Good morning Folks!!!  It is Friday!!! It has been a long week, so let's skip the idol chatter this morning...Grab your coffee and let's head right to today's headlines... 

Top Stories
Person of interest in Times Square bombing...
The FBI announced on Friday that federal agents in Los Angeles, California, are questioning a "person of interest" about letters sent to members of Congress after an explosion in Times Square in New York.

Reputed arms dealer arrested...
Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout was usually a careful man, dealing with customers through intermediaries and ordering subordinates to throw away cellphones, receipts and anything else that could be traced.

Israeli seminary attacked...
Neighbors of the Mercaz Harav seminary in Jerusalem at first thought the noise was the popping of firecrackers for the upcoming Jewish holiday of Purim. But it was gunfire and, in fact, the deadliest terror attack in the city in the last four years.

Raw Politics
Ron Paul to drop out?
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is hinting that his run for the White House is about to end, saying the "presidential campaign will soon wind down."

Dems divided over what to do with Florida & Michigan...
With the two Democratic presidential candidates in near-deadlock and battling for every delegate, party leaders and the rival campaigns started searching in earnest on Thursday for a way to seat barred delegations from Florida and Michigan. But they remained deeply divided over how to do so.

McCain's team forged ahead...
In the second week of July 2007, a pall settled over the half-empty headquarters of John McCain in an Arlington, Va., skyscraper. The campaign was nearly broke. The top two officials had resigned. Two-thirds of the staff had been fired or left, and those who remained worried the campaign might never recover.

It all comes down to money...
For all the success that Democratic presidential candidates have had in raising money — taking in a combined total of over $500 million in the current race — the Republicans are beating them in one crucial area of fund-raising: the money being raised by the parties themselves.

Democratic fundraiser trial begins...
A prosecutor on Thursday described Antoin Rezko, a businessman and political fund-raiser, as “the man behind the curtain, pulling the strings” in an influence-peddling scheme to extort millions of dollars from companies that wanted to do business with the State of Illinois.

McCain leads in cross-over votes...
The two new political demographics–like Soccer moms and NASCAR dads before them–are quickly emerging as the potential election-busters of the 2008 presidential race.

Hillary a monster?
HILLARY Clinton has been branded a "monster" by one of Barack Obama's top advisers, as the gloves come off in the race to win the Democrat nomination.

Crime & Punishment
Thousands mourn, cops search for killer...
Thousands of students from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill gathered Thursday to remember student body president Eve Carson, who was shot and killed in a suburban neighborhood near campus.

He killed a man and faked his own death...
More than 100 family members and friends attended Ari Squire's memorial banquet last week and signed his online condolence book, mourning a man they said was kind, selfless and gentle.

Keeping them Honest
Southwest flew unsafe planes...
Discount air carrier Southwest Airlines flew thousands of passengers on aircraft that federal inspectors said were "unsafe" as recently as last March, according to detailed congressional documents obtained by CNN.

Family insurance scam...
They say nothing makes a man prouder than watching his children follow in his footsteps.
But one has to wonder how Curtis H. Connor is feeling, now that his alleged career path has led two generations of his brood into handcuffs.

What YOU will be talking about TODAY
13 year old blazes her way to Olympic trials...
Back and forth the swimmers went, one lap in the 25-yard course turning into four, four laps becoming 400 by the end of the two-and-a-half-hour practice. In one lane, the chain of bodies skimming the surface had a strong link in the middle, the swimmer two behind the leader commanding the eye with her long, fluid strokes.