Politico - An amateur videographer captured the scene outside Rod Blagojevich's Chicago home tonight, where he greeted a visiting minister, posed for a picture with a young boy, and switched into Spanish for the Latino media.

AP - Lilly Ledbetter, a 70-year-old Alabaman with a quick smile and a slow Southern drawl, campaigned for Barack Obama, joined him on the inaugural train trip to Washington and danced with him at an inaugural ball.

AP - China recently surpassed Japan as the U.S. government's largest creditor. Any decision by Beijing to move its money would deal a dizzying new blow to an already tottering American economy. Yet relations between China and the new Obama administration are off to a rocky start.

Politico - Even as President Barack Obama issued new rules to make government more open and transparent, his administration is relying on an antiquated and opaque disclosure system.

AP - A former top aide to Sen. Thad Cochran now implicated in a lobbying scandal got paid more than $20,000 by the Mississippi Republican after leaving his office and starting another high-paid government job at the state's public broadcasting agency.

AP - The ranking GOP member of the Senate Finance Committee wants Congress to reconsider new funding to the National Science Foundation amid allegations that top staffers spent long stretches of their day surfing the Internet for pornography.

AP - Text of the Food and Drug Administration record citing the September 2008 incident in which chopped peanuts from Peanut Corp. of America were caught at the U.S. border:

Politico - Hot Springs, Va. – A day after uniting in opposition to the new president, Republicans in the House see little chance of a bipartisan accord on the massive package of spending and tax cuts Democrats approved along party lines Wednesday.

AP - A priest in an ultraconservative society recently rehabilitated by Pope Benedict XVI has defended a bishop in his group and joined him in expressing doubts about the Holocaust.

AP - President Barack Obama is hailing Senate passage of legislation providing government-sponsored health care to roughly 4 million uninsured children.

Politico - Blog: A reader notes that Geithner has already done his bit for one segment of the economy: The online nanny tax prep industry. The online

AP - Employment costs edged up in the final three months of the year at the smallest pace in nearly a decade while the gain for the entire year was the weakest showing in more than a quarter century.

AP - Zimbabwe's main opposition will join a unity government early next month, the party's leader said Friday, offering hope the country's leaders can turn to addressing a humanitarian catastrophe.

Politico - Blog: Affirmative action at the RNC?

AP - A man who had both hands hacked off during Sierra Leone's civil war testified Friday as the last prosecution witness in the war crimes case against Charles Taylor.

AP - Former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele got the most votes in the third round of balloting for the Republican National Committee chairmanship. He got 51, but that wasn't enough.

AP - Labor, riding high after quick wins with President Barack Obama, faces the harsh reality that the Democratic-controlled Congress will not find it easy to push more fiercely contested legislation to improve the status of workers or the unions trying to organize them.

Politico - Blog: I've been hunting around for polling data to explain why Democrats are so eager to make Rush Limbaugh the face of the Republican Party, and lo, Mark

AP - The speaker of Florida's House of Representatives says he's stepping down to deal with legal issues stemming from a probe of his lucrative job at a state college.

AP - British police say a man has been attacked and killed on his way to a hospital to visit his newborn son.

AP - President Barack Obama's last campaign was all about winning the presidency. Now his political supporters are throwing election-style house parties across the country to try to get people behind his economic stimulus plan.

AP - They call it 'stimulus' legislation, but the economic measures racing through Congress would devote tens of billions of dollars to causes that have little to do with jolting the country out of recession.

Politico - Blog: Michael Steele is now very close, as the voting for the Chairman of the RNC goes into a record sixth round -- and Michigan GOP ChairmanSaul Anuzis h

Politico - Republican National Committee Chair Mike Duncan announced Friday afternoon he was ending his re-election bid after three rounds of voting that showed his support slipping in the face of spirited opposition.

AP - White House press secretary Robert Gibbs says President Barack Obama will sign a bill to give consumers more time to get ready for the switch from analog to digital television broadcasts. The switch under current law is set for Feb. 17.

AP - Using a 19th-century law, a British court has fined a man 150 pounds ($215) after be admitted riding a horse while drunk.

AP - The Republican Party chose the first black national chairman in its history Friday, just shy of three months after the nation elected a Democrat as the first African-American president. The choice marked no less than 'the dawn of a new party,' declared the new GOP chairman, former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele.

AP - Battered by layoffs, debts and dread of worse to come, shoppers clutched ever tighter to their wallets in the final three months of 2008 and thrust the economy into its worst downhill slide in a quarter-century. Americans cut spending on everything from cars to computers, and it's only getting worse so far in the new year.

Politico - Blog: Claire McCaskill is mad.

Politico - Former Maryland Lt. Gov Michael Steele triumphed over four opponents in the race for Republican National Committee chairman Friday, giving the party its first black chairman as well as a forceful communicator at a time of political weakness.

AP - Sen. Carl Levin, who chairs the Armed Services Committee, said Friday he believes the time is ripe for the U.S. to pursue a fresh partnership with Russia aimed at deterring Iranian missiles.

AP - President Barack Obama on Friday opened his relationship with Chinese President Hu Jintao, promising cooperation in a phone call that broadly covered sensitive trade issues, the global financial crisis and the North Korean nuclear threat.

AP - Cypriot authorities on Friday searched a cargo ship suspected by the United States of carrying Iranian arms to Hamas militants in Gaza.

Politico - Blog: Conservative media critic Brent Bozell and some conservative bloggers have been making hay with this week's Politico story on the running, rolling c

Politico - Michael Steele emerged victorious in the election for chairman of the Republican National Committee Friday, and proclaimed a fresh start for a party that faces a long road back to political power.

AP - A Spanish judge's decision to investigate seven Israeli officials over a deadly 2002 attack against Hamas that had nothing to do with Spain has renewed a debate about the long arm of European justice.

Politico - Tom Daschle, under fire for not paying taxes, made nearly $5.3 million in the last two years, records released Friday show.

AP - The State Department said Friday it will not renew Blackwater Worldwide's contract to protect American diplomats in Iraq when it expires in May.

AP - Senate Democrats promised more money for infrastructure projects when an almost $900 billion version of President Barack Obama's stimulus plan hits the Senate floor next week.