Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld went to Iraq to announce the first of a series of U.S. combat troop withdrawals likely for 2006. In Fallujah, Rumsfeld told U.S. troops that President Bush has authorized the reduction of forces below the 138,000 level that held for most of this year. Pentagon officials have said as many as 7,000 combat troops could go home.

A federal judge barred any mention of "intelligent design" in biology classes in a Pennsylvania public school district. U.S. District Judge John Jones ruled that Dover Area School Board members violated the Constitution when they ordered that its biology curriculum must include the notion that life on Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause.

Transit workers in New York City went on a three-day strike at the height of the holiday shopping and tourist season, shutting down subways and buses and leaving some 7 million people without their usual way to get around. The strike ended after the Transport Workers Union agreed to the framework of a deal with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

President Bush defended his domestic spying program, contending that he has the legal and constitutional authority to order eavesdropping on suspected members of terrorist groups in the United States. At a news conference, Bush said the highly classified program was necessary because in these times, a "two-minute phone conversation between somebody linked to al Qaeda here and an operative overseas could lead directly to the loss of thousands of lives."

A 1940s-era seaplane plunged nose-first into the calm blue waters off Miami Beach, killing all 17 adults and three children aboard. Federal investigators said the twin-engine plane crashed after takeoff for the Bahamian island of Bimini because the wing fell off. It had cracks in the main support beam that had probably gone unseen for a long time, they said.

In the first week of legalized civil unions in Great Britain, pop star Elton John married his longtime partner, Canadian filmmaker David Furnish. The ceremony took place in Windsor's town hall, the Guildhall, where Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles wed in April. Hundreds of same-sex couples took advantage of a new British law offering same-sex couples a legal status similar to marriage.

The U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace in 1 1/2 years. The gross domestic product - the nation's output of goods and services - increased at an annual rate of 4.1 percent in the July-September quarter. That was despite surging energy prices and the catastrophes caused by hurricanes on the Gulf Coast.

The Senate refused to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in a victory for environmentalists. It was a resounding defeat for President Bush, who made the tapping of oil in the Alaska preserve his top energy priority.

The Senate extended the USA Patriot Act by one month to keep the anti-terror law from expiring on Dec. 31. President Bush wanted to make the law permanent, but critics questioned whether it intruded too much into civil liberties and stopped reauthorization of the law with a filibuster.

This is cache, read story here