THE TENSION: The Decline and Fall of Western Civ for 2 Jan.

Osama Obama
After reading: wash, rinse and repeat.

CNN apologized Tuesday for mistakenly promoting a story on the search for Osama bin Laden with the headline "Where's Obama?"

The Associated Press reports the blunder came Monday evening on Wolf Blitzer's news show "The Situation Room." Both Soledad O'Brien and Blitzer offered separate apologies during CNN's morning show Tuesday.

CNN Should Have Seen it Coming

What's in a Name?

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton views Barack Obama as her biggest obstacle to nomination, The New York Times reports on Wednesday, but Clinton believes the threat of his candidacy will diminish as voters learn how inexperienced he is in government and foreign affairs!

As they prepare to take control of Congress this week and face up to campaign pledges to restore bipartisanship and openness, Democrats are planning to largely sideline Republicans from the first burst of lawmaking, reports The Washington Post.

We would be foolish to expect the leadership of the incoming Democrat controlled congress to keep their campaign promises to end the current brand of partisan politics gripping Washington. It's not like the Democrats have gone out of their way to work with Republicans in the last 6 years. In they end, Democrats just will not be able to help themselves; they cannot help but be who they are.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad scorned U.N Security Council sanctions imposed against Iran, AP reports, telling a crowd Tuesday that Iran had humiliated the United States in the past and would do so again.

CBS News reports whether it's because of global warming, El Nino, or just a really long warm spell, weather in New York City this winter has been awfully strange. With temperatures continually hovering around the 50 degree mark and even occasionally nearing 60, perhaps the most bizarre weather-related incident happened in Brooklyn where cherry blossoms decided to make an early appearance.

On the other side of the warm front, The Associated Press reports National Guard helicopters dropped emergency food bundles and bales of hay for people and livestock trapped by snowdrifts as high as rooftops Tuesday after back-to-back blizzards paralyzed the Plains.

Tara Reid blows New Year's Eve Countdown: 20, 9, 8, 5, 14, 13, 12, 11...

Iraq's prime minister ordered an investigation Tuesday into Saddam Hussein's execution to try to uncover who taunted the former dictator in the last minutes of his life, and who leaked inflammatory footage taken by camera phone of the hanging, reports AP.

Also from AP, the Iraqi government Monday ordered the closure of the Baghdad office of a Dubai-based television station whose newscaster wore black mourning clothes while reporting on the hanging of Hussein.

New U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ran into trouble on his first day of work Tuesday over Saddam Hussein's execution when he failed to state the United Nations' opposition to the death penalty and said capital punishment should be a decision of individual countries, according to AP. To see what all the fuss is about, click here.