The American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit Tuesday challenging the policy that keeps women from thousands of ground-combat positions. “Nearly a century after women first earned the right of suffrage, the combat-exclusion policy still denies women a core component of full citizenship—serving on equal footing in the military defense of our nation,” the suit reads. The ACLU says that women are currently barred from more than 230,000 military positions. A spokesman for Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that he is still “very committed to examining the expansion of roles for women in the U.S. military and he’s done so.”

Upward of 100 people were reportedly injured Tuesday after upward of 200,000 protesters stormed Tahrir Square in Egypt. It was the fourth day of demonstrations since President Mohamed Morsi announced a decree expanding his powers and protecting his decisions from court challenges. Though the demonstrations have been mostly concentrated in Tahrir Square, the site of the 2011 uprising that ousted longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak, anti-Morsi rage has spread throughout the country. “We don’t want a dictatorship again. The Mubarak regime was a dictatorship. We had a revolution to have justice and freedom,” said one protester.

The dreaded ‘fiscal cliff’ is mere weeks away, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is not exactly reassuring. Reid told reporters Tuesday that so far, "little progress" has been made to avoid economic disaster. Reid says although he doesn’t expect to go over the cliff, it’s time for Republicans to translate their talk of raising revenues into action. “We have to get away from the happy talk and start talking about specific things," Reid said. With $600 billion in combined tax increases and spending cuts slated to go into effect on January 1st and economists warning of another recession, let's hope they can come up with something.

With this much drama, there should really be a reality show. The Tampa socialite, who earlier this month was tied tangentially to the David Petraeus affair scandal, is now fighting back against three parties she claims disparaged her. Kelley’s attorneys say a New York businessman who publicly accused her of incompetence after the scandal leaked was seeking his 15 minutes of fame, and that her former attorney broke attorney-client privilege by speaking publicly about their conversations. Another letter to the FBI demands to know who leaked her name in connection with the Petraeus investigations, arguing that she should be protected under privacy laws.

In a historic vote Tuesday, the U.N. General Assembly’s human-rights committee unanimously voted for a global ban on female genital mutilation (FGM). The resolution calls on the U.N.’s 193 member states to protect women and girls “from this form of violence,” arguing that FGM is a serious threat to their psychological, sexual, and reproductive health. In 2010, the U.N. said that about 70 million women and girls around the world were FGM victims. The resolution is almost certain to pass when it is taken up by the full Assembly in the second half of December.

Jesse Jackson Jr. may have had early warning that his career was about to be destroyed. Federal authorities believe that the congressman was tipped off about a probe into possible misuse of campaign funds prior to taking leave from the House of Representatives in June. It’s unclear whether Jackson was warned by someone involved in the investigation or by someone who was notified about it, for example, through a subpoena. Despite his medical absence from Congress and reports of the financial investigation, Jackson won reelection in November, only submit his resignation last week.

Big tobacco has deceived the American people, and now they must apologize. That was the decision of a federal judge Tuesday, who ordered cigarette companies to take out advertisements acknowledging that they knowingly deceived the public about the dangers of cigarettes by promoting their low-tar and light varieties as less harmful. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler rejected the companies’ argument that forcing them to run the ads was a violation of their free-speech rights. “The government regularly requires wrongdoers to make similar disclosures in a number of different contexts,” wrote Kessler.

Odds of winning are one in 175 million—but don’t let that stop you from buying a ticket. The Powerball jackpot has officially reached $500 million, breaking the record for the game’s biggest prize ever. The jackpot is also the second-highest in lottery history, after the $656 million Mega Millions prize last March. Powerball ticket prices doubled to $2 in January as part of a plan to build prize funds faster and generate more money for the states running the game. For every ticket sold, one dollar goes towards the prize and one dollar goes to the state lottery organization.

From NBC to CNN? Jeff Zucker, the former NBC Universal chief executive, is reportedly the frontrunner to succeed Jim Walton as president and chief executive of CNN. A final announcement could be made by the end of the week, The New York Times reports. Before his criticized run as head of the NBC’s primetime lineup, Zucker successfully oversaw the Today show’s unprecedented morning reign, and the overhaul of the network’s coverage of the Olympics and elections. Former ESPN exec Mark Shapiro is also in consideration.

More like two and a half messes. Just a couple of days after slamming Two and Half Men as “filth,” Angus T. Jones issued a statement Tuesday clarifying he has “the highest regard and respect for all of the wonderful people” who work on the show. Jones is in damage-control mode after calling his own show “filth” in a  video testimonial for Forerunner Christian Church. Not to be outdone, Charlie Sheen issued a statement Tuesday night calling the show “cursed.” The Warlock has spoken.

Welcome to America, Julian Fellowes. The celebrated costume-drama-wunderkind (otherwise known as the creator of Downton Abbey) is developing a period drama for NBC tilted The Gilded Age. Fellowes has signed on to write and produce the series, which will chronicle the soapy lives of millionaires living in 1880s New York. In addition to Downton, which will premiere its third season on PBS in January and was just renewed for a fourth, Fellowes has also been busy penning the screenplay for the upcoming adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. We can already hear the music swelling.

Illinois Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin said Tuesday that his party has figured out a way to avoid the fiscal cliff, but Republicans will have to compromise on raising taxes for the wealthy. Voters endorsed the idea of asking the wealthiest to pay a little more, Durbin said in a speech at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. The Senate has already passed a bill that would raise rates on those making more than $250,000 a year. Several GOP senators have said they could go along with the plan, however, House Republicans haven’t been nearly as conciliatory, arguing that there isn’t enough time to make the comprehensive changes they are seeking, such as turning Medicare into a premium-support plan.

Elmo is having a bad month. A 29-year-old man has come forward and alleged that he engaged in “some sexual activity” with former Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash back in 2000, when the accuser was just 16. The accuser, who is being referred to as “John Doe,” is the third man to allege underage sexual activity with Clash. According to John Doe’s lawyer, Clash called himself Craig and told Doe he was 30 when they started talking on a gay chat line, but Doe realized he was much older when they met at Clash’s apartment. Doe also realized who Clash was when he saw “Elmo dolls, an Emmy award, and photographs of Elmo with movie stars.” The lawyer said that his client started writing a book about the experience in 2009.

He just made himself right at home in the bat cave. Sources say that Joseph Gordon-Levitt has signed on to be the new Batman in the upcoming Justice League movie. Christopher Nolan has said that The Dark Knight Rises was the last story he wants to tell about the character; he is working on Superman reboot Man of Steel, scheduled for release this summer. And though any Justice League movie is still years away, Warner Brothers appears to be rushing to solidify a deal with Gordon-Levitt quickly, leading some to speculate that Batman may make appearances in Man of Steel and other Justice League–related movies.

That didn’t last long enough. Chris Brown quit the social-media site on Sunday after getting into a Twitter war with comedian Jenny Johnson, only to return by late Monday, saying he won the battle with Johnson. Johnson tweeted Sunday that Brown looked much older than his 23 years, writing “being a worthless piece of shit can really age a person,” and the rapper responded with vulgar threats to the comedian before tweeting “just ask Rihanna if she mad” about his alleged 2009 domestic-violence assault. Brown then deleted his Twitter account, only to return Monday—albeit with the exchange with Johnson deleted—with a tweet saying he’s “not upset” and the exchange proved “how immature society is.” As for Johnson, she said she has been receiving death threats from Brown’s dedicated followers.

The Case-Shiller Index, which measures home prices in 20 cities, rose 3 percent from the beginning of the year through September, after showing a 2 percent gain from January through August. The increase, which met economists’ expectations, was the biggest quarter price gain since July 2010.

While business leaders and pundits are convinced that the economy is going to fall off the fiscal cliff imminently, someone forgot to tell consumers. The Consumer Confidence Index, which measures both consumers’ current state and future prospects, came in at 73.7 out of 100 for November, up from 73.1 in October. It’s the highest level for the index since 2008—which in August 2011 dropped as low as 44.1. The rise came from a slight jump in people’s positive expectations for the future, indicating that fears of coming to Jan. 1 without resolving the fiscal cliff do not seem to have trickled down to consumer behavior or their future plans. 

First Charlie Sheen goes off the rails, now the “half man” in Two and a Half Men has gone on an epic rant himself. Angus T. Jones, 19, said in a video posted online by a Christian church that the highly rated television show is “filth”—and he asked viewers to “please stop watching it.” Jones has been on the show since he was 10 and now reportedly makes $350,000 an episode and takes home around $8 million annually. The video was released by the Voice of Prophecy Seventh-Day Adventist church in Los Angeles, where Jones worships. “I don’t want to contribute to the enemy’s plan,” Jones said, adding that he is “under contract for another year, so it is not much of an issue on my part.” The show’s reps have not yet replied.

Congolese rebels said on Tuesday they were still in control of Goma, despite earlier reports that they had agreed to retreat. Congo’s government has said it will not participate in peace talks unless the rebels leave Goma, which they captured last week. An estimated 500,000 people have fled the area due to the violence in Goma, the largest city in eastern Congo. Both Uganda and Rwanda, two of Congo’s neighbors, have denied United Nations accusations that they are backing the rebels, known as the M23. Both the M23 and Rwanda’s government are ethnic Tutsi, and reports on Monday indicated that Hutu extremists known as the FDLR had crossed the border from Rwanda and attacked the rebels, although the FDLR has denied those reports.

Three members of a Northern California family were killed over the weekend when they were swept out to sea in an attempt to save their dog. Howard Kulijan, 54, threw a stick toward the waves for their dog, only to have the waves swallow the pet. Kulijan, his wife, Mary Scott, 57, and their 16-year-old son, Gregory, all dove into the water to save the dog, only to be swept out to sea themselves as their 18-year-old daughter, Olivia, and Gregory’s girlfriend could only watch in horror. Both parents’ bodies have been recovered, but Gregory is still missing—although authorities called off the search for the teenager, saying no one could survive for long in the surf.

More than two months after the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, and barely over a week after threatening to block her potential nomination for secretary of state, Sen. John McCain and U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice will meet Tuesday to discuss those September events. In the weeks following the attack, McCain led the GOP’s criticism of Rice’s television appearances recounting the events, pledging to oppose her possible nomination as Hillary Clinton’s replacement. McCain has to some extent backtracked on his criticism. He told The Daily Beast that it was Rice who requested the meeting: “I will meet with you and hear your version of events why you went out and told the American people false information.”

Was anyone actually doing any work on Monday? Cyber Monday sales were up 20 percent this year from 2011, with retailers saying online sales brought in a record $1.5 billion, according to Internet analytical firm comScore. Cyber Monday, the busiest Web shopping day of the year, began early this year, with Walmart beginning its online deals on Saturday. Early-bird shoppers certainly wanted to get the worm: Thanksgiving shopping increased 32 percent this year, and on Black Friday, the holiest shopping day of the year, e-commerce shopping topped $1 billion for the first time ever, up about 26 percent.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced on Monday that he will be seeking reelection in 2013, saying he is dually focused on winning the governor’s race and rebuilding his state after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy. “It would be wrong for me to leave now,” Christie said. “We have a job to do. This job won’t be finished by next year.” Christie has long been considered a strong contender for the White House in 2016—although some Republicans blamed him for Mitt Romney’s defeat after he praised President Obama’s rebuilding efforts immediately after the storm. As for his reelection, he wins every hypothetical match-up, including against popular Newark mayor, Cory Booker.

So this is how you get a book deal these days? Todd Akin, the Missouri candidate made famous for his comments that victims of “legitimate rape” can’t get pregnant, says that after losing his Senate candidacy, he is considering writing a book. “I always believed that if you’re willing to work hard and try to do the right thing, things will work out for you,” Akin said about his future. Akin told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that it will take “a little time to recover from [the election] emotionally,” but said there is a “natural mechanism to get over it called the mortgage payment.”

It’s the haircut. A Chinese Communist Party paper picked up an article published in the satirical paper The Onion that declared North Korean leader Kim Jong-un the “sexiest man alive for 2012”—and published a 55-photo slideshow showing the steaming dictator hunk looking like he’s sexy and he knows it. Nowhere does the Chinese party organ note that the Onion article is meant to be, you know, a joke. “He has that rare ability to somehow be completely adorable and completely macho at the same time,” the fatally earnest People’s Daily quotes The Onion as saying.

Not such a cold case anymore. The body of Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat was exhumed early Tuesday as part of an investigation into allegations that he was poisoned to death. Arafat died in 2004 of a stroke, but many have suspected the stroke was caused by other factors. Sources told Al Jazeera that forensic pathologists were not able to “fully remove the body from the tomb,” and Palestinian doctors collected samples from the body with the help of an international team of scientists from France, Russia, and Switzerland. Al Jazeera sources said the body had been reburied shortly after being exhumed—so Palestinians will not be able to conduct a full military funeral as planned.

Two senior officials at the BBC on Tuesday admitted “basic” and “elementary” errors in their journalism when they inaccurately alleged that a Conservative Party politician was being investigated for sexual abuse. The BBC director-general has resigned amid the controversial reporting, and the acting director-general, Tim Davie, said the organization is currently in crisis. Davie and the head of the supervisory BBC Trust, Chris Patten, spoke before Parliament on Tuesday—more than a month after Davie’s predecessor George Entwistle appeared before the same committee. Later this week, the same parliamentary committee will announce its findings in a separate investigation into phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.—a move that could lead to more regulation of the British press.

Marvin Miller, baseball’s famed union leader, has died at the age of 95. Miller was named executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association in 1966, when players had little bargaining power, were bound to their teams for as long as their owners wanted them, and had a minimum salary of $6,000. By the time of Miller’s retirement in 1982, players had won free agency, the average player salary had reached $241,000, and the union had become a model for basketball, football, and hockey. And although he was never selected for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Miller said in 2011, “I’m proudest of the fact that I’ve been retired for almost 29 years at this point, and there are knowledgeable observers who say that this might be still be the strongest union in the country. I think that’s a great legacy.”

French officials said on Tuesday that they would back nonmember status for Palestine at the United Nations—one of the strongest endorsements of Palestinian statehood yet. Palestine dramatically applied for statehood at the U.N. last year, but was stopped by U.S. opposition and has instead applied for a lesser status as a nonmember. But nonmember status would implicitly recognize Palestinian statehood and would grant it access to international ruling bodies such the International Criminal Court in The Hague—where Palestine could file complaints against Israel.

Beasts of the Southern Wild and Moonrise Kingdom are looking like this year’s indie favorites. The Benh Zeitlin and Wes Anderson films, respectively, took home Gotham Awards Monday night and now top the Film Independent Spirit Awards’ list of Best Feature nominees. Other nominees—announced Tuesday—include Bernie, Keep the Lights On, and Silver Linings Playbook, whose reported budget surpassed the Spirit Awards $20-million limit. Whereas last year the majority of Oscar- nominated films also received Spirit nods, it’s mostly big studio flicks, like Argo, Lincoln, and Les Miserables that have attracted the attention of the academy.

So now we need social media marketing for lawmaking? In an obvious appeal to the Internet community, Rep. Darrell Issa introduced The Internet Moratorium Act (IAMA), via Reddit. Rep. Darrell Issa proposed the new bill Tuesday in an effort to prevent lawmakers from enacting any new Internet regulations over the next two years. Passing the bill— which at this point is only a “discussion draft—would be an unlikely move for Congress. Opponents argue banning all new Internet regulations might not actually be beneficial for net neutrality opponents like Issa and other Republicans. Issa will hold an “ask me anything” session on Reddit Wednesday to explain the bill further.

The U.S. Treasury, in a report mandated by Congress, once again declined to say that China—or any other major trading partner—meets its definition of being a currency manipulator. The report did say that China ought to have “greater exchange-rate flexibility” but noted that in the last two and half years, China’s currency, the renminbi, had appreciated by more than 12. The report also said that the renminbi was “significantly undervalued” and that “further appreciation of the [renminbi] against the dollar … is warranted.”


Former Melrose Place actress Amy Locane-Bovenizer was found guilty Tuesday of vehicular homicide and assault by auto after she slammed her SUV into another car in 2010, killing a passenger and severely injuring the driver. At the time of the incident, Locane-Bovenizer had a blood-alcohol content that was almost three times the legal limit. The defense conceded that the actress was drunk, but claimed another motorist who was pursuing Locane-Bovenizer—after being rear-ended by her—was criminally responsible. Locane-Bovenizer faces 15 years in prison. She will be sentenced March 1.

Cue the controversy. The American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends that emergency contraceptives be prescribed to teenagers just in case they need it. Teenagers will be more likely to use the contraception if they have it handy, the academy said. Teen-pregnancy rates are falling in the United States, though they still outpace other developed countries. The so-called morning-after pill can further help prevent unwanted pregnancy, according to the group of pediatricians. Females who are 17 and older and males 18 and older can currently get emergency contraception without a prescription.

We hope Apple Maps can at least find its way to the unemployment office. According to Bloomberg News, Apple has reportedly fired the manager responsible for the iPhone 5’s much-ridiculed mapping software, following backlash over the fact that the app often fails to get users where they want to go. Richard Williamson oversaw the mapping team charged with building an app to replace Google’s map program—an effort that was part of Apple’s attempt to scale back the reliance with a competitor.

Susan Rice didn’t do a very good job assuaging three Republican senators’ concerns about her explanation of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Libya. In fact, after a closed-door meeting with the U.N. ambassador Tuesday, Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Kelly Ayotte were left even more worried than before. According to Senator Ayotte, Rice said she was wrong in claiming on national television that the attack had been spurred by a spontaneous demonstration. Rice’s comments, however, were not made immediately after the attack but five days later with the help of intelligence.