The House Ethics Committee found Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel violated House rules when he accepted trips to the Caribbean. Rangel's jaunts are considered hidden financing by corporations, and were accepted in knowing violation of House rules. Four other trip-goers, who were members of the Congressional Black Caucus, were exonerated, according to a source. Rangel holds one of the most influential positions in Congress. The finding raises questions about whether he'll continue to keep his role as head of that committee.

Just one day after lifting a flag over Marja, a huge explosion, followed by scattered gunfire, shook the Afghan capital of Kabul. There has been no confirmation as to what caused the 6:30 a.m. blast. "Our police have gone to the scene and they are investigating," said a ministry spokesperson. A U.S. general had been optimistic after the flag-hoisting in Marja, where U.S. and Afghan forces are pushing hard against insurgents, saying it was "a new beginning" and the Afghans "believe there is a fresh start for Marja under the government of Afghanistan." But the blast in Kabul may have stirred up fresh anxiety. Sirens and a loudspeaker told residents to stay indoors shortly after the bomb went off, as gunfire continued for half an hour.

Was it all for naught? President Obama concluded Thursday’s health-care summit with Republicans by saying that he did not think a bipartisan deal with Republicans was likely and suggested Democrats would use reconciliation to pass it over a Republican filibuster. "We cannot have another yearlong debate about this," Obama said. Particular sticking points were covering the uninsured and outlawing insurers from rejecting customers with preexisting conditions. "I don't know frankly whether we can close that gap," Obama said. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were expected to count votes in their caucuses after the summit.

Two co-defendants of Najibullah Zazi, the 25-year-old who has admitted to planning suicide attacks on the New York City subway, have pleaded not guilty. Adis Medunjanin and Zarein Ahmedazy stand accused alongside Zazi, their former high-school classmate, of travelling to Pakistan in 2008 and learning bomb-making from al Qaeda. They are also charged with providing material support to al Qaeda. Zazi pleaded guilty this week and is cooperating with investigators.

The body of Andrew Koenig was discovered Thursday by Vancouver police, in Stanley Park. Koenig played sidekick to Kirk Cameron's character on the hit 1980s TV show Growing Pains, and had been missing since Valentine's Day. At a press conference, Koenig's father said that the actor had taken his own life. Koenig had been on antidepressants, but stopped taking them last year.

The Canadian women's hockey team defeated the Americans 2-0 to win gold in Vancouver on Thursday. Canada Coach Melody Davidson chose to go with a young phenom goalie, Shannon Szabados, instead of Canada's veteran Olympian. The choice paid off, as all 28 American shots were blocked. The victory gives Canada its third consecutive Olympic gold, despite a 40-second two-player advantage for the United States and another two-player advantage later on. The Canadians pulled through in front of a sellout crowd that included Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper.

Immediately following the White House health-care reform summit, congressional Democrats plotted their steps toward a "massive, Democrats-only health-care plan," according to Politico. The six-hour summit was a sort of measuring stick for Democrats to "give a face to gridlock, in the form of House and Senate Republicans" and for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to "take the temperature of their caucuses." Democrats are preparing to undertake the president's entire $950 billion plan, known as "the big bill" on the Hill, rather than pushing a smaller bill that would cost less and provide less coverage. Because going the "skinny" route means the process would begin all over again, "It's probably the big bill or nothing," said a top Democratic aide. Meanwhile, a fresh start may be exactly what Republicans want. "Americans want to scrap the Democrats' massive bill and start over with a clean sheet of paper to work on step-by-step, common-sense reforms that lower health-care costs," said a House Republican aide.

New York Governor David Paterson may be soldiering on, but he’ll be without one of his top aides. Denise E. O’Donnell, the cabinet official in charge of the state police, resigned on Thursday after The New York Times revealed that the state police had initiated contact with a woman who alleges that one of Paterson’s closest advisers attacked her. “The fact that the governor and members of the State Police have acknowledged direct contact with a woman who had filed for an order of protection against a senior member of the governor’s staff is a very serious matter,” she wrote in a statement. “These actions are unacceptable regardless of their intent.” Long Island Rep. Steve Israel, meanwhile, called on Paterson to not run for reelection.

The custody battle between Jon Cryer, co-star of Two and a Half Men, and his ex-wife Sarah Trigger is not without its drama. According to court documents obtained by TMZ, Trigger's lawyer claims that on December 21, Cryer's ex-wife told her lawyer that her ex-boyfriend, Eddie Sanchez, said he was going to kill Cryer and her estranged husband, David Dickey. Alarmed, Trigger's lawyer contacted the lawyers for both, but, when confronted, Sanchez denied all claims. "Mr. Sanchez not only flatly denied making such a statement, but he said that it was [Sarah Trigger] who had contacted him on numerous occasions, stating that she wanted to see the pair [Cryer and Dickey] dead." In response, Trigger's lawyer said the statements were false.

Lieutenant Michael Lohman of the New Orleans Police Department pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice Wednesday—bad news for the other cops involved in shootings on Danziger Bridge that killed two and injured four in the days after Hurricane Katrina. Lohman has admitted to planting a gun at the crime scene and helping to rewrite police reports and witness statements. Prosecutors have sent target letters to at least two other officers, Sgt. Robert Gisevius, who fired his weapon on Danziger Bridge, and Sgt. Arthur Kaufman, who led the internal investigation of the shootings.

For the first time since leaving office, former President George W. Bush and his former second-in-command, Dick Cheney, met in person. Bush arrived at Cheney's home in McLean, Virginia, told Cheney he was "Lookin' good," and waved at the ABC News camera before disappearing into the former vice president's house. There has been no comment about what the two colleagues discussed during their hour-plus meeting. Bush's post-presidency life has been low-key while he works on his memoirs. In contrast, Cheney has been in the public eye for criticizing the Obama administration.

Some Facebook users were surprised Wednesday night when hundreds of personal messages not meant for their eyes landed in their inboxes. A WSJ.com editor happened to be the recipient of some unintentional messages: “I am sorry for letting my jealousy and worry get the best of me,” one read. The editor also received a copy of one couple's entire explicit chat conversation. Facebook recently updated its privacy settings to make them more user-friendly, but the recent snafu will leave many questioning the site's security. “Our engineers diagnosed the problem moments after it began and are working to get everything back in its rightful place," a Facebook spokesperson said. "While they fix the issue, affected users will not be able to access the site.” Although Facebook deleted all of the relevant messages during this time, copies will remain in users' third-party email accounts.

A snow-laden branch fell from a tree and killed a man who was walking down Central Park's "Literary Walk" at 67th Street near Fifth Avenue. A witness said the branch, part of a massive tree close to 80 feet tall, looked like it weighed 100 pounds. The man, in his 30s, lay bleeding in the snow. "It was obviously a direct hit to his head," said the witness. "It was horrifying." Several people called 911, but no one offered CPR or first aid because he appeared to be dead already. This isn't the first incident of its kind. A Google employee was hit in the head by a rotting branch last July, and a 33-year-old man was left in a coma after a 100-pound limb landed on him. The current winter storm is expected to leave as much as 12 inches of snow.

A 27-year-old woman took micro-blogging to a whole new level when she tweeted her live abortion. Angie Jackson found out she was pregnant on February 13th and opted for the "abortion pill" RU-486 instead of surgery. She later tweeted under the moniker "antitheistangie" about her experiences with the abortion, announcing "Cramps are getting a bit more persistent" and "Definitely bleeding now." Jackson decided to opt for abortion due to a life-threatening first pregnancy, but her choice to go public has been met with death threats to not only her own life but also her boyfriend and son. However, Jackson says, "The overwhelming sentiment is, 'Thank you for talking about something that is hard to talk about.'"

Court officials have announced that the divorce proceedings that will end Jenny Sanford and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s union will be open to cameras. South Carolina TV outlets have started quibbling over which network will gain the rights to air the proceedings, which Jenny Sanford must attend (though the governor can file an affidavit instead of appearing). The proceedings have been slotted for a 90-minute block of time, and electronic devices have been approved for use in the courtroom. Mrs. Sanford, who filed for divorce after her husband’s intercontinental infidelity became international news, has said that she will “do whatever I have to do” to end the marriage. Her appearance certainly won’t hurt the sales of her memoir, Staying True (now No. 31 on Amazon.com’s list bestselling memoirs). The socially conservative governor announced and apologized for his affair with an Argentinean reporter last summer, and Jenny Sanford has since moved out of the governor’s mansion with the couple’s four sons and filed for divorce in December.

Tilikum, the orca that killed a trainer at an Orlando SeaWorld Wednesday afternoon, always had a bad reputation, even before he turned on trainer Dawn Brancheau. Though trainers often swam with the seven other killer whales at SeaWorld, they were forbidden from doing so with Tilikum, the largest orca in any of the chain’s parks. The reason was that Tilikum had attacked humans before. In 1991, he and two other orcas drowned someone in front of spectators at Sealand of the Pacific, in Victoria, British Columbia. Eight years later, Tilikum was believed to have bitten the naked body of a man who had apparently crept into SeaWorld after hours and died of hypothermia in the water. And on Wednesday, one park visitor who witnessed the gruesome attack on the trainer said that the whale "thrashed her all around" after suddenly coming out of the water.

Finally some good news for Mr. Woods. Despite some criticism that last week’s apology was more robotic than revelatory, Tiger’s performance was solid enough to keep Nike from dropping the fallen golf superstar. Brand president Charlie Denson told the Associated Press that the company has “been in touch with his camp,” and that the company “has been supportive of Tiger since the story broke.” Denson admitted that Tiger has “issues he needs to deal with.” But Denson says that so long as he sorts out his personal problems before stepping back into the spotlight and onto the course, the company will stand by him. Nike has good reason to wait—the company has a $650 million golf division, and it has faced huge losses during the global economic downturn. A reformed Woods would be a huge spike in brand interest, and it’s a risk Nike is willing to take. Other companies have been less supportive, with AT&T and Accenture dropping Tiger and Gillette and Tag Heuer shelving the golf star until he gets some more positive publicity headed his way.

A 25-year-old stripper from Oregon says that she had an affair with Lost star Matthew Fox last summer. A taxi cab driver tells In Touch Weekly that the two got romantic in the backseat of his ride. The stripper says Fox didn't use protection once they got back to his place. Fox denies the accusations, but the alleged flame says she has the text messages to prove it. The actor has been married to former Italian model Margherita Ronchi for 18 years. They have two children.

The Afghan government installed an administrator in the southern Taliban stronghold of Marja in Helmand province Thursday in what the province's senior U.S. government representative called "the civilian Afghan government re-establishing itself officially in front of the local residents." U.S. Marines and Afghan troops are still working to secure a 28-square-mile area believed to hold the last pocket of Taliban in Marja. The installation of an administrator is a sign that the mass assault on insurgents in Helmand, a joint effort of 15,000 NATO and Afghan troops, is making progress. NATO's strategy is to drive Taliban militants out of Marja, which was used as a base for attacks, then win over the locals by rushing in public services.

What once had a been a central element of financial reform could be junked: The White House is prepared to abandon the creation of a stand-alone consumer protection agency. The administration hopes that leaving it behind will enable faster approval of a new reform bill working its way through Congress. According to The Washington Post, the Obama economic team now says it would welcome a regulator for consumers located inside another agency like the Treasury Department. There's hope that a bill may be signed before the 2010 elections. "Both sides are going to have to learn to live with things that aren't exactly how they would have written it," a Senate aide said.

If the Whitney Biennial really is, as critic and 2009 Pulitzer finalist Sebastian Smee put it, "a major, temperature-taking survey of what's going on in contemporary art" then contemporary art is in a lot of trouble. Smee called the exhibition a "debacle," adding "not only is it incoherent, it is overburdened with art about art, sloppy gestures of pseudo-revolt, dreary and repetitive video art and arcane conceptualism." He says the exhibition has a few bright spots, including works by George Condo, Maureen Gallace, and R.H. Quaytman, but these are not merely overshadowed by all the dreck in the biennial, but also by the concurrent show, "Collecting Biennials" that was mounted by the same pair of curators. The latter contains works by heavyweights such as Edward Hopper, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Diebenkorn, Mark Rothko, Philip Guston, Barnett Newman, and Cy Twombly.

"Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me." That was the first official tweet from @ConanOBrien, which was stamped as a "verified account" an hour after the ousted late-night host first posted his musing. The account already has already surpassed 80,000 followers, which, if any consolation, is more than double the followers for @jayleno. The bio on Conan's account reads: "I had a show. Then I had a different show. Now I have a Twitter account."

Figuring that Thursday's televised summit between a bipartisan set of lawmakers and President Obama will amount to little more than a dog-and-pony show, Congressional Democrats are already focused on what comes next: inter-party negotiations. Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) thinks that the success of the summit depends on Republicans. "If it's just coming to repeat a lot of stuff we've heard for six months, then I don't expect much out of it," he said. "We're not going to start writing a bill all over again." Democrats believe that health-care reform will pass only if Obama becomes a forceful negotiator in the debate. House leaders are concerned about getting the fiscally conservative Blue Dog coalition on board, although Obama's less-costly proposal may win them over. Other contentious issues include federal funding for abortion and insurance for undocumented immigrants. As far as the summit goes, Republicans may see little reason to play along as they believe standing against health care will lead to success at the polls. For the Dems, it may be do or die. "Failure to pass a bill of any kind presents real problems for us in the midterms," said one Democratic strategist.

First Greece put the euro in jeopardy, now Spain could spell the end for the common currency, observers tell The Wall Street Journal. Fighting 19 percent unemployment, Spain can't devalue its currency to attract tourism or increase exports because the euro's value is revved up by Germany's strong economy. Adding insult to injury, it can't cut interest rates because those decisions are made abroad by the European Central Bank. "Spain is the real test case for the euro," one expert told the Journal. "If Spain is in deep trouble, it will be difficult to hold the euro together...and my own view is that Spain is in deep trouble."

The C.I.A. and Pakistan's intelligence agency are working hand-in-hand to fight the Taliban—but that doesn't mean they trust each other. As American agents turn their attention away from Pakistan's ragged borderlands to its cities in an effort to find terrorists, they face the challenge of relying on local officials who don't always have the same goals in mind. The New York Times Thursday profiles these shaky relations. Sometimes the mistrust is smoothed over by a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label whisky. Other times, the spooks are not so lucky.

Has the bombshell finally landed? A week after The New York Times wrote about David W. Johnson’s meteoric rise from being New York Gov. David Paterson’s driver to his top aide, the paper has released its next installment of the Paterson files: It reports that a woman accused Johnson of violently assaulting her last fall, but involvement from state police and possibly the governor himself led to her dropping the charges. According to the woman’s lawyer, Paterson called her in early February to ask if there was anything he could do for her. (Paterson says that the woman initiated the call.) The lawyer would not specify whether or not the call caused her to drop the charges. The woman, who does not want to be identified for fear of retaliation, told police that Johnson “choked her, stripped her of much of her clothing, smashed her against a mirrored dresser.” Paterson said in a statement that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo would be investigating the case, and also stated that Johnson would be suspended without pay.

Some of Bernie Madoff's grandkids will be known by a different name: Morgan. Stephanie Madoff, who is married to Bernie's son Mark, went to court on Wednesday to legally change her last name and those of her two young children. She hopes her children will avoid the "embarrassment, harassment and endangerment associated with the name." Mark had no objections. Grandpa Bernie, who ripped off investors to the tune of billions of dollars, was sentenced to 150 years in prison.

President Obama opened his health-care summit with Republicans on Thursday with what cynics might say is a quixotic wish: “I hope this isn’t just political theater.” Obama warned that projections show health-insurance premiums rising greatly, and added, “I know I’m telling you things you already know.” Republicans chose Lamar Alexander to make their opening statement. “We want you to succeed,” Alexander says, “but we would like respectfully to change the direction you’re going on health-care costs. ... Our view, with all respect, is this is a car that can’t be recalled and fixed and we need to start over. … We’ve come to the conclusion that we don’t do comprehensive well.”

New York Governor David Paterson had few friends to begin with; after the revelation in The New York Times that he appears to have intervened in a domestic violence case against one of his closest aides, he has even fewer. “I think it’s become apparent that he should not seek reelection and should announce it soon,” said Rep. Steve Israel of Long Island. Al Sharpton has called a meeting of black elected officials for Saturday. No Democrats have yet called on Paterson to resign.

Lindsey Vonn seems to make headlines when she doesn't win a gold medal as much as when she does. This time, she didn't. She was knocked out during the first run of the women's giant slalom after crashing in foggy conditions Wednesday, breaking a bone in her little finger. It's unclear whether it will prevent her from competing in the final event, the women's slalom on Feb. 26, of her injury-riddled Olympics. Meanwhile, in hockey, the U.S. men's team defeated Switzerland 2-0 to continue its unexpected run and make the semifinals. Zach Parise of the New Jersey Devils scored two third-period goals, including one on an empty net, to earn the Americans a spot against the winner of the Czech Republic-Finland game. The U.S. finished the day still atop the medal standings with 26, followed by Germany with 24. Both nations are tied for the most golds, of which they currently hold seven.

President Obama and Senator John McCain reprised their rivalry at the health-care summit on Thursday. McCain called on Obama to “start over” and said Americans “want us to sit down together and do what’s best for all Americans.” Obama replied by saying, “We’re not campaigning anymore. The election is over.” McCain fired back, “I’m reminded of that every day.” McCain then went on to say how the bill was “produced behind closed doors.” When Obama tried to cut him off, McCain insisted, “Can I finish please?”

The American team is still racking up medals at Vancouver: Billy Demong and Johnny Spillane finished 1-2 in the Nordic Combined on Thursday. Demong’s gold was the first for the American team in Nordic sports. Austrian Bernhard Gruber won bronze. Other skiers complained about the conditions. “It’s a joke,” said one. “It’s like a lottery,” said another. ‘Some guys got good conditions, some other terrible conditions.”