House Republicans will present a long-awaited plan to fund the nation’s transportation system on Tuesday, a proposal that would shift more decision-making authority to state governments, dramatically reduce the time spent on environmental reviews and encourage private companies to expand the highway system by building toll roads . Read full article > >

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House Republicans to unveil transportation bill

Heidi Klum and Seal have confirmed that their seven-year marriage is over. “While we have enjoyed seven very loving, loyal and happy years of marriage, after much soul-searching we have decided to separate,” the couple said in a statement , according to the Associated Press. “We have had the deepest respect for one another throughout our relationship and continue to love each other very much, but we have grown apart. This is an amicable process and protecting the well-being of our children remains our top priority, especially during this time of transition.” Read full article > >

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Heidi Klum and Seal confirm split: ‘We have grown apart’

Read through Wonkbook today and you’ll get both the best case for reelecting President Obama, and the single issue most likely to stand between him and a second term. The case for Obama comes by way of Andrew Sullivan. It’s worth reading, if for no other reason than if you run in circles that talk politics, you’ll probably be asked to discuss it sometime this week. It’s an agenda-setting article like that. And, in a sense, it’s one Sullivan has written twice. In 2007, he profiled Obama for The Atlantic, in a piece that did a better job articulating Obama’s postpartisan appeal than even the candidate himself. This year, he has written a defense of Obama’s record that is better than anything the campaign has produced itself. Much as the ideas in Sullivan’s original Atlantic article felt novel early in the 2007 campaign but became the standard case for Obama by the time Americans went to vote, the arguments in Sullivan’s Newsweek article feel unusual now but will soon become standard among, at the least, Obama’s supporters. Read full article > >

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Wonkbook: The case for Obama, and the continent that stands in his way

The leaders of the Federal Reserve went around the room saluting Alan Greenspan during his last major meeting as chairman of the central bank Jan. 31, 2006. Then Timothy F. Geithner, at the time the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and now Treasury secretary, made a prediction. Read full article > >

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Greenspan image tarnished by newly released documents

January can be a bit of a tricky month for many of us. The holiday season is clearly over, but spring is just a tiny light at the end of a long winter tunnel at this point. Right around this time of year, I used to find myself longing to be transported to one of a handful of favored luxury properties in the world, so I started implementing some simple design lessons I’ve learned from them into my own home. Read full article > >

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Design tips to cheer up your home in winter

J.J. Abrams, who brought you the maddeningly convoluted, addictive series “Alias,” “Lost,” “Fringe” — and “Felicity”? — promised that, this time, with his new Fox series “Alcatraz,” he will finally deliver a series in which storylines are resolved each week and questions are answered in a timely way – instead of a tangle of weeds. Read full article > >

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Winter TV Press Tour 2012: JJ Abrams says ‘Alcatraz’ is no ‘Lost’

When the United States invaded Iraq, it did so thinking that it could turn the country into an economic dynamo fueled on oil reserves that are among the largest in the world. “Iraq is open for business,” L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq at the time, said in 2003. But the fighting never really stopped, and the U.S. vision was never really realized. Now, with American troops gone, the question is: What can Iraq build on its own? So far — with the nation’s leaders locked in a political crisis and insurgents launching spectacular attacks — the signs are not good. Read full article > >

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Promise of Iraq’s economy remains unfulfilled

Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller says the time has come to abandon Queen Elizabeth as head of state and become a republic.

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Jamaica ‘to break links with UK’

Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller says the time has come to abandon Queen Elizabeth as head of state and become a republic.

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Jamaica ‘to break links with UK’

There has been a late surge in university applications for the UK, Ucas says, but total numbers are still down on this time last year.

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University application late surge

On this holiday weekend, Los Angeles was dealing with a new plague, this time an arsonist (or arsonists) who in the course of three days firebombed at least 39 cars in the metropolitan area.

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Los Angeles Car Firebombings Set City on Edge

It began with such promise. This time a year ago, forecasters were racing to upgrade their outlooks for what 2011 would hold. All the gears seemed to be locking into place for what could finally be the year that an economic recovery began in earnest. Three percent growth seemed like a sure bet; 4 percent seemed more than plausible. Read full article > >

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2011 was a bust — could 2012 be better?

By the time Rex Grossman lined up to take a fake snap from a fake center in a version of a football game that only slightly resembled the real thing, three video cameras manned by three cameramen rose 60 feet in the air on three massive orange lifts at Redskins Park. This was a week ago Wednesday, but it could have been any Wednesday during any week of any NFL season. Grossman and his Washington Redskins teammates were going through what would seem, for an out-of-the-race football team, to be the most mundane tasks in a season defined by mundane tasks: running skeleton pass drills against faux defensive backs, simulating what they might — might — see that Sunday against the New York Giants. Read full article > >

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When it comes to practice, the Redskins pay attention to every detail

This was a bad year for bad guys. Departing the political scene — or departing the scene altogether — were Osama bin Laden , North Korea’s “Dear Leader,” Kim Jong Il , and a trio of Arab leaders: Tunisia’s Zine el-Abidine ben Ali, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi. There isn’t much tying these farewells together. Bin Laden, who was killed by U.S. Navy SEALS in Pakistan in May, died of what might be described as unnatural but unsurprising causes. Kim, meanwhile, died of a heart attack last week but had been in failing health after a stroke several years ago. Both men could have died at any point in the past several years — 2011 just happened to be their time. Read full article > >

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For the world’s bad guys, 2011 was a dangerous year

Feeling the cold these days? Then hurry on down to sign up for House Majority Leader John Boehner ’ s week-long fact-finding trip to Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, taking off Jan. 8. The Ohio Republican is scheduled to escape the chill with Democratic Rep. Dan Boren (Okla.) and Republican Reps. Dave Camp (Mich.), John Kline (Minn.), Doc Hastings (Wash.), Devin Nunes (Calif.) and Greg Walden (Ore.). Nunes is the only one on this congressional delegation (codel) with a chance of decent weather back home this time of year. Read full article > >

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A sunny congressional delegation