself in to Los Angeles police Friday morning, TMZ reports. The doctor who allegedly gave Jackson the powerful prescription drug Propofol will be booked and taken to Airport Court, Division 144, before a judge at 1:30 p.m. Cameras will record the event.

When Japanese cars first entered the American market in the early '70s, they had a reputation for being shoddily made and unsafe. Chastened, those companies doubled-down on quality, and by the late '80s, Honda and Toyota especially became known for their reliability, performance, and styling. That reputation lasted for Toyota until this month. The gas-pedal recall was already a PR disaster when it was reported that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was going to warn Toyota owners to stop driving their cars immediately. Toyota shares tanked immediately after the report, causing the automaker to lose $3 billion in market value instantaneously. Toyota recovered slightly, but at the end of the day, shares were still down 6 percent. Worse, the Japanese government has demanded Toyota investigate the braking system on the 2010 Prius; the U.S. government said it will look into its brakes too. In industry terms, the Prius is a “halo” vehicle—one that may not sell well due to price or features, but one that gets attention as embodying the best the company has to offer.

Speaking to victims in vegetative states may not be completely fruitless, now that experts have discovered that patients who don’t show signs of awareness can actually both comprehend and communicate thoughts. Not only can those in persistent vegetative states (PVS) understand what others are saying, but they can also offer simple responses to basic biographical questions. Dr. Adrian Owen, who carried out the groundbreaking research, and his team concluded it’s possible to talk to patients by tapping into their brain activity using a hi-tech functional MRI to measure their “yes” and “no” answers to questions. Doctors predict about one in five PVS patients can communicate. The discovery will likely raise questions about when doctors should take patients off life support machines and could cause a stir in the assisted suicide debate. “Obviously this fits into the issue of when patients should be allowed to die,” Dr. Owen said. The director of the Care Not Killing Alliance says, however, that the breakthrough is unlikely to alter guidelines regarding assisted suicide, since patients in that state don't have the mental capacity to make such vital decisions.

James Arthur Ray, the man who headed a spiritual sweat lodge ceremony in October 2009, has been indicted on three counts of manslaughter. The charges stem from the deaths of three people who died after participating in the ceremony at the Angel Valley Retreat Center near Sedona, Arizona. Ray's bond has been set at $5 million.

A roadside bomb exploded outside a girl's school in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, killing seven people, including three U.S. soldiers involved in training Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Corps. A Frontier Corps member and three school girls were also killed. The blast injured 62 people, most of them school girls inside the building; 10 of the wounded are in serious condition. Police believe that the bomb, which exploded as a convoy of U.S. soldiers passed the school, was detonated by remote control. The attack took place in the mountainous Lower Dir area of northwest Pakistan, where Pakistani troops and Taliban militants fought fiercely during last summer's government offensive against insurgency in the area.

Alberto's Giacometti's 1960 sculpture, "Walking Man I," has shattered the world record for a work of art at auction, selling to an unidentified telephone bidder for a total of $104.3 million with fees. The previous record was held by Pablo Picasso's 1906 "Boy With a Pipe," which sold for $104.2 million in a Sotheby's auction six years ago. The steep run-up in bidding for the six-foot-tall Giacometti on Wednesday was likely aided by two factors: the work's large size and the artist's popularity among international buyers. The steep pricetag may signal a resurgence in the art market.

At least it wasn't Joe Biden's mistake this time. Just hours after U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood advised owners of vehicles involved in the Toyota recall to stop driving their cars on Wednesday, he said it was "obviously a misstatement." LaHood initially said: "My advice is, if anybody owns one of these vehicles, stop driving it, take it to the Toyota dealer because they believe they have the fix for it... We're going to keep the pressure on."

On each gallon-proof of liquor produced outside the U.S. mainland and imported there, a $13.50 tax is collected. When the liquor is made in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, all but 25 cents of that tax goes back to the two territories as economic aid. Typically that means $400 million for Puerto Rico—where Diageo and Bacardi make their rum—and $80 million for the Virgin Islands, home to Cruzan. But now the Virgin Islands have figured out a way to siphon off some of Puerto Rico's business. It has offered Diageo half the rum tax money to move production to the Islands and stay for three decades (a deal 10 times sweeter than Diageo gets from Puerto Rico). Diageo would also get a 90 percent discount on income tax, pay no property tax, and a $165 million distillery. Puerto Rico, which stands to lose $6 billion from the deal, is trying to get a bill through Congress to make the Virgin Islands match its limit on the rum tax rebate at 10 percent. But the bill won't make it out of committee, thanks to lobbyists being paid millions to keep it from doing so. In fact, it's the lobbyists who could come out of this deal the best. Diageo paid its in-house lobbyists $2.25 million, plus another $780,000 to outside firms. The Virgin Islands paid lobbyists $270,000. Puerto Rican interests have spent $160,000.

When American Baptist missionaries arrived in the Haitian village Callebas, just north of Port-au-Prince, they promised parents there that they could give their children a better life. This contradicts the claims of the 10 Americans arrested on the border with the Dominican Republic, who when caught without proper papers for the 33 children said they were given away by distant relatives and orphanages. Haitian officials have called them child traffickers. The Callebas parents said that on January 28, two days before the arrest, a local orphanage worker helping the Baptists convened the 500 people of the village on a dirt soccer field and told them about the missionaries’ offer. The worker told them their children would be educated in the Dominican Republic so they could return and care for their families. Parents jumped at the offer because schools had collapsed and food was scarce. “It’s only because the bus was full that more children didn’t go,” said one Haitian mother who gave up her daughter.

James Cameron has finally outdone himself: Avatar has passed Titanic to become the highest grossing film of all time in the U.S. box office. On Tuesday, its haul climbed to $601.1 million, besting Titanic’s $600.8 million. However, if you factor in inflation, it’s a different story: With inflation, Avatar is just 21st on the list, losing to films like Fantasia, The Graduate, Jurassic Park, 101 Dalmations, and, the No. 1 film of all time, Gone with the Wind, whose inflation-adjusted haul is over $1.5 billion.

The Brooklyn man who lit a fire that killed five neighbors told cops that demons in his head drove him to do it. Daniel Ignacio, a Guatemalan national, was charged on Tuesday with murder and arson for the fire on Sunday in Bensonhurst. Ignacio, who was drunk at the time, said “the demons made me do it” and said he does “stupid things” when he drinks. He lit the fire with paint thinner and a roll of toilet paper. When he awoke from his stupor and realized what he had done, he helped a woman rescue her two children. The woman died in the blaze. Ignacio told cops he was depressed in recent weeks about making $8 an hour as a day laborer and being so far from his family.

A reason for liberals to tune into Fox News: Jon Stewart will head to enemy territory  Wednesday and Thursday to appear on The O’Reilly Factor. Fox News says that O’Reilly and Stewart will talk about media bias, among other things. It’s the second time Stewart will appear on Fox with O’Reilly. O’Reilly, for his part, has appeared on The Daily Show three times.

Someone’s an eager beaver: Senator-elect Scott Brown has asked Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick to seat him “immediately.” "While Senator-elect Brown had tentatively planned to be sworn into office on February 11, he has been advised that there are a number of votes scheduled prior to that date," his lawyers wrote in a letter. "For that reason, he wants certification to occur immediately." The Senate is expected to take up several confirmation votes later this week.

Love Gov. Mark Sanford has a much better adultery defense than debating the meaning of "is"; technically, he never promised wife Jenny that he'd be faithful, in fact, he cut fidelity out of their wedding vows. Jenny recently told 20/20's Barbara Walters that although "it bothered me to some extent" that Mark wanted the faithfulness clause excised, she "got past it...along with other doubts that I had," made a "leap of faith," and married him. Jenny added, "I thought he loved me in his own way, which is not a warm, bubbly way." And given his Argentine paramour, apparently not a "you're my soul mate" way either.

Brazilian model Jesus Luz has apparently fallen out of the groove with pop icon Madonna, as reports swirl that the 28-year-old ended their relationship due to the age gap. “It was not totally amicable,” a Madonna source told the Chicago Sun-Times. Madonna, 51, and Luz also suffered from conflicting work schedules and a lack of mutual interests, though they bonded over Kabbalah. “How it even lasted a year seems a miracle to a lot of people,” an unsurprised friend said of the relationship that began at a W magazine shoot in December 2008. Luz’s mother, who is 14 years younger than Madonna, also did not approve of the relationship.

Katie Couric has a little more than a year to go on her contract with CBS's Evening News, but network executives won't even say whether they're willing to keep her on staff. The show hasn't budged from third place since Couric became TV's first female anchor in what top CBS News brass sees as a noble but failed experiment. If CBS renews Couric's contract at all, she'll likely take a cut to her $15 million salary. If the rumor mill is to be believed, Couric could be the next big daytime talk host—her contract conveniently expires the same month that Oprah plans to go off the air, although according to Couric's friends she's more likely to jump to a show similar to Larry King's interview program.

Stay alert: The CIA expects al Qaeda to attack the U.S. in the next three to six months. Agency Chief Leon Panetta said Tuesday that the terrorist group is sending new recruits with “clean” records to the U.S. to carry out attacks from inside the country. "The biggest threat is not so much that we face an attack like 9/11. It is that al Qaeda is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect," Panetta said. "It's the lone-wolf strategy that I think we have to pay attention to as the main threat to this country."

The Illinois state parties chose their candidates for President Obama’s old Senate seat on Tuesday, and the race has already gotten ugly. With the primaries barely over—Illinois state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias won the Democratic nomination while U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk won the Republican slot—the National Republican Senatorial Committee has already released a Web video of Giannoulias' alleged mafia ties and tried to define him as part of a corrupt broken political machine. Echoing sentiments that followed Republican Scott Brown's Senate win in Massachusetts, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Bob Menendez said that "in this environment, Democrats cannot take anything for granted," and said Giannoulias' campaign is "already working hard to frame the race." A Republican hasn't won a Senate seat in Illinois in more than a decade, although Kirk appears to have a shot—he's one of the country's top fundraisers, bringing in $1.8 million over the last three months.

Dr. Conrad Murray plans on surrendering to police on Wednesday in the death of Michael Jackson, and when he does he'll find that the criminal complaint against him is ready to go. TMZ reports that the L.A. County District Attorney's Office has prepared a criminal complaint to charge Murray with involuntary manslaughter, a felony carrying a maximum sentence of four years in prison. Murray's legal team is already mapping out a defense.

Who’s bringing the nachos? President Obama will invite Republicans to the White House for the Super Bowl as part of a new strategy to engage the GOP. They’ll also be invited on social visits to Camp David, but it won’t be all R&R, as Obama also plans to engage them in policy initiatives in order to, as The New York Times puts it, “share the burden of governing and put more scrutiny on Republican initiatives.” Marc Ambinder says the strategy is not quite as friendly as it seems. “The White House will continue to reach out—not because they actually believe in the magical bipartisan fairy, but because they're ready to remonstrate Republicans when the GOP slams the door in their faces.”

Democrats have started writing a compromise health-care bill in an effort to salvage the reform legislation, Democratic Representative Charles Rangel of New York said Tuesday, but it’s unclear when it would be ready to be voted on. The measure would convert the Senate bill into a version the House and Senate agreed upon before Scott Brown’s election threw a wrench into the negotiations. If true, Rangel’s remarks are the first concrete sign that Democrats have not given up on passing some sort of health-care legislation. Compromises include a Senate-approved tax on expensive “Cadillac” insurance plans, and the removal of a measure to fully pay for the expansion of Medicaid in Nebraska, which was inserted to win the vote of Democratic Senator Ben Nelson, who was the 60th vote for the bill. Rangel said he wasn’t sure whether the compromise would be tackled before a jobs bill.

Hey there, big spenders: Each banker and trader at Bank of America will collect a bonus between, on average, $300,000 and $500,000. That payout is close to what BofA paid in its peak year of 2006, though the ratio of compensation to revenue is down to 19 percent from 2006’s 27 percent. Twenty-five percent of the bonuses will be paid in cash with the rest in stock that won’t be available for at least a year and a half. Senior bankers with seven-figure bonuses will receive only 5 percent in cash.

President Obama's fascinating televised dialogue with GOP congressional leaders in Baltimore last Friday has garnered legions of fans on both sides of the aisle, fans who are clamoring for more. Politico reports that a range of bipartisan names, from Republican adviser Mark McKinnon and conservative activist Grover Norquist to Wonkette founder Ana Marie Cox, has started an online campaign titled "Demand Question Time," complete with snappy campaign-style buttons, in hopes that Obama and House Minority Leader John Boehner will hold regular Q&A sessions. As David Corn, Mother Jones' Washington bureau chief, says, "It's hard to imagine all of us agreeing on anything (except perhaps John Edwards' future in politics). But we had an idea that transcends ideology." Senior White House Adviser David Axelrod isn't convinced: "The thing that made Friday interesting was the spontaneity... If you slip into a kind of convention, then conventionality will overtake the freshness of that."

President Obama has shifted to a more folksy rhetoric in his bid to win back the hearts of middle-class voters, almost half of whom felt that Obama didn't understand their problems at the beginning of this week. Despite coming from a middle-class background, Obama has struggled to connect with this constituency, particularly now that he's locked in what he calls "the bubble" of the White House, separated from regular life by cadres of Secret Service agents and private planes. Lately, Obama has taken a rhetorical page from former Presidents Clinton and Bush and distanced himself from the cool, polished speechifying that was once his hallmark. It's not just his feisty Friday tete a tete with GOP Congressional leaders either—in the last 10 days, Obama has traveled to Ohio, Maryland, Florida, and New Hampshire, droppin' gs with abandon, talkin' in analogies as relatable as a beer down at Smitty's, and tellin' stories about himself—like the 15 years he spent payin' off student loans to help voters understand that really, he's more like them than they think.

U.S. regulators have accused Toyota of dragging its feet on fixing defective gas pedals and are threatening the automaker with civil penalties and further review of its products. Toyota recalled nearly six million vehicles after reports of sudden acceleration that have been linked to at least five fatalities. "While Toyota is taking responsible action now, it unfortunately took an enormous effort to get to this point," Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said Tuesday in a statement. "We're not finished with Toyota and are continuing to review possible defects and monitor the implementation of the recalls."

Both aid workers and Haitians are growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of organization of the plentiful donations for the earthquake victims. Bottlenecking at significant ports and incidents of violence have slowed down distribution of food and medicine. Although U.S. air traffic controllers have lined up 2,550 flights through March 1, about 25 of those flights are not taking their slots each day. "No one is in charge," said one Louisiana-based doctor who is tending to patients in a Port-au-Prince hospital. "There's no topdown leadership... And since the Haitian government took control of our supplies, we have to wait for things even though they're stacked up in the warehouse. The situation is just madness." Since locals took over the supply room at hospitals, doctors say time and lives have been lost due to filling out unnecessary forms. While UN officials say they've sent more than 100 ships, they need their own cranes and other equipment to unload the supplies. Due to safety concerns, most aid convoys need armed escorts. But food and goods are still being stolen.