SPB News for Tuesday.

Report: US Intelligence Warned India Of Possible Mumbai Terrorist Attack
An anonymous intel official tells ABC that the US in mid-October warned India of an attack "from the sea against hotels and business centers in Mumbai." The Taj Hotel was specified in the US warning, ABC reports.

WH ignored calls for bank reform

David Gregory To Moderate “Meet The Press” — David Gregory will take the reins as moderator of NBC's “Meet the Press,” the Huffington Post has learned. Gregory has been a leading contender for the permanent spot since Tom Brokaw stepped in as interim moderator following Tim Russert's death in June.

Franken May Ask Senate to Intervene in Minn. Recount — Democrat Al Franken's campaign said Monday that as many as 1,000 absentee ballots were improperly disqualified in Minnesota's Senate race, and that it may appeal to courts or the U.S. Senate to order that those ballots be counted.

U.S. Warned India in October of Potential Terror Attack — NSA Now Tracking Captured Phones, U.S. Connections — U.S. intelligence agencies warned their Indian counterparts in mid-October of a potential attack “from the sea against hotels and business centers in Mumbai,” a U.S. intelligence official tells ABCNews.com.

Obama To Vacation In Hawaii For Christmas

Pentagon hires British scientist to help build robot soldiers that 'won't commit war crimes' --A British robotics expert has been recruited by the US Navy to advise them on building robots that do not violate the Geneva Conventions. The American military is planning to build robot soldiers that will not be able to commit war crimes like their human comrades in arms. The US Army and Navy have both hired experts in the ethics of building machines to prevent the creation of an amoral Terminator-style killing machine that murders indiscriminately. By 2010 the US will have invested $4 billion in a research programme into "autonomous systems", the military jargon for robots.
U.S. Sees No Evidence Pakistan Government Tied to India Attacks The U.S. has no reason to believe Pakistan’s government was involved in last week’s terrorist attacks in India, and the Bush administration trusts Pakistan to investigate the issue, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

Arab-Americans say new laws will target them In the US, Arab-Americans have expressed concern over new FBI counter-terrorism powers they say might end up being used to target innocent US citizens. In a last-minute rule change before vacating the Oval Office, President [sic] George Bush has amended US Department of Justice guidelines to allow agents to interview people without identifying who they are and to spy on suspects without clear evidence of wrongdoing.

Award to Halliburton Worker Upheld A federal judge [U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Savage] has refused to overturn an arbitrator's award in favor of a former Halliburton worker who claimed he was fired from a job in Iraq because of a sexual harassment complaint that the company never investigated.

AP: US diluted loan rules before crash The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents. "Expect fallout, expect foreclosures, expect horror stories," California mortgage lender Paris Welch wrote to U.S. regulators in January 2006, about one year before the housing implosion cost her a job. Bowing to aggressive lobbying... regulators delayed action for nearly one year. By the time new rules were released late in 2006, the toughest of the proposed provisions were gone and the meltdown was under way.

Schwarzenegger Calls Fiscal Emergency in California California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), saying his state is going broke, declared a fiscal emergency and ordered the incoming class of lawmakers into a special session to fix a widening $11 billion deficit. Schwarzenegger wants lawmakers to raise taxes [on the poor] and cut spending to narrow the gap that is projected to swell to $28 billion over the next 18 months

US House to push $500 billion stimulus bill U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi met leading governors on Monday to discuss the size and shape of an economic stimulus package that one Democratic aide said was likely to cost around $500 billion.

Democrats may tax health benefits In the last month of the presidential campaign, it was one of Barack Obama and Joe Biden's strongest attack lines: John McCain, they warned, would "tax your healthcare benefits for the first time ever." But now, some key Democrats are talking about limiting the benefit for workers, so that those with higher incomes or more generous health benefits might pay taxes on some portion of the income they use to pay for their health premiums.