The Friday News: Dec. 16, 2011 | Sojourners

The Friday News: Dec. 16, 2011

AP: Nikki Haley Endorses Mitt Romney For President
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is endorsing Mitt Romney for president. Haley said Friday on Fox News she is throwing all of her support behind Romney in the Republican primaries. She says jobs, the economy and spending are most important and the former Massachusetts governor is the best candidate to address those issues.
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The New York Times: Lawmakers Agree on Spending Bill, Avoid Shutdown
Retreating from their harsh partisan sniping, and perhaps fearing public rebuke, Congressional leaders said Thursday that they had agreed on a large-scale spending measure to keep the government running for the next nine months.
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The Huffington Post: Omaha Tri-Faith Initiative Has Unique Approach To Interfaith Relations
In cities across the nation, increasingly diverse after waves of immigration and demographic changes, it's not uncommon to find Christian, Jewish and Islamic houses of worship located just blocks away from one another.
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Christianity Today: Christopher Hitchens Has Died
Editor's Note: Christopher Hitchens has died at the age of 62. A statement from Vanity Fair said that he died Thursday night at cancer center in Houston of pneumonia, a complication of his esophageal cancer. CT asked Douglas Wilson to weigh in on the life and death of the prominent atheist.
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Slate: Did Bachmann Just Save Romney?
There have been so many debates during the Republican preseason that it was hard to believe the one hosted by Fox News in Sioux City, Iowa, was the last one before the voting begins. Ratings have been strong, and commentary has been endless: You can imagine a network trying to squeeze in just one more—are you free on Christmas Eve, Governor?
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CNN: Wikileak suspect wants recusal
A hearing for Bradley Manning, the Army private suspected of being behind the biggest intelligence leak in U.S. history, began Friday morning but went into recess after Manning's attorney asked the investigating officer to recuse himself. Attorney David Coombs said Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, the investigating officer, was a reservist who had a conflict of interest with his civilian job with the Justice Department, which is investigating Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks,the website that posted classified U.S. documents.
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Think Progress: Health Care Experts Warn That Wyden/Rayn Plan Will End Guaranteed Access To Care For Seniors
A group of progressive health care policy analysts are pushing back against the Wyden/Ryan Medicare reform plan this morning during an event at the Brookings Institute. The analysts –Urban Institue’s Judy Feder, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities’ Paul Van de Water, and Brookings’ Henry Aaron — will argue, in a new report obtained by ThinkProgress, that shifting beneficiaries from Medicare to a series of private health insurance plans would undermine Medicare’s “guaranteed equitable access to affordable health care” and place seniors care in the untested — and at times untrustworthy — hands of private insurers.
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Patheos: New Evangelicals, Old News
Last weekend my wife and I attended a young adult Bible study at our new church. We recently moved back to Boston from New York City and, for the first time in all of our moves (and there have been plenty) we found a church on our first try. There was no church shopping or denomination hopping. We went straight for the nearest Episcopal church, St. James' Church in Cambridge.
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