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Early results indicate that the incoming Parliament is likely to be dominated by Islamists. But two leading Islamist blocs — the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists — have little in common and are doing their best to undermine each other.

The candidate's recent — and sudden — rise in the polls has required him to quickly pull together a larger campaign organization. He has added paid staffers in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and has a group of unpaid advisers. Still, the chief figure in the Gingrich brain trust remains Gingrich himself.

As leader of Europe's most powerful economy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is one of the most influential figures on the world stage. Supporters say she is trying to reshape Europe for the long term. But critics have derided her response to the debt crisis as too slow and unimaginative.

Efforts to cut federal spending are targeting a program that gives higher Medicare reimbursements to small hospitals in rural areas. Some observers say the program has gotten so big, it's propping up hospitals that are neither critical to a community nor isolated.

The Obama administration's new approach treats the threat as a public safety issue, like drugs or gangs. It aims to enlist local officials for help in spotting potentially violent extremists.

The Health and Human Services secretary overruled the FDA's opinion that the "Plan B" emergency contraceptive pill is safe and effective enough to be sold without a prescription — and without any age restrictions. Women's health advocates say the action reminds them of how the Bush administration treated the issue.

The Civil War ended slavery in America. So why, asks author Ta-Nehisi Coates, do African-Americans, who benefited most from this crucial turning point, take so little interest in the conflict? Coates, a confessed Civil War obsessive, wrote an essay for The Atlantic titled "Why Do So Few Blacks Study the Civil War?"

What happens next in Pride and Prejudice? Well, if you ask 91-year-old British mystery writer P.D. James, it's a ghastly murder in the Pemberley woodlands. James was surprised she wanted to write a sequel: "I had never thought that I would ever want to use somebody else's characters," she says.

Predictions that Newt Gingrich's "humane" position on illegal immigration would prove toxic with Republican voters haven't come true — he has continued to surge in the polls. In Iowa, three times as many Republicans say they trust him on immigration versus those who trust Mitt Romney on the issue.

Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been sentenced to 14 years in federal prison following his bribery and extortion convictions. He is expected to begin serving the sentence in February.