Citizen Cartwright

Note to readers

Citizen Cartwright will next publish on Monday, Jan. 4. Happy holidays!

Rethinking Reid

With the Senate set to pass health care legislation Thursday morning, the man who managed to pull the needed 60 votes together, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is getting new respect from some and vilification from others.

Bad banks?

Congress, the Securities and Exchange Commission and others are investigating whether firms including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley purposely created risky mortgage-linked debt instruments that they sold to clients — and then bet that the securities would fail, The New York Times reports.

Some Americans getting out of the sun

After decades of rapid growth, more Americans moved out of Florida and Nevada than moved in during the year that ended July 1, The Washington Post reports, citing Census Bureau data.

Study: Climate change will keep species on the run

As temperatures rise, species will have to move an average of about a quarter mile a year to stay within their temperature comfort zones, researchers report in the journal Nature.

Making memories

Researchers say they've discovered the way molecules and brain synapses cement memories.

It's hoped that the research may help in the development of Alzheimer's drugs, the BBC says.

Also in the news

Gates proposes $2 billion to aid unstable countries The Washington Post

Greek parliament adopts 2010 austerity budget The Wall Street Journal 

Iran protests spreading in heartland Los Angeles Times

Effort begins to end voting for judges The New York Times

Alzheimer's may protect against cancer and vice versa Reuters in ABC News

Obama's Christmas gift: Senate passage of health care legislation

The president is delaying his departure for a Hawaiian holiday until the bill passes. And Senate Republicans, aware that further delay won't stave off the inevitable, have agreed to move up the vote from the evening of Christmas Eve to the morning.

On the Senate floor Tuesday, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., urged his colleagues to jettison the "personal animosity" that's marked the debate.

"There's a lot of tension in the Senate," he said, "but I would hope everyone would go back to their gentlemanly ways."

Is Ben Nelson taking home unconstitutional bacon?

The attorneys general of seven states are probing the constitutionality of the deal that cut a funding break for Nebraska in order to get the 60th vote for Senate health care legislation, South Carolina's AG said on Tuesday.

The move comes at the request of South Carolina's Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint, The Associated Press reports.

The Republican attorney generals of Alabama, Colorado, Michigan, North Dakota, Texas and Washington state have joined the effort.

Another hitch in the effort to close Gitmo

Obama administration officials now believe they're unlikely to close the prison until 2011 at the earliest, The New York Times says, after Democratic leaders in Congress declined to provide funding to buy and retrofit an Illinois prison to receive detainees.