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The rotunda of the U.S. Capitol is seen as Republicans and Democrats square off over a spending bill in the House of Representatives with votes scheduled throughout the night on Capitol Hill. (Photo by J. Scott Applewhite / AP)

Poor lifestyles harming US heart health

Americans‘ heart health is in a woeful state, says this year’s report card from the American Heart Association. And it‘s largely because people just aren’t taking care of themselves.

HealthDay

Blog:

Our fattening habits may be set in childhood

(TIME)

Healthland

BP to get $250 million in Gulf of Mexico oil spill settlement‎

Cameron International, whose preventer failed to stop last year’s oil spill, agreed to pay BP $250 million, BP said.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Agreement reached to prevent shutdown

Congressional negotiators signed off on a spending bill that funds the government through 2012, which they believe will prevent a government shutdown.

CNN

$662-billion defense bill passes Congress

Detroit Free Press

Why ‘temporary’ tax cuts never die: payroll tax and 3 other examples

Christian Science Monitor

Japan declares nuclear plant stable

Japan’s prime minister announced that the tsunami-devastated Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant is no longer leaking radiation.

USA TODAY

Japan traders eye $200 billion power market post-Fukushima

BusinessWeek

Company trying to build a better world with green cement

For perhaps the first time after people have been trying to build a better form of cement, a British startup group seeks to create a new form of the ancient building material with an environmental focus.

Smithsonian Magazine

The race to greener bottles could be long

New York Times

NATION

US jobless claims decrease to 3-year low

The number of applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly dropped to the lowest level in three years, showing the U.S. labor market is healing.

San Francisco Chronicle

Special section:

Is America working?

Financial Times

Cremation on the rise due to economy

Huffington Post

In November, consumer inflation cools as energy costs dip

U.S. consumer prices stayed flat in November, and energy costs dropped for the second straight month, which offset higher prices that Americans paid for food, clothes and medical services.

NPR

POLITICS

Candidates go for last words in final debate before Iowa caucuses

A Republican presidential race that has been defined by its negative tone took a sunnier turn, as GOP candidates presented closing arguments to voters in the final debate before January’s Iowa caucuses.

CNN

Rivals pounce on Gingrich at last Iowa debate

Reuters

Wis. woman, 84, stands firm against voter-ID law

The biggest opponent of Wisconsin’s new voter-ID law just may be an 84-year-old woman who stands less than 5 feet tall and has lived in the same house nearly her entire life.

McClatchy Newspapers

BUSINESS

Zynga said to raise $1 billion, pricing IPO at top of range

Zynga Inc., the largest maker of games for Facebook Inc.’s website, raised $1 billion in its initial public offering, pricing the shares at the top of the marketed range, said a person with knowledge of the IPO.

San Francisco Chronicle

Fitch downgrades world’s top banks

The ratings firm Fitch downgraded a cluster of the world’s largest banks, pointing to trading challenges facing international markets.

CNN

EDUCATION

Boomers heading back to community colleges nationwide

An increasing number of people ages 50 and up are headed to community college — 388,000 were enrolled nationwide in fall 2009. That was up 6 percent from 2007 and more than 12 percent from 2005.

USA TODAY

UC Davis pepper-spraying incident spurs pledge for research

After university police sprayed student protesters with pepper spray at UC Davis, UC President Mark Yudof pledged to undertake research on the health effects of the chemical agent.

San Francisco Chronicle

HEALTH

Kids’ sugary drink intake drops when calorie data is displayed

When calorie data on sugary drinks is displayed in convenience stores, teenagers buy fewer of them, especially African-Americans and children from lower-income neighborhoods, researchers reported.

Medical News Today

Brazil bans smoking in enclosed spaces

Brazil’s president has signed a law that bans smoking in enclosed public places nationwide. The law also raises taxes on tobacco products, increasing costs up to 55 percent within four years.

ABC News

RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY

Atheist group targets holiday displays

A Wisconsin-based atheist group is taking aim at once-innocuous nativity scenes and other religious decorations around the country this holiday season.

ABC News

The nativity gets updated for modern age

With only 12 days to go until Christmas, a church group unveiled a poster to remind people of the religious aspect of the holiday — while making a statement about modern-day extravagance.

Modesto Bee

SPORTS

Bears’ Hurd arrested on federal drug charges following sting

Chicago Bears wide receiver Sam Hurd was in federal custody, charged with trying to set up a drug-dealing network after authorities arrested him with a kilogram of cocaine during a sting.

Sports Illustrated

Texans’ Wade Phillips stable after surgery on kidney, gall bladder

The Houston Texans say defensive coordinator Wade Phillips is in stable condition after undergoing surgery on his kidney and gall bladder.

CBSSports

Columns And Op-Ed

The opinions in the items below are not necessarily those of DailySource or our editors. Read more.

Blog (June Thomas):

Christopher Hitchens’ greatest Slate hits

(Slate)

Fighting Words

Column (Julie Owono):

Devaluing a controversial currency

Al Jazeera

Blog (Jane Mayer):

The most overhyped political stories of 2011

(The New Yorker)

News Desk

Editorial:

Cellphone ban won’t work

USA TODAY

Editorial:

Iraq, after US ends its war role, must now define ‘mission accomplished’

Christian Science Monitor

Blog (Ana Marie Cox):

What if Ron Paul wins Iowa?

Guardian

Column (Jim Wallis):

The real war on Christmas... by Fox News

Huffington Post

Column (Thomas Rogers):

The loud American I swore I’d never be

Salon

Site edited by: Jameson O'Neal, Nisha Dubey, Lukas Dregne, Pallavi Sukhia and Catherine Lux.

GOOD NEWS

Utah hero cop praises pinned bus crash victim’s courage

A West Valley City police officer who put his own life on the line to comfort a critically injured woman trapped beneath a bus was recognized by his colleagues for his compassion.

Salt Lake Tribune

1 of world’s tiniest babies lives to due date, going home in California

At birth, Melinda Star Guido weighed 9 1/2 ounces — less than a can of soda, among the smallest in the world. Most don’t survive, but doctors are preparing to send her home by New Year’s.

CBS News

Anonymous donors are paying off strangers’ Kmart layaway accounts

At Kmart stores across the country, anonymous donors are paying off strangers‘ layaway accounts and buying the Christmas gifts other families couldn’t afford.

Star Tribune

WORLD

The Arab Spring turns 1 year old

More than protests, revolutions that swept across the Arab world started one year ago and were powered by the pent-up anger of millions who were suddenly no longer afraid.

CBS News

Chinese village besieged after protests

A standoff between villages and police is continuing in southern China, where police have sealed off the village of Wukan from the outside world in an attempt to quell an uprising, witnesses say.

Al Jazeera

IRAQ: END OF A WAR

Military marks end to war in Iraq

U.S. forces formally ended the war in Iraq with a modest flag-lowering ceremony in Baghdad, while to the north violence highlighted ethnic and sectarian strains threatening the country in years ahead.

Reuters

US forces end Iraq operation

YouTube

Special section:

America at a crossroads

PBS

Iraqis feel their suffering given short shrift, view the future with concern

Iraqis were relieved to see American “occupiers” gone but remain fearful for the future of their shattered country only barely beginning to recover from the savagery and destruction of the war.

Washington Post

Blog:

10 grim lessons learned from the Iraq war

(TIME)

Global Spin

Bradley Manning pre-trial hearing opens amid tight security

Bradley Manning will be seen in public for the first time since he was arrested in Iraq in May 2010 for allegedly leaking hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. state documents to WikiLeaks.

Guardian

Blog:

As Manning heads to trial, new push for whistleblower protections

(Msnbc.com)

U.S. News

ENVIRONMENT

Youth farms keep New Orleans teens in school gardens

Grow Dat Youth Farm in New Orleans has solved the mystery. Teens can now develop skills in farming beyond middle school, says Denise Richter, who runs gardens for preteen youth.

Grist

Facebook ‘unfriends’ coal and ‘likes’ clean power, renewables

Facebook announced it will move from coal, and power its operations — including data centers — with clean and renewable energy, following a two-year campaign by environmental group Greenpeace.

Guardian

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Scientists find microbes in lava tube living in conditions like those on Mars

A team of scientists from Oregon has collected microbes from ice within a lava tube in the Cascade Mountains and found that they thrive in extremelty cold, Mars-like conditions.

ScienceDaily

Research on chimps to be restricted

The National Institutes of Health suspended all new grants for biomedical and behavioral research on chimpanzees and accepted the first uniform criteria for assessing the necessity of such research.

San Jose Mercury News

LIVING AND ENTERTAINMENT

Journalist, author Christopher Hitchens dies from pneumonia

British journalist Christopher Hitchens has died from pneumonia at a hospital in Houston, Texas, complications of esophageal cancer, Vanity Fair reported.

BBC

Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011

The Atlantic

Blog:

Christopher Hitchens: ‘atheist intellectual,’ ‘noble contrarian’

(NPR)

The two-way

Charles’ gifts

Charles Dickens is one of the most important writers of the 19th century. But his influence goes far beyond just literature.

BBC

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