Morning News Roundup

If you're a longtime Cracks-head, you may have noticed a stylistic change of late--i.e., the headlines. (And if you're a new visitor, a welcome to you and hopefully you'll find a few nuggets to keep you coming back.) But that's just the start. I'm hoping by the end of February to bring on a number of new changes to the look of the site, which will also bring some new features. I'm also going to try to do a few recurring items (on a more consistent basis than they have been done of late), such as the world news wrap-up (to be done typically at the end of the day), as well as a morning primer of the big news stories of the day. So, here we go:

• When President Bush said that he didn't think "anybody anticipated the breach of levees" when Hurricane Katrina hit last year, it turns out the White House actually could have. The WaPo reports that the White House received warnings from Homeland Security hours before landfall suggesting just that. So, was that a lie or just the statement of a mis/uninformed puppet?
  
• The AP's reporting (via this link to the Seattle P-I) that European investigators have no tangible proof yet, but are saying that evidence is pointing to a US system of outsourcing torture that Euro governments were aware of.
• Samuel Alito's nomination is going to the Senate Judical Committee, and is likely to pass on party lines for a full vote in the Senate (again from the AP, this time via the Minneapolis Star-Tribune).
• For all you economics wonks out there (and those who aren't, you might want to start paying closer attention), the Financial Times reports that the Bank of England is warning that US trade imbalances could have a sharp global impact.
  

[UPDATE - 1012am PST] And Alito's outta committe; here's Salon's War Room:

In a surprise to no one, Samuel Alito just made it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a 10-8 party-line vote. That's better than Clarence Thomas did in 1991, when the committee sent his nomination to the floor without a recommendation.