WASHINGTON – Rating systems help people decide which restaurants to go to or hotels to stay at. So why not something similar from the federal government for the nation’s 16,000 nursing homes? Such a simple rating for so complex a task as caring for the elderly is leading to much …

This is a rush transcript of “Special Report With Brit Hume” from December 5, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARNEY FRANK, (D-MA) HOUSE FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE: A time of great crisis with mortgage foreclosures and autos — he …

SAO PAULO, Brazil – Brazil’s president asked God to halt the devastating rains that have killed at least 116 people in a southern state and offered new plans on Monday to help tens of thousands of people rebuild ruined homes and businesses. Continuing rains have hindered rescuers’ attempts to find …

NEW YORK – Investigators may get a clue Wednesday into how much money might be available for victims in the Bernard Madoff scandal. The fallen investment guru is scheduled to submit a list of his personal assets to the Securities and Exchange Commission by the end of the year, including …

ALBANY, N.Y. – The star of “The Nanny” wants to go from playing nasally New Yawkers to succeeding Hillary Rodham Clinton in the U.S. Senate. Publicist Jordan Brown delivered the straight line that Fran Drescher is serious about becoming the next junior senator from New York. Brown cited Drescher’s experience …

NEW YORK – Even as North Korea moves to take back hard-won concessions on its nuclear program, the Bush administration is hoping to salvage a crumbling international effort to get the communist state to give up nuclear arms. While admitting the situation is dire, especially after Pyongyang took yet another …

CAIRO, Egypt – The death toll from a devastating rock slide that buried a shanty town rose to 47 on Monday, a security official said as recovery efforts switched to high gear after days of delay. The death toll was expected to climb sharply as recovery efforts hastened, officials said. …

PAGHMAN, Afghanistan – A remote control bomb that witnesses said was set off by two unknown men on a nearby hilltop ripped through an Afghan provincial governor’s vehicle on Saturday, killing the governor and three others, officials said. The blast killed Abdullah Wardak, the governor of Logar province, two of …

A seven-year-old Scottish girl, who suffers from a rare lung condition, is being kept alive by four doses of Viagra a day. Natalie Archibald, from Musselburgh, near Edinburgh, was diagnosed with primary pulmonary hypertension after she collapsed on Christmas Day two years ago, the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph reports. Primary pulmonary …

Being sick is stressful. Calling out sick is even more stressful. If you’re like me, you spend your entire day having anxiety that you called out sick. Should you have just popped some Vitamin C and gone in to work? But, if you had, you know you would have felt …