Good morning, it's Sunday. Here's what's going on...

A snowstorm is wreaking havoc in the Midwest and Northeast, combat is intensifying in Gaza and the University of Virignia and Swarthmore College can claim "best value" status among U.S. universities.

Also:

The New York Times reports that President Bush declined an Israeli request to hit Iran's main nuclear processing location with bunker-busting bombs. Bush instead offered Israel improved access to U.S. intelligence on Iran's nuclear activities.

The man who would be senator from Illinois, Roland Burris, talks issues with the Chicago Tribune. He says he would support President-elect Barack Obama's stimulus efforts but wouldn't be a "rubber stamp."

A Los Angeles Times reporter writes of riding with the Taliban in Afghanistan. From Paul Watson: "In Ghazni province, at least, the Taliban militants are not frightened fighters skulking in caves, sneaking out to ambush and then scurrying off to another mountain hide-out. They live comfortably in the farming villages where many of them were born, holding territory, recruiting and training new troops, reveling in what they see as God's gift of inevitable victory against heathen foreign occupiers."

Saturday
• Demonstrations against the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip are planned in several cities in the nation and around the world.

• The Washington, D.C., Veterans Affairs Medical Center hosts the annual Winterhaven Homeless Veterans Stand Down. Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake will be there.

• The aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush will be commissioned in Norfolk, Va.

• In Denver, the National Western Stock Show opens.

Sunday
• Look smart: The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies holds a dress rehearsal for the 2009 inaugural ceremonies and inaugural parade.

• In Detroit, the curtain rises on the North American International Auto Show with the announcement of the car and truck of the year. Here are the finalists.

• The five-day forecast for Phoenix: Heavy concentration of weatherpeople. The 89th annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society is in town. Its theme: “Urban Weather and Climate: Now and the Future.”

Monday

• Accused Wall Street mega-swindler Bernard Madoff finds out whether he'll be investing time in a jail cell. A federal judge is considering revoking Madoff's bail and house arrest for sending jewelry and other valuables to his brother, violating a court-ordered freeze of his assets.

• President-elect Obama meets Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

• The Departments of Veterans Affairs, Transportation and Defense have enlisted NASCAR legend Richard Petty to announce a safe-driving campaign for military personnel recently demobilized. The VA says vehicle crashes "are the leading cause of death among veterans in the early years after they return from deployment."

• The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace releases a report that it says provides the first overview of U.S. nuclear spending.

• The American Lung Association presents the results of its annual "State of Tobacco Control" report.

A Texas death-row inmate who plucked out his right eye before his 2004 trial has dug out his left eye and eaten it, The Associated Press reports.

Andre Thomas, 25, has a history of mental troubles. He was convicted of fatally stabbing his estranged wife, their young son and her 13-month-old daughter before ripping their hearts out. After Thomas pulled out his right eye while in the Grayson County Jail, a judge ruled he was competent to stand trial.

Thomas was treated at the prison infirmary after gouging out his eye Dec. 9 and has been moved to a psychiatric facility outside Houston.

"He will finally be able to receive the mental health care that we had wanted and begged for from day 1," Bobbie Peterson-Cate, Thomas' trial attorney, told the Sherman Herald Democrat. "He is insane and mentally ill. It is exactly the same reason he pulled out the last one."

No execution date has been set.

(Undated file photo from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.)

Starting next month, most California state offices will be closed on the first and third Fridays of each month to help close a projected $42 billion deficit.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says that by forcing state workers to take unpaid furloughs twice a month, the state will save about $1.3 billion through June 2010.

Exceptions: prisons, hospitals, parks and some other agencies, mostly those that generate money for the state, The Associated Press reports.

Malia and Sasha Obama got good news today. Grandma is moving in.

Michelle Obama announced that her mother, Marian Robinson, will join the family in their new digs at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., at least for a while.

"Mrs. Robinson will be coming with the family to help the girls get acclimated, and she will determine in the coming months whether or not she wants to stay in D.C. permanently," said Katie McCormick Lelyveld, spokeswoman for Michelle Obama. "She didn't want anyone else taking care of the kids but her. She wanted to be the one there."

During the campaign, Robinson retired from her job as a bank executive secretary to help care for Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7.

The president-elect reportedly gets on well with his mother-in-law, whom he called one of the unsung heroes of his campaign.

What about having her at the White House?

"Well, I don't tell my mother-in-law what to do," he quipped during a recent interview with 60 Minutes. "But I'm not stupid. That's why I got elected president, man."

Michelle Obama also announced she's keeping White House Chef Cristeta Comerford. Laura Bush hired her as executive chef in 2005, the first woman and first minority to hold that culinary distinction.

(July 2008 photo of Marian Robinson by M. Spencer Green, AP.)

Somali pirates have released a supertanker after a $3 million ransom apparently was parachuted onto the MV Sirius Star, which was hijacked two months ago.

A U.S. Navy ship snapped photos of a small plane parachuting a container onto the Saudi-owned oil tanker carrying 2 million barrels. The pirates later said they had left the tanker in a rubber boat and released the 25 crewmembers unharmed.

Vela International, the ship's owner, has neither confirmed the ransom nor the crew's release.

The U.S. 5th Fleet, which has been patrolling the region's waters, also has not confirmed the events. Here's the U.S. Navy's news release

Reuters, The Associated Press and the BBC have more.

But did the sea scoundrels get away?

London's Daily Mail reports that "things went badly wrong for the pirates soon after the drop." Quoting an "associate of the gang," the paper says the pirates "squabbled over how to split the money and then a wave washed off their getaway boat and drowned five of them." Two reportedly survived and one is missing.

It is not known what happened to the money or those who survived.

"Two of them swam and survived. One is still missing," according to Farah Osman, who said he was associated with the gang. "The weather was so terrible that it blew the boat over, then sank it. We got five dead bodies and we are still searching for the missing one. The waves were disastrous."

No independent confirmation of that report, however.

The tanker was seized Nov. 15 in the Indian Ocean, about 450 nautical miles from Mombassa, Kenya. The ship then relocated off Somalia and the pirates demaned $25 million.

At the time, the ship's cargo was worth more than $100 million. At today's closing price, it's now valued at $94.8 million.

The Navy, which announced yesterday that it was establishing an anti-piracy task force in the region, estimates that pirates still hold more than 300 merchant sailors from several other ships.

The Beeb explains how ransom is paid to modern pirates.

(A parachute dropped by a small plane floats toward the deck of the MV Sirius Star, top. U.S. Navy photos by Air Crewman 2nd Class David B. Hudson.)

Stocks skidded for the third straight day, slapped around some more by Adam Smith's not-so-invisible hand.

A late sell-off pushed modest losses into a deeper hole, capping the worst week since November.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.6% (143 points) to 8,599. For the week it lost 4.8%.
The S&P 500 fell 2.1% for the day (19 points) to 890. That's a 4.5% loss for the week.
The Nasdaq flopped 2.8% (45 points), ending the day at 1,571. It lost 3.7% this week.

The day's biggest whack came from the December jobless figures, a 16-year high that cemented 2008 as the worst year for job losses since World War II.

Citigroup shares dropped 6% after senior adviser Robert Rubin, Treasury secretary under President Clinton, resigned from the board. He's faced criticism for his leading role in the bank's risky, failed profit strategy that led it to seek federal bailout funds. Other financial-sector shares followed Citi down.

"My great regret is that I and so many of us who have been involved in this industry for so long did not recognize the serious possibility of the extreme circumstances that the financial system faces today," Rubin wrote.

Energy companies fell as lower oil prices began showing up on their bottom lines — but they'll still make billions.

Read up on the day and week from The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the Financial Times and The New York Times.

Hyungwon Kang of Reuters took this photograph today of the inaugural platform that is under construction outside the U.S. Capitol. President-elect Barack Obama will take the oath of office on Jan. 20. Read more about the transition and the new administration at The Oval, our newest blog.

The mayor of Baltimore was charged today with perjury, theft and other crimes, The Sun reports.

The paper says Mayor Sheila Dixon, a Democrat, is accused of various corrupt practices in the 12-count indictment, including the acceptance of expensive gifts from a developer she used to date.

"Dixon has been the target of a nearly three-year probe by State Prosecutor Robert A. Rohrbaugh into corruption at City Hall, an investigation that has centered on allegations that Dixon has used her office to award lucrative contracts to various people including her sister, her boyfriend and her former campaign chairman," the Sun says.

WBAL-TV says Dixon faces four counts of perjury, three counts of theft, three counts of misappropriation and two counts of misconduct.

Update at 3 p.m. ET: "I am being unfairly accused," Dixon says in a statement. "Time will prove that I have done nothing wrong, and I am confident that I will be found innocent of these charges."

The Examiner posted a copy of the indictment. Here's an excerpt (click for a larger version):

The Illinois Supreme Court just ruled that the secretary of state doesn't have to sign the certificate appointing Roland Burris to the U.S. Senate, AP reports.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich named Burris, a former state attorney general, to replace Barack Obama after federal prosecutors charged the governor with trying to sell the seat.

Secretary of State Jesse White has refused to sign the certification, leaving Burris in limbo.

Update at 2 p.m. ET: Here's an excerpt from the court's opinion:

Because the Secretary of State had no duty under section 5(1) of the Secretary of State Act to sign and affix the state seal to the document issued by the Governor appointing Roland Burris to the United States Senate, Petitioners are not entitled to an order from this court requiring the Secretary to perform those Acts. Under the Secretary of State Act, the Secretary’s sole responsibility was to register the appointment, which he did. No further action is required by the Secretary of State or any other official to make the Governor’s appointment of Roland Burris to the United States Senate valid under Illinois law. Moreover, to the extent that additional proof of the validity of the appointment is necessary, Illinois law provides a mechanism for obtaining it without the need for judicial intervention. For the foregoing reasons, petitioners’ request for issuance of a writ of mandamus is denied. Mandate to issue forthwith.

China has arrested 60 people in connection with the contamination of baby formula that sickened hundred of thousands of children, AP reports.

At least six children died after ingesting formula that was tainted with melamine.

The Chinese Ministry of Public Security says on its website that those arrested are accused of "producing or selling toxic and harmful food products," according to AFP.

Joerg Kachelmann was describing the weather on live TV Tuesday when a cat named Lupin made an unscheduled appearance, German news organizations report.

"I noticed him when he rubbed against my leg and thought people might wonder what was happening. I figured it would be easier to control the cat by picking him up. Cats get annoyed if they feel ignored. So I made sure he didn't feel ignored," he tells Reuters.

USA TODAY's Judy Keen reports that the Illinois House of Representatives just voted to impeach Gov. Rod Blagojevich on a 114-1 vote, setting the stage for a trial in the state Senate that will decide if he should be removed from office in the wake of corruption allegations.

House members who spoke before the unprecedented vote charged that the Democrat betrayed his oath of office and is not fit to lead the state. Blagojevich is the first Illinois governor to be impeached.

"We stand here today because of the perfidy of one man: Rod Blagojevich," said Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, a Democrat who chaired a special impeachment committee. "To overturn the results of an election is not something that should be undertaken lightly."

It takes 60 votes in the 118-member House to approve impeachment. The two-term Democratic governor could be removed from office with a votes of 40 of 59 members of the Senate.

Update at 12:21 p.m. ET: Lucio Guerrero, Blagojevich's spokesman, told USA TODAY the governor will not resign. He's scheduled to hold a news conference at 3 p.m. ET.

(Photo by Jeff Roberson, AP.)

We missed this earlier in the week: Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne spent $236,000 to redecorate the bathroom in his office, The Washington Post says. The paper reports that taxpayers paid for "a new shower, a refrigerator and a freezer and buying monogrammed towels."

KTVB-TV says the department denied that it purchased monogrammed towels.

The Post now reports on one of its blogs that Interior Department Inspector General Earl Devaney is looking into the 100-square-foot bathroom. An Interior spokesman tell the paper that they took pains to preserve the "storied history" of the secretary's office. In fact, the project came in under budget, the Post says.

Earlier: Gov't builds exec $65K bathroom with shower, sitting room

Anja Niedringhaus of the Associated Press took this photograph of smoke over the Gaza Strip today from the Israeli border. Reuters says at least 784 Palestinians and 13 Israelis have been killed since Dec. 27, when Israel launched its military campaign in response to Hamas rocket fire.

USA TODAY's Judy Keen reports that in the first hour of impeachment-related speeches in the Illinois House chamber, no one defended the governor.

House Republican Leader Tom Cross said Gov. Rod Blagojevich "repeatedly and systematically" violated his oath of office and the trust voters placed in him. "You ought to be angry. You ought to be disgusted," he says. "We have no choice but to vote 'yes' today."

Rep. John Fritchey, a Democrat who served on the impeachment committee, says Blagojevich put self-interest above the public interest. "This House is united to right the wrong that's been done to the people of Illinois," he says

"It's been an ugly and shameful spectacle. Rod Blagojevich, you should be ashamed of yourself," says Democratic Rep. Susana Mendoza.

Rep. David Miller, another Democrat, says some of his constituents wonder why the House began impeachment proceedings before Blagojevich is found guilty of a crime. Currie said the state constitution does not require a criminal conviction before a governor is impeached.

A bank error led Countrywide Financial to begin foreclosure proceedings against Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., local news organizations report.

"GreenBank spokesman Bill Adams said in a letter dated Thursday that Blackburn's husband had authorized several electronic mortgage payments for the home in the Nashville suburb, but that the bank failed to send the money to Countrywide Financial," AP reports. "Adams says the Greeneville-based bank is working with Countrywide to resolve the issue."

(File photo taken Sept. 4, 2008, by H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY.)

Frederick McLean "is the most wanted child predator in the U.S. right now," Deputy U.S. Marshal Steve Jurman tells the San Diego Union-Tribune.

McLean, 57, is accused of molesting dozens of children in Southern California. He has not been convicted of a crime.

The Marshals Service says he disappeared a few months before investigators obtained an arrest warrant.

"In September 2004, McLean’s father-in-law woke up one morning to find McLean’s truck in his driveway," the Marshals Service says. "Inside the truck were McLean’s cell phone, letters for the family, and instructions on how to sell the vehicle. It was evident from his actions that he believed criminal charges against him were looming."

Click here for a PDF of the wanted poster.

The Chicago Tribune says parents are suing the city school system because a security guard reportedly strip-searched three teenage girls in late 2007 after a small fire in a charter school bathroom.

The guard, an off-duty cop "who was wearing her police uniform with a holstered service weapon, reached up and searched under each student's blouse and ordered the girls to take down their pants and underwear and 'squat and cough,'" the paper says, citing information from the plaintiff's attorney, who says the guard didn't find the lighter.

An official at ASPIRA Early College High School tells the Sun-Times that the search, if it took place, would have been inappropriate. "The [alleged] strip-search -- that can never, ever be justified,'' Sonia Sanchez, chairwoman of ASPIRA of Illinois, tells the paper.

The nation's unemployment rate hit 7.2% last month, the Labor Department says.

"In December, the number of unemployed persons increased by 632,000 to 11.1 million and the unemployment rate rose to 7.2 percent.  Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has grown by 3.6 million, and the unemployment rate has risen by 2.3 percentage points," the department says.

It's rare. It's venomous. It's kind of cute.

This photograph by Gregory Guida of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust shows a rare mammal known as the Hispaniolan solenodon.

The group, which filmed the solenodon last summer in the Dominican Republic, tells BBC News that not much is known about the species.

"This strange looking shrew-like creature with a long snout and specialized teeth capable of delivering venom represents the last of an ancient lineage of early mammals that lived near the end of the age of the dinosaurs," the Trust says in a statement. "Only two solenodon species survive today, one in Haiti and the Dominican Republic and the other in Cuba, and both are threatened with extinction through habitat loss and introduced predators."

BBC News has a lengthy report about the discovery, including video footage of the animal shown above.

Here's some background information.

A federal judge sent the sheriff of Morgan County, Ala., to jail Wednesday because he wasn't giving his prisoners enough to eat.

"About 10 prisoners told the judge that they were not being fed properly. One inmate's record showed he'd lost more than 50 pounds since entering the jail. Others said that late last year, they were fed corn dogs every day for weeks on end," WAAY-TV reports. "The judge asked about the jail's menu, which is approved by a nutritionist and is posted online every month. Most witnesses said the menu posted online did not match what they actually received."

Why? Thanks to a state law that allows jailers to keep the money that's left over from their food budgets, The New York Times reports that Sheriff Greg Bartlett has been able to earn $212,000 over the last three years by spending less than $1.75 a day to feed each person who was held at the Morgan County Jail.

U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon found Bartlett in violation of a consent decree and ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to detain him until he agreed to give the prisoners more than "a few spoonfuls of grits, part of an egg and a piece of toast at breakfast, and bits of undercooked, bloody chicken at supper," the paper says.

After one night in the clink, Bartlett produced a plan that satisfied the judge.

Good morning. It's Friday. This is what we're reading on other news sites:

Mideast: The New York Times says the United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross "lashed out at Israel" over its actions in Gaza. Red Cross workers tell The Washington Post that they were blocked from rescuing civilians in a residential area for four days. They have since found as many as 50 bodies in the Zaytoun neighborhood.

"There are still people under demolished houses -- we are sure of it," ambulance driver Khaled Abuzaid tells the Post. "But without water or electricity, we are sure they will die."

The U.N. Security Council approved a resolution that calls for a cessation of hostitilities, but the Financial Times reports that both sides "ignored" that effort.

Inauguration: Executives at Wall Street firms that received federal financial assistance are picking up the tab for some of this month's presidential festivities, according to The Wall Street Journal. Here's an excerpt:

Financial-executive donors to the Obama inauguration include an executive from Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which declared bankruptcy last fall. The executive has bundled at least $115,000 in donations so far for the inaugural, according to records made public by the Obama organization.

Other bundlers from the financial sector include executives from Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., two New York-based institutions that have accepted billions of dollars each in rescue money from the federal government. The analysis shows that Lou Susman, a Chicago-based managing director for Citigroup, bundled $265,000 in inaugural donations for Mr. Obama ... Goldman provided at least $175,000 in donations, primary through bundling activities by Jennifer Scully and Bruce Heyman, two banking executives there.

Bailout: Speaking of efforts to rescue the nation's top financial firms, The Washington Post is reporting that Timothy Geitner, the incoming president's pick for Treasury, wants to overhaul the $700 billion bailout that was approved last fall.

The paper says Obama's economic team wants to "expand the program's aid to municipalities, small businesses, homeowners and other consumers."

Coming Friday:

• President-elect Obama will formally nominate Leon Panetta to head the CIA and Dennis Blair as Director of National Intelligence. Also, John Brennan will be named as the White House homeland security adviser and deputy national security adviser for counterterrorism. He had been a contender for the CIA job but withdrew after opposition about his policy role in harsh interrogations of terror suspects.

• The Labor Department delivers the bad unemployment news for December, and the Joint Economic Committee will hold a hearing on the jobs report. Also on the economic calendar, the Commerce Department reports November wholesale inventories.

• The House Financial Services Committee holds a hearing on federal oversight of loan originators. FHA officials and mortgage executives will testify. Watch it live.

The Washington Post is reporting that a CIA missile strike New Year's Day killed two top al-Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan.

They were the suspected masterminds of deadly suicide bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya in 1998 and at a Marriott hotel in Islamabad in September.

Sources told the paper the dead men were were a Kenyan national described as al-Qaeda's chief of operations in Pakistan who used the name Usama al-Kini and his lieutenant, identified as Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan. They were killed in a building the CIA said was being used for explosives training.

"They died preparing new acts of terror," an official told the paper.

Details of the attack were sketchy, but counter-terrorism officials privy to classified reports said the pair was killed by a 100-pound hellfire missiles fired by a pilotless drone aircraft operated by the CIA. The strike took place near Karikot in South Waziristan, a province in the rugged autonomous tribal region of northern Pakistan that has long been a haven for al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

The province has been frequently targeted by Predator drones in recent months as part of a controversial and increasingly lethal campaign to destabilize the terrorist group and kill key operatives. The attacks, occurring at a rate of about once every three days, have drawn protests from Pakistan's government but praise from top intelligence officials who say the strategy is forcing al-Qaeda into the open. CIA Director Michael V. Hayden, alluding to the strategy in November speech, said the United States had "taken the fight to the enemy."

The credit crisis in the United States is the worst since the Great Depression, 70 years ago, and the Federal Reserve has responded by cutting rates to historic U.S. lows.

Short history, by European standards.

Today, the Bank of England, the model for the Fed and other central banks, trimmed its official interest rates a half-point to 1.5% — the lowest since its founding 315 years ago, the Financial Times reported earlier. The BOE urged the Treasury to speed its efforts to get credit flowing to businesses and households in the United Kingdom.

A Scotsman founded the BOE in 1694 as the English government's banker.

Now that the U.S. government and taxpayers are stockholders in many publicly-traded companies that have accepted bailout funds, how can we track our $700 billion investment?

Today, the NASDAQ OMX Government Relief Index (ticker symbol QGRI) debuted on Wall Street.

According to the press release, the index "enables investors to track the performance of U.S.-listed securities that are participating in U.S. government sponsored relief programs such as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) or other direct government investments. The NASDAQ OMX Government Relief Index consists of companies across multiple industry groups that have received a direct investment from the U.S. Government greater than $1 billion."

Here's the spin:

"This Index allows taxpayers and other investors to measure the performance of U.S. companies that are participating in the government's financial relief plan,'' said NASDAQ OMX Executive Vice President John Jacobs. "We believe the NASDAQ OMX Government Relief Index will be useful in helping investors evaluate the government's investments and the impact of the relief plan on the economy during this period of historical significance.''

The index's benchmark valuation Monday was 1000.00. Today's closing? 941.42.

Meanwhile, the taxpayer-funded bailout spigot is being turned on for thousands of small, privately-held U.S. banks within "days, not weeks," sources tell The Wall Street Journal.

Don't expect an index to track those "closely held" institutions, however.

An Illinois legislative committee has voted unanimously to recommend that the full state House impeach Gov. Rod Blagojevich for allegedly trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Obama.

The full House is expected to vote tomorrow to send articles of impeachment to the state Senate. That will make Blagojevich the first impeachment of a sitting Illinois governor.

"This is a very sad day in the state of Illinois," said Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, the Chicago Democrat who chaired the impeachment panel, the Chicago Tribune reports. She called Blagojevich "an individual who is not fit to be the governor of the state of Illinois."

See earlier coverage below.

Update at 7:50 p.m. ET: In a statement, Blagojevich called the impeachment proceedings flawed and biased, and said the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

(AP file photo of Gov. Rod Blagojevich by Charles Rex Arbogast.)