President Obama's daughters Sasha And Malia Obama reportedly have received thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts from foreign diplomats. The girls don’t get to keep the gifts.

Egyptian protesters celebrated in the streets when President Hosni Mubarak decided to step down after 30 years in power. Get the latest news about his departure. Who is in control now? In honor of this historic moment, we take a look at other regimes that have been toppled.

President Zine el Abidine ben Ali
Country: Tunisia
Time in power: 1987-2011
Ben Ali was appointed to lead the tiny nation of Tunisia after another leader was declared unfit to fulfill his presidential duties. Under Ben Ali’s leadership, Tunisia had several controversies, including the high-profile arrest of a journalist and riots over unemployment that led to his ouster. The small country’s uprising is said to have sparked Egyptians to take a stand for their rights.

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Country: Iran
Time in power: 1941-1979
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s ouster was led by the Iranian Revolution. His reign was often criticized for his relationship with the United States and economic shortages. The overthrow allowed an infamous dictator to return to Iran after years in exile. How old was the Shah when he died?

Saddam Hussein
Country: Iraq
Time in power: 1979-2003
Hussein served as president during several crises, including the Iran-Iraq war and the Persian Gulf War. His reign came to an end 2003 after George W. Bush claimed that Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction. The United States invaded Iraq and Hussein was captured. Three years later, he was executed.

Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh
Country: Iran
Time in power: 1951-53
Mossadegh was overthrown in a rift with Britain. His biggest claim to fame was the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry. A dispute over oil led to protests in 1952 and heightened tensions with Britain. It also fueled other fears. What happened to Mossadegh?Who succeeded him?

Jacobo Arbenz Guzman
Country: Guatemala
Time in power: 1951-54
Arbenz was overthrown in the 1954 Guatemalan coup d’etat , which was organized by the CIA as fears of Communism heightened.  Arbenz ultimately resigned and the CIA launched another operation to get proof that Guatemala was a rising Soviet state.  Who replaced him?


Prime Minister Pol Pot
Country: Cambodia
Time in power: 1976-79
The infamous dictator  was responsible for the deaths of nearly 2 million people. The number of deaths led to Cambodia being tainted with a gruesome nickname. His high-profile conflict with a neighboring country ultimately led to his ouster. Pol Pot died under house arrest, but rumors persist about the nature of his death.


Czar Nicholas II
Country: Russia
Time in power: 1894-1917
Czar Nicholas II was overthrown in the February Revolution, although it happened in March. He received a gruesome nickname because of the Khodynka Tragedy and Bloody Sunday. His removal prompted the end of an empire, the beginning of another and the start of a war

Prime Minister Benito Mussolini
Country: Italy
Time in power: 1922-43
Mussolini is known as one of the fathers of fascism  His official title was not modest. He often had a contentious relationship with another dictator, but later joined forces against Britain and France in World War II. Ironically, it was his former colleagues who overthrew him. What happened to him?

Prime Minister Ion Antonescu
Country: Romania
Time in power: 1940-44
Antonescu created a fascist dictatorship, which also supported the Axis Powers. While he won support for domestic reforms, he was known as the mastermind behind a brutal massacre. He was overthrown in 1944 and later executed for war crimes. What was one of his famous last quotes?

President Idi Amin
Country: Uganda
Time in power: 1971-79
Amin was known as one of the most brutal dictators that Africa has ever seen. The number of people killed under his rule ranges from 100,000 to 500,000. The arrogant leader dubbed himself this royal nickname . On April 11, 1979, he fled the Ugandan capital as liberation forces moved in. He died in 2003 in Saudi Arabia.


President Slobodan Milosevic
Country: Yugoslavia
Time in power: 1997-2000
Milosevic, who earned this dubious honor, resigned after demonstrators protested the 2000 presidential election. Shortly after his resignation, he was arrested for embezzlement and later ordered to stand trial for war crimes. Who represented him at his trial? The trial ended without a verdict.

Both Julian Assange and his website, WikiLeaks, have been nominated for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.  A member of the Norwegian Nobel committee says the site promotes human rights, democracy and freedom of speech.  

Lake Shore Drive remained closed Wednesday afternoon, as city workers continued removing stranded vehicles from the roadway in an effort to reopen the road as soon as possible.

Lake Shore Drive was a disaster area overnight, as motorists found themselves stranded for up to 12 hours and ended up in the hospital.

As CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports, many motorists were just trying to get home, but the blizzard made that impossible.

Initially, Lake Shore Drive was moving smoothly as the evening rush began, but conditions began to deteriorate following several accidents. There were three accidents between Fullerton Parkway and Belmont Avenue 7:15 and 7:45 p.m., one of them involving a CTA bus. Shortly afterward, there were two more accidents in the northbound lanes just south of North Avenue.

The accidents caused cars and buses to back up, and as the snow piled up, vehicles became immobilized and off-ramps became impassable. Lake Shore Drive was closed at 7:58 p.m., and fire and police personnel worked to move as many cars as possible off the highway and remove people who could not get out on their own.

City officials said 700 to 900 cars were involved in the overnight traffic jam on Lake Shore Drive just south of North Avenue. In response, 13 ambulances were dispatched and remained on the scene all night, along with 26 fire companies with 130 firefighters.

Fire personnel were organized into two task forces with 30 firefighter-medics equipped on snowmobiles.

Police also dispatched 30 officers to the Drive, mayor’s chief of staff Raymond Orozco said.

Orozco said first responders tried to get to stranded motorists as quickly as possible, but winds of 60 to 70 mph and snow falling at a rate of 1 to 2 inches per hour made that extremely difficult.

Fire crews were unable to see even one car in front of them for a period of time, Fire Commissioner Bob Hoff said.

Before the city shut down the Drive, traffic had been crawling; it took upwards of an hour to travel only a mile. Many cars were without a full tank of gas, and ended up running out.

WBBM Newsradio 780 was flooded with calls from stranded motorists who said they had been stuck on Lake Shore Drive for over seven hours and saw people abandoning their cars.

Newsradio 780′s Lisa Fielding reports Sue Baker left her Hyde Park office around 5 p.m. and nearly seven hours later, she remained in the same spot, “We haven’t moved. It’s kinda scary. There are snow drifts on our cars now.”

Evanston attorney Craig Roeder says he got on Lake Shore Drive at 6 p.m. and headed north. He says he crept and crawled until just south of Fullerton Parkway, when traffic ground to a halt around 9:30 pm.

And there he sat, in whiteout conditions for six hours, until 3:20 a.m. when WBBM Newsradio 780’s David Roe was interviewing him on the phone.

Source: Chicago.cbslocal.com

Two alleged narcotics traffickers aligned with a right-wing paramilitary terrorist organization in Colombia have been convicted of conspiring to import multi-ton quantities of cocaine into the United States.

Christian Fernando Borda and Alvaro Alvaran-Velez were extradited from Colombia a year ago and were convicted by a federal jury Thursday.

The Justice Department said Borda led an organization that obtained cocaine from paramilitary groups and smuggled in more than 1,500 tons in drums of palm oil from Colombia in 2005, with additional shipments in 2005 and 2006. The department said Alvaran-Velez, an associate of Borda, facilitated cocaine shipments.

They were allied with Autodefenses Unidas de Colombia, an umbrella group for far-right paramilitary groups that has been designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/12/09/colombians-convicted-cocaine-smuggling-plot/#ixzz1CQSRV2p5

 A total of 38 giant rose sculptures, by US artist Will Ryman, have been installed along a section of Park Avenue in New York, Jan 27, 2011. The flowers, the tallest standing at 25 feet, are made of stainless steel and fiber glass resin.

Barack Obama is not the only president to change his mind. Here's a look at other American leaders who flipped-flopped over policies, scandals & more.

Barack Obama

It's tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers -- unless the hostage gets harmed. Then, people will question the wisdom of that strategy. In this case, the hostage was the American people, and I was not willing to see them get harmed."
I did it, and I regret it, and I regret it."