• The Center for Adolescents of San Miguel de Allende is the only school in Mexico that offers a professional midwifery degree and may be the model for future schools to teach midwifery all over the world. • The British woman who was given the first successful ovarian transplant last year is expected to give birth this week. • A new law in Australia requires Family Courts to consider ordering mothers to repay child support to the men they claimed were the fathers of their children if paternity is successfully challenged. So far, 18 men have been cleared of paternity. • New research suggests that women with a history of serious mental illness are much more likely to have babies who are stillborn or die within the first month of life. • After attacking Kenyan police earlier today, six gunmen kidnapped two elderly Italian Roman Catholic nuns from their homes and drove them into Somalia. • Is it better to get married earlier or later in life? • Researchers say that a new technique for screening embryos during IVF will double the chances that the embryo will implant in the mother's womb. • A girl in North Carolina who studied teenage highway deaths for her senior project was killed in a head-on collision on Saturday. • Stu Rasmussen has been elected the mayor of a small town in Oregon, making him the country's first openly transgender mayor. • Kombucha may be the hot drink right now, but home brew versions can be potentially dangerous. • In perhaps the first case of its kind, an Italian couple face prosecution for causing their child "psychological suffering" after they allegedly argued in front of him during their divorce. •

• Barack Obama has picked a theme for his inauguration: "A New Birth of Freedom." It comes from the Gettysburg Address, so it's not quite as cheezy as it sounds. [Huffington Post]
• Besides Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gibbs has reportedly accepted an offer to be the White House Press Secretary and David Axelrod has accepted a slot as Senior Adviser. [Politico, ABC]
• In the most intriguing appointment speculation, though, former Senator and Vietnam veteran Max Cleland — who lost to never-done-served Saxby Chambliss in 2002 when Chambliss ran ads calling veteran and amputee Cleland unpatriotic — may be appointed to be the new Army secretary. In other news, Chambliss will likely face a runoff in December to hold the Senate seat he doesn't deserve anyway. [Politico]
• Bush is also going to make sure (supposedly) that the Obama camp has a say in who gets the permanent staff positions overseeing the Treasury's bailout of our economy. [Politico]

• The Associated Press has finally called North Carolina for Obama. North. Fucking. Carolina. [Washington Post]
• And the Oregon Senate race has gone to the Democratic challenger, Jeff Merkley. Joe Lieberman is really sweating now. [Politico]
• And it looks like even the White House press corps — which is normally white enough to justify the name of the building — will be getting more diverse as white bureau chiefs recognize that maybe, just maybe, diversity can have actual benefits in terms of bringing multiple points of view into one's news coverage. [Politico]
• Everyone in Illinois, Delaware and D.C. are jockeying to put forth candidates to fill the soon-to-be-vacant Senate seats there. [NY Times]
• In what will likely become quite a bit of Republican jockeying, Republican Minority Whip Roy Blunt is putting down his whip and walking away from House Republican leadership — and so is Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam. Expect retirement announcements some time in 2009, once htey make sure Republican lobbyists can still make money. [Politico, Reuters]
• Spencer Ackerman thinks that part of the Republican jockeying will be neocons seeking to fill the (reportedly very) empty vessel of "Sarah Palin" full to the brim with all their foamy, war-loving anti-intellectual spooge. Only it sounds less porn-y when he says it. [Washington Independent]
• Los Angeles police vow to be prepared today for the protests by the LGBT community and its supporters over the fact that half the state thinks it is a good idea to rescind some of their civil rights. I guess they've decided to exercise one of them while they still have it. [LA Times]
• Eliot Spitzer will not be charged with the crime of whoremongering across state lines since he didn't sue campaign funds to pay the sex workers he employed. Somehow, we think this is probably cold comfort to Silda Spitzer, if she actually wasn't rooting for an indictment. [LA Times]
• And, apparently, the whole "peaceful transition" in Russia was just a ruse for Vladimir Putin to snap his fingers and change the law so he can be back in office next year. Oh, that's gonna work out well. [NY Times]

• Obama's announced his transition team co-chairs — the folks that will help pave the way for his Administration, not a shadow Cabinet — and it includes John Podesta, Pete Rouse (Obama's Senate Chief of Staff) and Valerie Garrett. The advisory board to the co-chairs includes former EPA head Carol Browner; former Commerce Secretary William Daley; former transportation secretary Federico Peña; Obama national security adviser Susan Rice; and Governor Janet Napolitano. Don't expect to see those names on a future list of official appointments, though. [Washington Post]
• Obama's first official appointment will, however, be Congressman Rahm Emanuel. [NY Times]
• Four Senate races remain undecided: Alaska and Oregon are too close to call; Minnesota is likely to have an automatic recount; and Georgia's results require a runoff. [CNN]
• But, the anti-abortion "personhood" amendment in Colorado and the abortion ban in South Dakota went down by wide margins. [Denver Post, Argus Leader]

• By the way, when the state of Missouri elected Denise Juneau to be their superintendent of public instruction, they made her the first Native American woman in the state (and probably the first in the nation) to hold statewide office. Are there any other barriers we can bulldoze this week, please? [Missoulian]
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave a press conference to state the obvious, which is that, since the economy sucks, Democrats are going to have to set and stick to priorities. Too bad she's spent the last two years proving she knows how to roll over. [Politico]
• Russian President Dmitry Medvedev went out of his way to prove Senator Joe Biden right, threatening to escalate a nuclear standoff with the U.S. in Eastern Europe if Obama moves forward with Bush's missile defense shield there. Cuban Missile Crisis anyone? Bueller? [Washington Post]
• They might be Bushies at heart — and partially responsible for the catastrophe that is the Iraq War and the potential new nuclear standoff for Russia — but electing our first African-American President choked up Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, too. [CNN, Huffington Post]
• More than 70 percent of unmarried women voted for Obama yesterday, but half of the married ones went for McCain. Can married women please fill the rest of us in on what changes with a ring? [US News & World Report]
• More than 130 million Americans turned out to vote yesterday, or about 64% of eligible voters, making it the biggest election ever and the higher voter turnout in a long damn time. [Politico]
• The ACLU, along with the Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, have filed a brief with the California Supreme Court arguing that it should rule Proposition 8 invalid if it officially passes. They argue that, since Prop 8 invalidates another section of California's constitution, it requires greater legislative scrutiny than the average ballot initiative. Good luck! [ACLU]

Australian crime victims are demanding that convicted rapist Mike Tyson be barred from entering Australia and "totted out as a celebrity, like some kind of Mother Theresa." • Former Indian septic-tank cleaners and other female "untouchables" put on a fashion show at the U.N. honoring a for-profit organization to help untouchables. • A teen girl in Colorado is sentenced to 18 years in prison after killing her half-sister in a "Mortal Kombat" fight reenactment. • Bob Dylan's ex-girlfriend and muse (and the woman pictured with him on the iconic cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan) breaks her silence in a new memoir about the '60s. • Victims of a peeping tom case in Seattle are blamed by the peeper's wife for "putting on a show" because of their broken blinds. • Two more teens videotaped themselves beating up a fellow classmate and putting it on the internet. One word for these girls: idiots. • Gender-based violence and harassment in the workplace continues to run rampant in Bangladesh. • Game makers attempt to woo young girls with a new game that is essentially a lamer version of Guitar Hero.• Could the HPV vaccine cause teen paralysis? • Deliriously cute Leftovers video: ducklings in a bathtub!