Looks like Congress has once again narrowly avoided a government shutdown. Democrats and Republicans agreed to compromise on a $1 trillion spending bill which will be voted on Friday. Still, the disagreement over a payroll tax extension remains unsolved. This is the third potential shutdown the U.S. government has faced this year. Earlier Thursday House Republicans unveiled the hefty spending bill and threatened to power it through the chamber, aiming to force the Democrat-led Senate to: one, wrap up Congress' work for the year so they can take a holiday break; two, drop the so-called "millionaires tax" in the spending bill; three, give ground on how to fund the separate payroll tax holiday and unemployment insurance benefits, which both expire by the end of the year and are set to be the next big partisan battles. If the short-term spending bill passes the vote Thursday, it would mostly likely ensure all three victories for the Republicans. Meanwhile, the Senate passed a $662 billion defense bill, which Obama is expected to sign.

He took on Mother Teresa, Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton, Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky, and even God, but always with a rush of wrathful passion for justice and the truth. He was the George Orwell of his time. The polemical writer, journalist and literary critic Christopher Hitchens, who was also a contributor to Newsweek and The Daily Beast, has died. He's known for being one of the great essayists of our age, the most famous of them being scorching attacks against Mother Teresa (calling her a fanatic and a fraud), Henry Kissinger (making a brutal case against him for alleged war crimes), and Bill Clinton (attacking him for corruption and rottenness in a book and in Newsweek). He wrote eloquently on Orwell and his other heroes, like Thomas Paine, was one of the leaders of the "New Atheism" movement, and bewildered many by fervently supporting the war in Iraq. He was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2010, and was receiving treatment in Houston until recent days, when he entered hospice care. He was 62. Hitchens, who said: "One of the beginnings of human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority."

Michele Bachmann refuses to stand for Newt Gingrich’s dismissal of his work with Freddie Mac. “We can’t have a czar nominee for the Republican Party,” she says, insisting that she wanted to get rid of the government-run business when it was paying Gingrich. He tries to appeal to the audience by saying he’s a supporter of any business that helps Americans buy homes. But Andrew Sullivan writes that it’s a “terrible mess.” The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz tweets, “Newt sounding defensive, ‘I never changed my position for money.’ Surprised he prolonged Freddie Mac talk rather than moving on.” Bachmann doesn’t relent, saying that Politifact said everything she said in the last debate was true. Well, Politifact has this to say to her tonight: “For the record, we did not say that everything Bachmann said at last week’s debate was true.”

U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta attended a ceremony in Baghdad that marked the official end of the war in Iraq. All troops will pull out by Dec. 31. "Let me be clear, Iraq will be tested in the days ahead—by terrorism, by those who would seek to divide" Panetta warned, as the symbolic battle flag of the U.S. was lowered Thursday. But he hailed the service of the armed services and the Iraqi people—nearly 4,500 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives in the war that began nearly nine years ago. But Panetta said "your sacrifice has helped the Iraqi people begin a new chapter in history, free from tyranny."

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is already in the hot seat after tens of thousands of protesters accused him of election fraud, while rivals are trying to derail his plan of returning to the presidency next year. He might have helped their cause by giving an incendiary interview Thursday during a call-in show on Russian TV. Putin lashed out at the protesters for being "agents of the West." He also called John McCain "mad" after the senator tweeted recently: "The Arab Spring is coming to a neighborhood near you." Putin said McCain's experience as a prisoner of war drove him mad. "Anyone [in his place] would go nuts."

Newt Gingrich is in the spotlight tonight as the current frontrunner and as such is given the first chance to defend his own conservativism and explain how he can beat Barack Obama. The former speaker starts out by wishing everyone in the audience a merry Christmas—explicitly—and reminding viewers that Reagan, too, was slated to lose in a debate against Carter. He says he can bring a very large change to the Republican Party and can beat Obama in a debate. Ron Paul reminds everyone he’s a conservative, too. Meanwhile, Rick Perry says he’s like Tim Tebow—and the Internet goes wild.

Is this what decline looks like? According to new supplemental data from the Census Bureau, nearly half of Americans—a shocking record number—have fallen under the poverty line or are classified as "low income" and barely scraping by. Many in the middle class have dropped to the low-income threshold, meaning they make less than $45,000 for a family of four, because of pay cuts or spouses losing jobs. They number 97.3 million, and together with the 49.1 million in poverty, they represent about 48 percent of the U.S. population, or 146.4 million. That's up by 4 million from 2009 numbers.

An Iranian official warned Afghanistan Thursday that Iran would treat any U.S. drone flights that left from Afghanistan as hostile acts—a move that threatened to bring Afghanistan into the mushrooming U.S.-Iran conflict for the first time. There was no immediate response from the U.S. or Afghanistan, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Wednesday that the drone flights would continue, despite the much publicized crash of a CIA-operated drone in Iran last week. Meanwhile, an American military official told CNN Thursday that the crashed drone was on a surveillance mission of suspected nuclear sites in Iran, not patrolling the Afghan-Iran border as was originally stated. But officials also refuted Iranian claims that the drone had been overtaken and crashed, with one intelligence source saying the drone “simply fell into [Iran’s] laps.”

Police and villagers in Wukan are locked in a standoff following the mysterious death of a prominent villager. The deadlock began in September over anger at officials who take over farmland and sell it to developers to pocket the profits. Authorities detained the villager’s representative, Xue Jinbo, last week, but he died on the third day of his detention. Officials blamed a sudden illness, but villagers suspect foul play and have once again taken to the streets. Wu Zili, the mayor of Shanwei prefecture, said, “The government will strike hard against the ringleaders who organize, provoke, and stir up unrest and carry out illegal crimes…It will consider handling with leniency those who honestly surrender.”

Mark Meckler may have taken all the necessary measures for transporting a weapon on an airplane, but that didn't save him from getting arrested at La Guardia Airport today. The Tea Party Patriots cofounder's Glock 27 is registered in California but not in New York, making it an illegal weapon. He could face a penalty of 15 years in prison for the charge of second-degree possession of an illegal weapon.

Jessica Lynch is on her way to becoming a teacher. The American soldier who was held captive in Iraq and rescued in 2003, will graduate Friday from West Virginia University with a degree in education. The 28-year-old finished her student-teacher training at the same West Virginia elementary school she attended as a child. Lynch’s legs have not fully recovered from injuries she sustained as a prisoner of war in Iraq. She was kidnapped with five other soldiers when her company took a wrong turn in Nasiriyah in 2003.

New York Times Co.’s chief executive Janet Robinson will be leaving the company at the end of the month—prompting the company’s internal and external search for her replacement. Arthur Sulzberger, the current Times Co. chairman and the newspaper’s publisher, will take over as chief executive in the interim. As the newspaper industry continues to shift online, the company is considering looking for a new chief executive from the technology sector.

Hope NBC is prepared to cover some fines from the FCC. NBC announced Thursday that the often-inappropriate radio host Howard Stern would be added to its lineup of judges on its reality-competition show, America’s Got Talent. One parent group called the move “an act of desperation for a flailing network.” The show will move production from Los Angeles to New York, where the loose-lipped Stern does his morning show for Sirius radio. Stern replaces Piers Morgan after the Brit left to take on Larry King’s post at CNN. Stern joins Howie Mandel and Sharon Osbourne on the judge’s panel. American Idol creator Simon Cowell is the executive producer of the show.

The Oscar predictions are in full swing as the Golden Globes nominations were announced Thursday morning. The mostly silent comedy The Artist got six nods, topping the number of nominations, and The Descendants, Moneyball, Hugo and The Help all got best-picture nods. George Clooney and Brad Pitt are among the favorites for best actor, while both stars of The Artist were nominated for best performance in a comedy or musical. Boardwalk Empire swept the top TV nominations. Some consider the Golden Globes an important harbinger of the Oscars, but others, like the influential blogger Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood, say it's "completely meaningless." The comedian Ricky Gervais, who scandalized Hollywood with his acerbic performance last year, will host the ceremonies again. See the full list here.

Facebook is not going back to the future—it just thinks that the future is in the past. The social network officially launched its "Timeline" design Thursday. It lets users revisit important stories since they joined the site. The feature was announced in September and test runs were available for some users, but the network's more than 800 million members will be able to convert their profiles today. Productivity at your office is expected to plunge.

How bad did the British people want to see pictures of Kate Middleton in a white gown? According to Google's annual Zeitgeist list, "royal wedding" was the fastest-rising new search term of 2011, beating the not-yet-released iPhone 5. "FIFA 12," the most popular searchterm for the 2012 World Cup, came in third, while Groupon and iPad 2 rounded out the top 5. The list for the U.S. is not out yet.

Either he's the funniest man alive, or he's serious. Herman Cain, who dropped out of the GOP presidential race, said in an interview with Barbara Walters that he wants to be the Secretary of Defense. This from a guy who said he wouldn't need to know the name of the leader of "Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan" or some "small, insignificant states." And a guy who froze for minutes when asked about the Obama administration's military operations in Libya. But give Cain credit for knowing that this is pure fantasy. When asked what cabinet position he would want, he said, "We are speaking totally, totally hypothetical, right?" When he said the head of the department of defense, even Walters, who chose him as one of her "10 Most Fascinating People" of the year, looked stunned and said, "What?"

More than two dozen members of Syria’s security forces were killed Wednesday in an ambush by military defectors—a retaliation for the deaths of five others earlier in the day. The defectors attacked four military vehicles with rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire on a supply route between the central city of Hama and the northern province near Turkey, where troops have been fighting against military defectors. This was the second attack by Army defectors this week, as retaliation for civilian deaths.

It might matter little to critics of capital punishment that contend it should not happen at all, but the trend against executions is unmistakable: death sentences have taken a historic drop of about 75 percent over the last 15 years, and 2011 was the first time in more than three decades that fewer than 100 people have been sent on death row. According to a new report from the Death Penalty Information Center, 78 people were handed death sentences in 2011, down from 315 in 1996. And there were 43 executions this year, including the controversial of Georgia inmate Troy Davis in September, down from 98 in 1999.

National Review really doesn’t like Newt Gingrich. While the conservative journal praised the GOP frontrunner for persevering when his campaign looked dead, it asks the GOP—in a 1,200-word editorial—to “reject a hasty marriage” to the candidate. Gingrich’s “impulsiveness, his grandiosity, his weakness for half-baked (and not especially conservative) ideas” make him a dangerous candidate who would jeopardize the GOP’s chances of winning the election. Along with his history of questionable ethics, National Review hits at his personal life: “Very few people with a personal history like his—two divorces, two marriages to former mistresses—have ever tried running for president.” Who wins the magazine's endorsement? At this point, no one.

If Steve Jobs wasn't happy about Android, he would not have been happy about this. Google is set to unveil a rival to Apple's Siri voice control system. The program will be called Majel, after Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, the actor who did the voice of the Starship Enterprise in the Star Trek TV show. The blog "Android and Me" said a January or February release is likely.

Former French president Jacque Chirac was found guilty of diverting public funds and abusing public trust by a court Thursday. Chirac, 79, was given a two-year suspended sentence; he did not appear in court because of ill health, but he denied any wrongdoing. The charges date back to his time as mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995. (He was president from 1995 to 2007.) He is accused to paying members of his own Rally for the Republic party for city jobs that did not exist.

Despite a fiscal pact agreed on last week by European leaders, investors have little faith that the debt crisis will be solved—putting the banks that hold billions of dollars of government bonds at risk of failing. In reaction to this, interest rates are climbing, while some banks are not giving out loans. The euro fell below $1.30 for the first time since January. In an emergency measure, French Bank Credit Agricole SA announced it would exit 21 of the 53 countries it’s located in; Commerzbank AG will attempt to avoid a German bailout and move money to a government-owned bank. Global Markets fell—the Dow sank 1.1 percent, while Japanese and Australian markets fell 1 percent early Thursday. Meanwhile, Fitch downgraded five big European banks.

Bootleg liquor sold in small shops in an Eastern India town is reportedly the cause of 143 deaths, Indian authorities said Thursday. Ten people were arrested in connection with the tainted alcohol, which was said to contain toxic methanol. Dozens of other people were hospitalized with illness suspected to be related to the bad booze in Sangrampur, just north of Kolkata. Police closed 10 illicit liquor dens in the area and said the alcohol originated from a distillery that supplies 70 stores in the area. Alcohol contains ethanol, but toxic methanol—found in antifreeze—can cause comas, blindness and death. Two-thirds of the alcohol consumed in India is said to be illegally made at homes or undocumented distilleries.

Does Jon Huntsman Jr. have enough time to become the GOP’s new “flavor of the month?” Less than four weeks from the New Hampshire primary, the former Utah governor has surged in a poll released last night by Suffolk University. Huntsman, who has dedicated much of his campaigning to the Granite State, gathered 13 percent in the new poll, placing him in third place, behind Mitt Romney’s 38 percent and Newt Gingrich’s 20 percent. While Romney maintains a comfortable lead, polling experts say that if New Hampshire independents show up in droves on Jan. 10, Huntsman could be in the mix to win the primary. Independents outnumber Republicans in New Hampshire 3–2..

Talk about kicking a man when he's down. Donald Trump's debate might be a flop, but Karl Rove can't resist getting in a few barbs before going on to argue against having more Republican debates, period. While the tremendous number of debates have given every GOP candidate time to make a case, they've also “nearly crippled campaigns, chewing into the precious time each candidate has to organize, raise money, set themes, roll out policy and campaign.” Rove says they also give the media too much power to control the narrative, furnishing an endless supply of confrontations and soundbites. “For good or ill, this year's record-breaking mass of debates has made the contest the most unpredictable, rapidly shifting, and often downright inexplicable primary race I've ever witnessed,” says Rove.

A three-year-long investigation by the U.S. Justice Department has concluded that the notorious "Sheriff Joe" Arpaio from Maricopa County in Arizona committed a wide range of civil-rights violations since at least 2009. In the scathing report the feds say the self-described "America's toughest sheriff" instituted a "pattern of racial profiling" against Latinos and a "culture of bias" against immigrants, including conducting "sweeps" patrols based only on complaints that Latinos were gathering at a location without committing any crimes. Arpaio's fierce stance against immigration has propelled him to national prominence among GOP hardliners. A federal grand jury is also investigating him for criminal abuse of power, and the Justice Department said it is still looking at complaints of excessive force by deputies under his watch.

Piers Morgan, the former editor of the Daily Mirror and the now-defunct News of the World, will testify before Parliament next week, his spokesman confirmed Thursday. Meanwhile, in a blockbuster day of testimony, Colin Myler, another onetime editor of NotW, said Thursday that he felt there were “bombs under the newsroom floor”—an avalanche of information he was not aware of—after he took over for embattled erstwhile editor Andy Coulson. Myler assumed the helm for Coulson in 2007 after he resigned following private investigator Glenn Mulcaire's being sent to jail. Myler said that the “for Neville” email that has been alleged to prove that the hacking scandal was not just limited to one person was one of those bombs.

Could things be continuing to look up? The number of people filing unemployment benefit applications fell last week to 366,000, the fewest since May of 2008. It's a sign that layoffs are falling sharply, but millions are still out of work or have given up looking. The unemployment rate is now at 8.6 percent, while the rate was at 5.4 percent the last time the weekly rate was this low. If it continues to stay low, it would be a sign that unemployment is lowering steadily and hiring is picking up enough to help the economy.