Musharraf Declares State of Emergency  —  The Pakistani leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, declared a state of emergency tonight, suspending the country's constitution, blacking out all independent television news reports and filling the streets of the capital with hundreds of police and soldiers.

Survivor  —  In a new NEWSWEEK poll, Hillary Clinton took the heat at this week's Democratic debate and emerged undamaged.  —  Stan Honda / AFP-Getty Images  —  The New York senator listens to John Edwards during the Oct. 30 Democratic debate in Philadelphia

Mukasey all but a shoo-in for approval  —  Two Democrats on the judiciary panel express concerns but say they will vote to confirm him as attorney general.  —  WASHINGTON — Michael B. Mukasey appeared on Friday to be all but assured of becoming the nation's 81st attorney general …

Thompson Adviser Has Criminal Past  —  Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson has been crisscrossing the country since early this summer on a private jet lent to him by a businessman and close adviser who has a criminal record for drug dealing.  —  Thompson selected the businessman …

Thousands return to safer Iraqi capital  —  BAGHDAD - In a dramatic turnaround, more than 3,000 Iraqi families driven out of their Baghdad neighborhoods have returned to their homes in the past three months as sectarian violence has dropped, the government said Saturday.

Flag-burning 'lesson' provokes UM student  —  ORONO, Maine - A University of Maine student alleges her former professor offered extra credit to class members if they burned the American flag or the U.S. Constitution or were arrested defending free speech.  —  On the first day of class …

Dissident  —  Natan Sharansky's passion for democracy isn't always welcome in the West.  —  JERUSALEM—An eternity ago, in 2004, the former Soviet refusenik and Israeli government minister Natan Sharansky called George W. Bush "a dissident President"—"jokingly," he tells me, thinking back to that first White House meeting.

We're twinseparable!  Happy with his brother, the boy who refused to die  —  They say twins share a strong bond - but the one between Gabriel and Ieuan Jones was unbreakable.  —  When doctors found that Gabriel was weaker than his brother, with an enlarged heart,and believed he was going to die …

DO NOT TRUST CONTENT FROM ANDREW SULLIVAN: I can't go around answering all of Andrew Sullivan's misrepresentations, but it's telling that he can't seem to criticize me without misrepresenting what I've said.  In this post he links to a truncated version of my views on the torture debate on another blog.

Top US analyst hits back after death threats over Citigroup downgrade  —  Meredith Whitney: The $360bn analyst |  Citigroup fears send Wall Street reeling |  Citigroup chief is about to quit amid mounting woes |  Wall St braced for $10bn more credit crunch hits

Factoid of the Day: Hillary's name  —  This is more or less just sad, but it does give you a sense of the depth to which Hillary is embedded in American culture.  —  The chart above measures the rank of the name "Hillary" among the top 1,000 American baby names.

Reconcilable Differences  —  The Iraqi parliament behaves like a bunch of politicians.  —  How much does it matter that the Iraqi parliament has not yet passed an oil law?  According to war critics, it is the only thing that matters: Iraqis' failure to complete "reconciliation" by passing …

McCain adjusts border control stance to security first  —  SIMPSONVILLE, S.C. (AP) — John McCain spent months earlier this year arguing that the United States must pair border security efforts with a temporary worker program and an eventual path to citizenship for many illegal immigrants.