American Morning
Church gives away cash in tough times
Editor's Note: CNN Business Correspondent Christine Romans is exploring how we balance faith and finances in a time when money is tight. Watch her special series, "In God We Trust," this Saturday at 8 p.m. ET – only on CNN.
Today our Christine Romans is taking us to a church where it pays to pray. Instead of giving to the poor, some parishioners are leaving with more cash in their pockets – an incentive to keep the faith in tough times.
WSJ: Insurgents hack U.S. drones
By Siobhan Gorman, Yochi J. Dreazen and August Cole
From The Wall Street Journal
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/12/17/predator.drone.art.gi.jpg caption="U.S. enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan have used off-the-shelf programs to intercept video feeds from Predator unmanned aircraft."]
WASHINGTON - Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations.
Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes' systems. Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber - available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet - to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter.
U.S. officials say there is no evidence that militants were able to take control of the drones or otherwise interfere with their flights. Still, the intercepts could give America's enemies battlefield advantages by removing the element of surprise from certain missions and making it easier for insurgents to determine which roads and buildings are under U.S. surveillance.
Walk in My Shoes: Inside the teen brain
Editor's Note: This week, American Morning is examining the causes of youth-on-youth violence across the country. Yesterday, in part three of the series, "Walk in My Shoes," we walked to school with two students and witnessed the dangers they face every day. Today, we examine the teenage brain to look for an explanation for some of their behavior.
By T.J. Holmes, CNN
Mix the constant presence of violence kids on Chicago's west side face with the developing teen brain, and researchers say you've got a recipe for danger.
“The frontal lobe right here [points to image], is very late to mature. Not to about age 25,” and so teens are prone to act more impulsively, says Dr. Jay Giedd, a neuroscientist at the National Institutes of Health.
“Whenever there's high emotion then this part of the brain is really taxed. It really has to work extra hard to sort it all out.”
That's true even for teens living in the best of circumstances, but add a constant barrage of violence to a kid's life and that risky behavior can become magnified.
“They misinterpret signs of danger. They overreact to it all the time and they have trouble calming themselves down and seeing the world the way other people see it," says Gene Griffin, assistant professor at Northwestern Medical School.
Dr. Giedd says the brain can actually get used to the violence, taking even more violence to shock it.
Obama considering sweeping deficit action
By Ed Henry, CNN
Washington (CNN) - President Obama is seriously considering an executive order to create a bipartisan commission that could weigh sweeping tax increases and spending cuts to try to slash the soaring federal deficit, CNN has learned.
Documents obtained by CNN show that top advisers to the president have been privately weighing various versions of a commission, and opinions differ about how to structure it. Officials say that some inside the administration are pushing for a narrow mandate because it's too complicated to tackle reform of the tax system and possible spending cuts to various popular programs such as Social Security and Medicare all at once.
"Each major category of fiscal policy - Social Security, Medicare, discretionary spending, revenues - raises a complex and idiosyncratic array of policy problems and prescriptions," according to the documents detailing some of the administration's deliberations. "Achieving consensus on any one of these issues - much less all of them simultaneously - may be more than the political system can reasonably accommodate."
But officials told CNN that other advisers to the president are pushing for the commission to have a broad mandate to put all of these big issues "on the table" at the same time.
Read more: Obama weighs creating commission to propose tax hikes, spending cuts
Recovery Road: Students in the recession
Our Ali Velshi is on the road again. He's taking the CNN Express bus down south this week, having a conversation with real Americans about how they're getting by in this rough economy.
Today, he's talking with college students and recent college grads, all trying to find jobs. Ali joined us on Wednesday's American Morning from Columbia, South Carolina with day three of his series "Recovery Road."
Inside Afghanistan's largest military post office
For the more than 180,000 U.S. troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan, a package from home is the next best thing to being there, especially this time of year.
In a CNN exclusive, our Barbara Starr takes us inside a massive post office in Afghanistan, where soldiers are working around the clock to deliver cards, letters, and presents to America's homesick troops.
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