Washington, DC - Why did 26 House Republicans vote to block reauthorization of the Patriot Act? The Bush-era law, which gives the government broad surveillance powers, has been hated by the lefties and libertarians for years. Ahead of the vote, Rep. Dennis Kucinich said it would be the Constitution-loving "Tea Party's first test." Well, did they pass?

Maybe? During the last fall's election campaign, the Tea Party talked a good game about freedom and respect for America's founding documents, and libertarian Rep. Ron Paul--one of only three Republican congressmen to oppose the Patriot Act in 2001--is considered a founding father of the movement. But of the 26 Republicans who voted down the bill--which allowed the secret FISA court to continue granting roving wiretaps, warrants for all kinds of records (library, medical, etc.), and warrants to monitor someone without evidence he's working for some kind of foreign entity--only eight were freshmen. In fact, 44 of the 52 members of the Tea Party caucus voted for the extension. Plus, two of the nays were establishment Republicans weighing Senate campaigns.

So if the dreaded Big Brother bill wasn't temporarily slayed for the sake of civil liberties (and it was temporary--Republicans will surely bring it up again under different rules so only a simple majority is needed to pass it), why did so many vote against it? It might have more to do with the guy in the White House and the defeat of many moderates in the midterms. As Geoff notes at Ace of Spades HQ, last year, the extension passed fairly easily--in part because almost two-thirds of Democrats voted for it, as did 94 percent of Republicans. This year, 89 percent of Republicans voted for it, while just 35 percent of Democrats did so. Maybe some GOP n00bs just don't trust Obama with all that hopey changey wiretappy stuff.

Police completed a terror training exercise which envisaged an attack on London's transport network just days before the 7/7 atrocity, an inquest heard today.

During the 'table top' drill, officers were asked to respond to imaginary bombings at Waterloo, Embankment and St James's Park Underground stations.

But there was absolutely no intelligence at the time to suggest such an attack was imminent, the hearing was told.

Instead, the scenario drawn up by a detective chief superintendent was designed to see how the force would cope if police were prevented from getting to work.

Assistant Commissioner Chris Allison agreed that a potential attack on the Underground was a 'very real contemplation' for the Metropolitan Police at the time.

But he insisted the force had no specific information indicating suicide bombers were on the brink of perpetrating the worst single terrorist atrocity on British soil

Cairo - The Egyptian government has made clear it believes a chief culprit stoking the anti-government protests roiling the country is pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera.

Security forces have detained, and later released, at least nine Al-Jazeera correspondents since the protests erupted last month. Authorities have banned its Arabic and English language channels from broadcasting and revoked the press credentials of all of its journalists. The channel has continued to report despite the restrictions.

Pro-government thugs set the Qatar-based network's Cairo offices ablaze last week, along with the equipment inside, as part of a broad pattern of attacks on journalists covering the unrest.

The network has won accolades from many around the globe for its near round-the-clock coverage of the unprecedented unrest in Egypt, and seen a spike in interest in its report from U.S. viewers. But it has collided head-on with Egyptian authorities, who have sought to portray the broadcaster - the Arab world's most popular - as a malevolent force fueling the unrest.

Egypt's newly appointed vice president, Omar Suleiman, told Egyptian newspaper editors on Tuesday that "certain satellite channels" are provoking the protesters and insulting Egypt.

The threat of terrorism is at "its most heightened state" since the 9/11 attacks nearly a decade ago, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said today.

"The terrorist threat facing our country has evolved significantly in the last ten years -- and continues to evolve -- so that, in some ways, the threat facing us is at its most heightened state since those attacks," she said before the House Homeland Security Committee.


Her comments were a sobering reminder that the potential of another attack is real and growing, most notably from individuals radicalized inside the United States, despite elaborate security measures implemented by the government since 2001.

"One of the most striking elements of today's threat picture is that plots to attack America increasingly involve American residents and citizens," Napolitano said, referring to so-called homegrown terrorists fueled by the Internet and connections with operatives overseas.

Washington - The United States will work to ensure that turmoil in Egypt does not create "new dangers for Israel or the region," a top US diplomat said in prepared testimony to a key congressional committee.

"One constant in a changing region is our unwavering support for Israel's security," Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg said in a written statement to the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.

"Where Israel has already made peace, we will work with focus and vigor to preserve and deepen it and to make clear that we count on governments that have made peace with Israel to sustain their commitments," he said.

WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence indicates "a strong likelihood" that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is on his way out and may step down as early as Thursday night, CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress.

Panetta said he didn't know specifics, but said it seemed likely that Mubarak would turn over powers to his vice president, Omar Suleiman. Panetta made the comments in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee as Egyptian state TV said the embattled president would speak to the nation Thursday night from his palace in Cairo.

Committee Chairman Mike Rogers of Michigan asked Panetta about news reports that Mubarak was poised to relinquish power.

"I got the same information you did, that there is a strong likelihood that Mubarak will step down this evening, which will be significant in terms of where the hopefully orderly transition in Egypt will take place," the CIA director said. Panetta did not say how the CIA reached that conclusion.

It is looking increasingly likely that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is not going to retain the presidency until September. In fact, he might not even retain it until dawn tomorrow.

With mass protests expected to resume Friday - organizers are expecting the biggest turnout in Cairo yet, with demonstrators scheduled to stream in from around the country - there has been a frenzy of activity today from the military and the ruling National Democratic Party that all make the convincing case that something is afoot.

Mubarak is expected to speak tonight. NBC News and Al Jazeera have both reported, citing unnamed sources, that Mubarak will step down.

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Hosni Mubarak's control of Egypt's state media, a vital linchpin of his 30-year presidency, has started to slip as the country's largest-circulation newspaper declared its support for the uprising against him.

Hoping to sap the momentum from street protests demanding his overthrow, the president has instructed his deputy to launch potentially protracted negotiations with secular and Islamist opposition parties. The talks continued for a second day on Monday without yielding a significant breakthrough.

But Mr Mubarak was dealt a significant setback as the state-controlled Al-Ahram, Egypt's second oldest newspaper and one of the most famous media publications in the Middle East, abandoned its long-standing position of slavish support for the regime.

In a front-page leader, the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Osama Saraya hailed the "nobility" of what he described as a "revolution" and demanded that the government embark on irreversible constitutional and legislative changes.

"The state and all its denizens, the elder generation, the politicians and all other powers on the political stage must humble themselves and rein themselves in to understand the ambitions of the young and the dreams of this nation," he wrote.

There was no call on the president to resign and while it may yet prove that Al Ahram's editorial shift may be tactical rather than genuine, opposition supporters expressed astonishment at the development.

"Strained by rising demand and battered by bad weather, the global food supply chain is stretched to the limit, sending prices soaring and sparking concerns about a repeat of food riots last seen three years ago. Signs of the strain can be found from Australia to Argentina, Canada to Russia. On Friday, Tunisia's president fled the country after trying to quell deadly riots in the North African country by slashing prices on food staples. "We are entering a danger territory," Abdolreza Abbassian, chief economist at the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said last week. The U.N.'s fear is that the latest run-up in food prices could spark a repeat of the deadly food riots that broke out in 2008 in Haiti, Kenya and Somalia. That price spike was relatively short-lived. But Abbassian said the latest surge in food stuffs may be more sustained. "Situations have changed. The supply/demand structures have changed," Abbassian told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "Certainly the kind of weather developments we have seen makes us worry a little bit more that it may last much, much longer. Are we prepared for it? Really this is the question." Global food stock piles have fallen drastically because of disaster relief across the globe. "I haven't seen numbers this low that I can remember in the last 20 or 30 years," said Dennis Conley, an agricultural economist at the University of Nebraska. "We are at record low stocks. So if there any kind of glitch at all in the U.S. weather, supplies are going to remain tighter and we might see even higher prices." -MSNBC