The Senate's rare Christmas Eve vote, 60-39, follows House passage last week and raises the debt ceiling by $290 billion. The vote split mainly down party lines, with Democrats voting to raise the limit and Republicans voting against doing so. There was one defection on each side, by senators whose seats will be on the ballot next year: GOP Senator George Voinovich of Ohio and Democratic Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana.

"I would not support raising the debt ceiling because Congress has not adopted a credible process to restrain spending and eliminate red ink," Bayh said in a statement after the vote. The bill permits the Treasury Department to issue enough bonds to fund the government's operations and programs until mid-February. The Senate will vote again on the issue January 20.

Obama must sign the measure into law to prevent a market-rattling, first-ever default on US obligations. The government piled up a record $1.4 trillion deficit in 2009 to counter a meltdown in financial markets and help bring the nation out of its worst recession in seven decades.

The Vatican said the 82-year-old Benedict was unhurt in the fall and that his busy Christmas schedule would remain unchanged. French Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, an 87-year-old Vatican diplomat, fractured his hip in the commotion and will be operated on at Rome's Gemelli hospital, Vatican spokesman the Reverend Federico Lombardi said.

Lombardi identified the woman who toppled Benedict as Susanna Maiolo, 25, a Swiss-Italian national with psychiatric problems. He said Maiolo, who was not armed, was taken to a clinic for necessary treatment.

She was the same woman involved in a similar incident at last year's Midnight Mass, Vatican officials said. In that case, Maiolo jumped the barricade but never managed to reach the pope and was quietly tackled by security. In both cases she wore a red sweatshirt.

The most expensive law is the Working Time Directive, passed in 1998, costing £3.5 billion annually. The law has been widely criticised for imposing expensive rules on working hours, rest periods, pay and holiday entitlements, and a Government-funded report published last month also partly blamed the regulation for an increase in hospital deaths by breaking the continuity in NHS patients' care and cutting the time available for training some operating theatre staff.

Other expensive legislation includes the noise at work regulations, seen as excessively intrusive, particularly for restricting the work of noisy orchestras. Its cost is forecast to hit £586m. Open Europe's Mats Persson was quoted in the Sunday Times saying, "Far too many [EU laws] are OVERLY PRESCRIPTIVE AND UNNECESSARILY BURDENSOME for business, the public sector and individuals."

"SEVENTY-TWO PER CENT OF THE COST OF REGULATION IN THIS COUNTRY STEMS FROM EU LAWS. An incoming government must take a radical new approach to EU over-regulation and must be much tougher and smarter when negotiating in Europe."

Most Americans do not hold a clue as to Islam's systematic incursion into the United States. In 1990, a total of 100,000 Muslims made less than a ripple within America. But, because of the late Senator Teddy Kennedy's corruption of immigration and aided by our US Congress, today, MUSLIMS NUMBER FROM EIGHT TO NINE MILLION.

They enclave as they push regular Americans out of cities and towns across America. Detroit, Michigan suffers 600,000 Middle Eastern immigrants. Notice it also suffers 50 percent illiteracy and a 76 percent dropout rate from their high schools. They find themselves better served by sticking together with their religion, language and customs. THEY WORK AGAINST EVERY ASPECT OF 'ASSIMILATING' INTO AMERICA.

For simple examples of their 'separating' themselves from host countries, you may look at France, United Kingdom, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Austria, Germany, Norway and other countries overtaken by Muslims. They literally create an antagonistic culture within the host country. As of December, 2009, THEY BOAST OF 1,209 MOSQUES in America; most built with Saudi Arabia oil money.

But as the US Senate prepares to vote on a health-care reform bill that would still leave 23 million people - or nearly 8% of the US population - uninsured, it's becoming clear that the coverage being proposed would be far from universal.

To be fair, both the Senate and House versions of health reform legislation would help many of the US's estimated 54 million uninsured get some form of health insurance. About 31 million would gain coverage under the Senate bill and 36 million under the more generous - and more expensive - House's, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

But even the House bill, which passed on November 7, would still leave 6% of the country, or 18 million individuals (more than the entire population of the Netherlands, which incidentally, recently overhauled its health care system to offer universal coverage), without insurance.

The pregnant mother was stabbed to death as her husband and 3-year-old son looked on helplessly. After protests swept the Arab world, Wiens was sentenced to life in prison in November for what the court deemed a racially motivated murder.

Though shocking in its brutality, the attack was not an anomaly in Germany — authorities say the country has experienced a disturbing rise in extreme right-wing violence in recent years. The Federal Criminal Police Office (or BKA) said in a report released last week that politically and racially motivated crimes by the far right hit A RECORD HIGH OF MORE THAN 20,000 IN 2008. Figures for 2009 won't be released until early next year, but the BKA expects them also to be above normal.

"On average, two to three far-right motivated violent crimes are committed in Germany each day. And there are around three to four anti-Semitic violent crimes each month," says Jörg Ziercke, the president of the BKA. "There's a real danger to people's lives because FAR-RIGHT ATTACKS TEND TO BE VERY SPONTANEOUS, BRUTAL AND VIOLENT." Right-wing radicals have become increasingly brazen, too, carrying out attacks in public places, such as train stations, bus stops and outside bars and restaurants. In addition to el-Sherbini's murder, Ziercke says there were five politically or racially motivated attempted murders by the far right in 2009.

Ziercke says that in light of the new statistics, police surveillance of extremists should be stepped up dramatically in the New Year. Sadly, for a country that has long tried to live down its Nazi past, THE WAVE OF RIGHT-WING VIOLENCE SHOWS LITTLE SIGN OF RELENTING.

The US military invented the Internet 40 years ago. WHY CAN'T IT SIMPLY HUNT DOWN AND DESTROY THE WEBSITES THAT INSPIRE MURDEROUS FANATICS? "Most jihad cyber domains initiate very little, if any, original discussion, primarily reposting material from popular jihad forums," said a report earlier this month from MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, an organization that monitors and translates much jihadist material. "HENCE, DISABLING THE FEW PROMINENT DOMAINS COULD SERIOUSLY CRIPPLE ISLAMISTS' ABILITY TO CONDUCT MASS ONLINE DISCUSSIONS, and could also hamper the rapid spread of jihad material in cyberspace."

Last week the House Armed Services Committee held a hearing into the topic just as Arquilla was arguing in a post on Foreign Affairs magazine's website that the time had come to view al-Qaeda's cyberspace as a battlefield. "Instead of thinking of cyberspace principally as a place to gather intelligence, WE NEED TO ELEVATE IT TO THE STATUS OF 'BATTLESPACE,'" he argued. "This means that we either want to exploit terrorists' use of the Web and Net unbeknownst to them, or we want to drive them from it."

Arquilla tells TIME that al-Qaeda doesn't "put people on planes anymore because they know we're good at spotting them, and IF WE TAKE AWAY CYBERSPACE WE WOULD ACHIEVE A CRIPPLING EFFECT ON THE GLOBAL TERROR NETWORK."

A loose reformist opposition movement that swelled after a disputed presidential election in June is exploiting the rhythms of the Islamic Republic's political-religious calendar to stage rolling protests and sustain the momentum of its struggle. On Wednesday, security forces fought with protesters marking the third day after the death of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the reformists' spiritual patron, in the cities of Isfahan and Najafabad, his birthplace, a reformist website said.

The outcome of Iran's internal upheaval is uncertain - and restrictions on independent reporting hamper any assessment of what is unfolding in a complex society - but it may have set a new clock ticking, alongside the nuclear one that drives Western urgency in dealings with the world's fifth biggest oil exporter. "It is going to get messier," said Ali Ansari, a professor at Scotland's St Andrews University. "It's wishful thinking when people say nothing is going to happen or there is going to be a smooth 'velvet revolution'. It is going to get very violent."

Two senior al-Qaeda commanders in the Arabian peninsula could be among the dead, he said. Al-Qaeda has carried out frequent attacks in Yemen in recent months. The Saudi government has recently expressed its concern about the resurgence of the movement in the region.

Last week, Yemeni officials said they had killed 34 suspected al-Qaeda militants and arrested 17 in operations in Abyan province in the south and in Arhab, north of Sanaa. Officials said the militants had allegedly been planning multiple suicide attacks, with eight of them preparing explosive vests at the time of the raids. Analysts say Yemen has long been an ideal base for jihadists.

With its rugged mountains and traditionally weak central authority, it is terrain well suited to militant groups looking for hiding places and training camps.

But the revelation in the book "Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living" by New Zealanders Robert and Brenda Vale has angered pet owners who feel they are being singled out as troublemakers. The Vales, specialists in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington, analysed popular brands of pet food and calculated that a medium-sized dog eats around 164 kilos (360 pounds) of meat and 95 kilos of cereal a year.

"Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat," Barrett said. Other animals aren't much better for the environment, the Vales say. Cats have an eco-footprint of about 0.15 hectares, slightly less than driving a Volkswagen Golf for a year, while two hamsters equates to a plasma television and even the humble goldfish burns energy equivalent to two mobile telephones

Sylvie Comont, proud owner of seven cats and two dogs - the environmental equivalent of a small fleet of cars - says defiantly, "Our animals give us so much that I don't feel like a polluter at all. I think the love we have for our animals and what they contribute to our lives outweighs the environmental considerations."

The four-man, twin-propeller plane "should arrive on or shortly after December 25th," about one month ahead of schedule, Lieutenant General David Deptula, who oversees Air Force intelligence and reconnaissance, said in an e-mail today.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered the service in April 2008 to dramatically increase the number of manned and unmanned aircraft providing intelligence to ground troops. The planes also are equipped with SENSORS THAT CAN MONITOR INSURGENTS' CONVERSATIONS and help pinpoint their location, said Jeffrey Richelson, author of the "US Intelligence Community," a detailed compendium now in its fifth edition.

The sensors are provided by the National Security Agency, which manages US eavesdropping satellites.

In Poland, where temperatures have dropped to as low as -20C in some areas, police appealed for tip-offs about people spotted lying around outside. At least 42 people, most of them homeless, died over the weekend. In Ukraine 27 people have frozen to death since the thermometer dropped last week. Authorities in Romania said 11 people had succumbed to the chill, and in the Czech Republic the toll was 12. In Germany, where temperatures have fallen to -33C in certain parts, at least seven people are known to have lost their lives in the freezing weather.

For millions of others across the continent, the cold snap has brought severe disruption, with flight cancellations and traffic jams thwarting pre-Christmas travel plans. The resumption of Eurostar services brought some relief to passengers travelling between France, Belgium and England, but many trains across Europe were delayed or cancelled. Airports were struggling to cope with icy runways, with Ryanair and Easyjet among several airlines to cancel some flights.

In Italy, where winters are usually mild, motorways in the north-east were closed and the Ministry of Defence dispatched helicopters in Sicily to bring medical aid to those in need. In Milan hundreds of soldiers worked through the night to clear the snow and ice-covered streets.

Prices for carbon permits for December 2010 delivery, the benchmark contract for pricing European permits, dropped nearly 10 per cent in early trading, before recovering to end the day 8.3 per cent lower at €12.41. Lower prices give companies less incentive to invest in cutting their greenhouse gas output. Analysts estimate that prices of more than €40 a tonne are required to stimulate investment in new low-carbon technologies.

Carbon traders blamed the price fall on the Copenhagen conference, which produced an accord among the world's biggest developed and developing countries to limit their greenhouse gas emissions, but omitted details on what those limits would be. Governments now have a month to submit formal pledges on how far they will reduce their carbon output.

City Hall, public libraries, health clinics and most other city offices will be closed on Christmas Eve as those city workers are being forced to take the day off without pay. Police and Fire Department operations are not affected and will remain fully staffed. Any other worker needed to provide for the public's safety will also be on the job.

As part of the 2009 budget, three reduced-service days were planned for 2009: August 17, the Friday after Thanksgiving; and Christmas Eve. The city expects to save $8.3 million. "Every dollar we save from these measures helps to save jobs, and in the long-term, maintain services for Chicagoans," Mayor Daley said in a statement. "This plan relies on most of our civilian employees to be part of the solution to our very serious budget challenges. I want to thank them again for their efforts."

In Copenhagen, the outlines of a dangerous world were there for all to see. The climate summit did not end in a fist fight between tens of thousands of people, despite the fact that serious global problems were not resolved. Barack Obama did not have to fly out from the roof of a burning conference center. Nevertheless, it was palpable that this is a world in which TRUST IS HARDER TO COME BY THAN OIL, and where there is more mistrust than CO2 emissions.

And yet Copenhagen has proven that trust is the most important resource for the transformation of the current oil-based system into a green civilization. It is more important than all the money that will be required for new technology, more efficient machines, dams and the survival of forest inhabitants.

It is a question of trust that China does not flood Europe with even more products made using cheap coal-based power, instead of replacing coal with alternative power stations; that Europe is not isolated as an island of environmentalists, while in Africa entire countries are becoming inhospitable; that climate aid amounting to billions does not land in private bank accounts in Africa, while there is not enough money for schools in the donor country; and that America does not come to rely on cheap oil, while China and India curb their fossil fuel consumption for reasons of climate protection.

In order for 9 billion people to live together on one planet, a circle of trust is required, one that rewards solutions and punishes the wrong economic activities of the past. That does not describe some kind of paradise. Rather it is the prerequisite for preventing a world without hope. In Copenhagen a vicious circle of mistrust came in to being, one that engulfed all the good intentions and plans.