Liu Xiaobo’s empty chair spoke volumes at Friday’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo. The Chinese dissident is serving out an 11-year prison term in his homeland, and no family members were permitted to travel to accept his award—the first peace laureate not formally represented in 75 years.
Throw conventional wisdom out the window, says the New York Times: Many seats in the House of Representatives that were once thought safe for Republicans have now become competitive races.
The slate headed by Ahmed Chalabi, a man the Pentagon once packaged as the George Washington of Iraq, may not get a single seat in the new Iraqi legislature.