Summary: Now that they’re freshmen in a GOP-run House, the Tea Party movement’s candidates are running smack into the traditions, partisan divisions, and powerful competing interests that make it so hard to redirect the government. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 16, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Spanish lawmaker Gaspar Llamazares was horrified to learn that the FBI used an online photograph of him to create an age-enhanced image showing what Osama bin Laden might look like today.

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Summary: Two U.S. troops were killed by an Iraqi soldier who apparently smuggled live ammunition into a training exercise and opened fire, raising fresh concerns about insurgent infiltration in Iraq’s security forces as the Americans prepare to leave by the end of 2011. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 15, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the Obama administration would allow Haitians who were in the United States illegally prior to the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake to remain in the country for 18 months under temporary protected status (TPS). Some critics cautioned, however, that TPS has a track record of devolving into de facto “backdoor amnesty” for illegal aliens.

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Summary: Weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, compiled from U.S. Department of Defense news releases and iCasualties.org. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 14, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that a group of prominent Muslim clerics, led by Sheik Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, warned they would call for jihad, or holy war, if the U.S. sent troops to fight al-Qaida in Yemen. Meanwhile, Taliban suicide bombings and other attacks caused Afghan civilian deaths to soar in 2009 to the highest annual level of the war, a U.N. report found.

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Summary: Information about Tucson shooter Jared Loughner’s mental state, signs and symptoms of mental illness, and his likely diagnosis according to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 13, 2010, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

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Summary: A spate of attacks against Afghanistan’s intelligence service and international forces killed at least nine people, including five NATO troops, on a bloody day during U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to the country. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 12, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that thousands of Somali boys and teenagers fleeing war and chaos at home are sailing to Yemen, where officials worry that the new arrivals could become the next generation of al-Qaida fighters. U.S. and Yemeni authorities also fear that Islamist fighters from Somalia could slip into the country among the throngs of refugees, deepening ties between al-Qaeda leaders in Yemen and the particularly hard-line al-Shabab militants of Somalia.

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Summary: Citing North Korea’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and its efforts to expand its nuclear weapons capability, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said North Korea will pose a direct threat to the United States within five years if the communist dictatorship isn’t reined in. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 11, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that six NATO service members, including three Americans, were killed in Afghanistan, making it the deadliest day for the international force in more than two months.

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Summary: The writings of Jared Lee Loughner, would-be assassin of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, provide no evidence of a cognitively consistent set of political beliefs or even a coherent ideological orientation. However, his writings do reveal signs of thought disorder, pointing to the possibility of an undiagnosed mental illness of a psychotic nature. There is no direct evidence that Loughner thoughts or actions were specifically influenced by incendiary political rhetoric such as Sarah Palin’s “target list” or Michele Bachmann’s provocative “armed and dangerous” remarks or her paranoid conspiracies — for example, AmeriCorps youth brainwashing, “one-world currency,” or the U.S. census. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 10, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that CIA bomber Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, in a videotape released posthumously by the Pakistani Taliban, called on Muslim jihadists worldwide to avenge the death of former Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in an August 2009 U.S. missile strike, by attacking U.S. targets. Immelman also featured new details about the sequence of events in the Dec. 30, 2009 suicide bombing that killed seven CIA personnel and contractors at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan.

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Summary: A gunman identified as Jared Lee Loughner, 22, opened fire as Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) met with constituents outside a grocery store in Tucson, killing Arizona’s chief federal judge John M. Roll and five others, and leaving the lawmaker fighting for her life in an attempted assassination that had Americans questioning whether divisive politics had driven the attack. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 9, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the Yemeni government, while ramping up the fight against al-Qaida with U.S. help, has also escalated its own internal conflicts with Shi’ite rebels in the north and Sunni secessionists in the south, threatening to throw the fractured country into greater chaos and nourish the growth of al-Qaida.

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Summary: Addressing an adoring and frenzied crowd of thousands in his first speech after his triumphant return to Iraq after four years of self-imposed exile in Iran, radical Shi’ite fundamentalist Muqtada al-Sadr called the U.S., Israel, and Britain Iraq’s “common enemies,” saying “our aim is to expel the occupier by any means.” … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 8, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani falsely claimed that there were no terrorist attacks on U.S. soil under President George W. Bush.

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Summary: Weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, compiled from U.S. Department of Defense news releases and iCasualties.org. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 7, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that thousands of Afghans shouting “Death to America!” protested the killings of children, the latest in a string of controversial cases in which international forces have been blamed for civilian deaths.

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