SPB News for Saturday.

Podesta: Cabinet Will Be Virtually Complete By Christmas

GM files to keep public from tracking corporate jet

Wal-Mart worker trampled to death

Black Friday stampede kills stock clerk, pregnant woman knocked to ground.

Samantha Power Tapped For State Department Transition Team
9 months after referring to Hillary Clinton as a 'monster,' the former Obama adviser has been named to the transition team for the department Clinton is expected to head.

Terrorists could strike Britain by infecting country with bird flu Terrorists could strike Britain by infecting the country with bird flu or Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a leading group of security experts has warned. A commission led by Lord Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrat leader, identified 27 countries where terror organisations could become a threat to the UK. The report by the Institute of Public Policy Research warns that one of the biggest emerging threats comes from terrorists turning to biological warfare.

Zawahiri blames global financial crisis on 9/11 in latest al-Qaeda video Al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has said in a new internet video that the international financial crisis is the result of a US war on Muslims and the Sept 11 attacks. Zawahiri also claimed the recent security gains made by US forces in Iraq were only temporary and Afghan President Hamid Karzai's offers to negotiate with Taliban elements were a sign of his regime's weakness.

DoD Computers Penetrated In Cyber-Attack A cyber-attack on Defense Department computers this past week was so severe and widespread that military leaders decided to brief President [sic] Bush. The attack was aimed at networks in the U.S. Central Command, the group that oversees U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the DoD, the attack was successful in penetrating at least one highly protected classified network.

U.S. sending terror investigators to India The government ordered FBI agents Friday to fly to India to investigate the bloody Mumbai attacks that killed at least five Americans. U.S. citizens still in the city were warned their lives remain at risk. Intelligence officials looked urgently for clues about the identity of the attackers, a crucial unknown as Indian officials charged, without giving details, that "elements in Pakistan" were involved.

Top anti-terrorism officer in Bombay was a specialist in 'encounter killings' The death of Bombay’s top antiterrorist officer is a devastating blow to a police force struggling to confine a burgeoning Islamist 'threat.' Hemant Karkare, the chief of the Maharashtra 'Anti'-Terrorism Squad, was shot three times in the chest as he led his men at the Taj Mahal Palace, one of the two luxury hotels overrun by heavily armed terrorists. India has a tradition of promoting police officers who specialise in "encounter killings" – a controversial form of terrorism used against suspected criminals. It is not unusual for such men to have dozens of kills to their name.

Britain to consider Obama request to send more troops to Afghanistan Britain will carefully examine any request from the incoming U.S. administration to send more troops to Afghanistan, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said in an interview published Friday. The U.K. government had previously said it should first be up to other allies to provide additional personnel as NATO seeks to increase its forces in Afghanistan. But Miliband and Defense Secretary John Hutton said separately that Britain -- which boosted its force in Afghanistan in June -- could be prepared to offer more troops.

Gorbachev Looks Forward to New U.S. Policy Under Obama — Former Soviet head of state says world needs ‘strong’ America to face down economic crisis, but hopes for change in Russia policies from new administration. — MOSCOW — Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said Thursday …