VILLAVICENCIO, COLOMBIA (CNN) — A mission to free three hostages held by leftist rebels in Colombia stalled Monday, with the rebels and Colombian authorities trading blame for the delay.

On Monday night, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who organized the mission, said he remained hopeful that the operation would succeed despite major obstacles that surfaced earlier in the day.

The leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC for its Spanish acronym, had planned to release three hostages as part of a deal Chavez brokered. Yet they reversed course Monday and said that Colombian military operations in the area made a release impractical.

VILLAVICENCIO, Colombia (CNN) — A dramatic development raised hopes Monday that a three-year-old boy who was born in captivity in the Colombian jungle may be free.

The boy, known as Emmanuel, was in line for freedom with his mother and another woman who were kidnapped six years ago by a rebel force that the U.S. and Colombia view as a terrorist organization.

 Yet “Operation Emmanuel” appeared to collapse Monday, with the Colombian government and rebels trading blame for the failure of rebels to free the hostages.

As the mission’s fate remained clouded in uncertainty, President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia stunned a throng of reporters Monday by saying that Emmanuel may not be in rebel hands after all and that the boy may live in a foster home in the Colombian capital of Bogota.

DES MOINES, Iowa (CNN) — The rivalry between Republican presidential contenders Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney took another turn Monday as Huckabee announced he would kill an Iowa television ad attacking Romney — then played it for a room full of reporters.

Huckabee said he pulled the commercial because he has decided not to hit back against attacks by the former Massachusetts governor. But he said he made sure the ad got seen — despite multiple glitches during his Monday news conference — “because we wanted to validate that in fact, there was an ad.”

Polls show Huckabee and Romney running neck-and-neck race far ahead of the other GOP candidates ahead of Thursday’s Iowa caucuses, the first contest of the 2008 presidential race.

Romney responded to Huckabee’s move by calling it “kind of confusing.” And he defended his own campaign, saying his criticism of the former Arkansas governor was based on issues, not a personal attack.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The State Department denies it ignored security dangers surrounding former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto when she returned to Pakistan.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters in his office Monday that the United States had concerns about Bhutto’s security before and after she returned to Pakistan. And he disputed claims made Monday in the Washington Post and other newspapers by columnist Robert Novak that security issues had been ignored.

In his column, Novak wrote, “The assassination of Benazir Bhutto followed two months of urgent pleas to the State Department by her representatives for better protection. The U.S. reaction was that she was worried over nothing, expressing assurance that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf would not let anything happen to her.”

–From CNN State Department Producer Charley Keyes

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Bush administration was hoping to spend the early hours of 2008 poring over a new document from the North Koreans: a full list of its nuclear secrets. No such luck.

The North Koreans let the New Year’s Eve deadline come and go without revealing anything.

The United States now is hoping the delay will only be temporary and that the official declaration will be sent along in the coming days. The U.S. goal is to press ahead with negotiations and achieve full denuclearization of the Korean peninsula by the end of the new year.

–From CNN State Department Producer Charley Keyes

BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) — A 3-year-old child thought to be held hostage since his birth in the jungles of Colombia may actually be in the custody of a child-welfare agency in Bogota, Colombian officials said Monday.

The stunning news came during a press conference given by President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia after a plan to free hostages appeared to have run into serious trouble. The child showed signs of torture and mistreatment, Uribe said.

The mission to free the hostages was dubbed Operation Emmanuel for the child, thought to be the son of kidnap victim Clara Rojas, a Colombian political consultant who was kidnapped six years ago by leftist rebels with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the Spanish acronym by which the group is known.

(CNN) — The driver of a pick-up truck involved in a wrong-way accident that killed a mother and four children will be charged with five counts of vehicular homicide upon his release from hospital, Toledo (Ohio) Police Chief Michael Navarro told CNN Monday.

Michael Gagnon, 24, was allegedly drunk when he sped north on the southbound side of Interstate 280 and hit a minivan carrying eight people — a mother, father, and their six children or stepchildren — said Toledo Fire Department Assistant Chief Luis Santiago.

Toledo police Capt. Ron Spann said police received notification of a wrong-way driver on I-280 about 10:52 p.m.; Gagnon crashed into the Griffin family’s Chevy Astro Van three minutes later. Police arrived on the scene at 10:57 p.m., he said.

– From CNN’s Sarah B. Boxer in New York

BAGHDAD (CNN) — While 2007 has been the deadliest year for U.S. troops in Iraq, December marks the second-lowest monthly death toll of the war.

As of evening Dec. 31 in Baghdad, the U.S. government has reported 899 U.S. troops killed in Iraq in 2007. Last year the toll was 822. The reported death toll for December stands at 21. The only lower monthly toll was 20 in February 2004.

An official with Iraq’s Interior Ministry said Friday 2007 brought the highest-ever civilian death toll in the war, with 16,232 civilians killed. Last year, the ministry said 12,371 civilians were killed. The official said 481 Iraqi civilians were killed in December — the lowest reported monthly toll for the year.

But civilian casualties in Iraq are impossible to confirm, and questions have been raised about how the Iraqi government decides which deaths to blame on the war. The United Nations said more than 34,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in violence in 2006.

(CNN) — Colombian military operations are “prohibiting” the release of three hostages whom Colombian leftist rebels promised to free, the group said in a statement that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez read on Venezuelan television.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe denied the group’s assertion, and said there are no combat operations in the area. The Colombian government had given all necessary assurances for the successful completion of the humanitarian mission, Uribe said during a televised news conference.

Earlier Monday, Colombia’s peace negotiator accused the group of lying and delaying the hostages’ release, saying FARC had not provided the “pertinent information,” or coordinates regarding where the freed hostages could be picked up.

NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) — One of the most stable nations in east Africa descended further into chaos Monday after a disputed election triggered violence that has killed at least 124 people.

The deaths in Kenya came as opposition supporters fought with police firing tear gas and live ammunition.

They were protesting the government’s announcement Sunday that voters had re-elected President Mwai Kibaki with 51.3 percent of the vote, compared with 48.7 percent for Raila Odinga, the opposition leader. International election monitors have alleged voting irregularities.

DES MOINES, Iowa (CNN) — In an unusual move even for this dramatic and rocky presidential election season, Republican Mike Huckabee announced Monday he is pulling an ad that was scheduled to run on Iowa TV stations attacking his competitor Mitt Romney.

After making that announcement at a news conference, Huckabee showed the ad to the room full of journalists — though it took several stops and starts due to technical difficulties.

The ad is a response to Romney’s latest attack ads against Huckabee. Polls show the two neck-and-neck for the lead in Iowa, which holds its caucuses Thursday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The woman who unsuccessfully tried to assassinate President Ford in 1975 was released on parole Monday from a federal prison in California, according to a Bureau of Prisons spokesman

 (CNN) — NASA released thousands of pages of raw data from a controversial air-safety research program Monday, but the aerospace agency’s chief called the findings unreliable and left analysis up to aviation safety experts.

Surveys of more than 30,000 commercial and private pilots during the study, conducted primarily from 2001 to 2004, found extensive complaints about crew fatigue, air traffic congestion and communications. But none of the data released Monday “should be viewed or considered at this stage as having been validated,” NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told reporters in a conference call Monday afternoon.

NASA had refused to release the study before its findings — including reports of twice as many bird strikes, near-mid-air collisions and runway incursions than current government monitoring systems show — leaked in October. Under criticism from Congress, Griffin agreed to release the data by year’s end.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) — Once bitter rivals, Pakistan’s two leading opposition parties are uniting in the wake of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination and demanding the government not delay next week’s elections as expected.

Bhutto’s widower, Azif Ali Zardari, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he is confident the Pakistan People’s Party — which he has taken control of since Bhutto’s death — will be victorious in the Jan. 8 parliamentary vote.

“All the polls when she (Bhutto) was alive and all the polls in her martyrdom now have always said that Pakistan People’s Party will win these elections,” he said. “So we are hoping to unite the country again in a democratic form by having a win in the election.”

Pakistan’s Central Election Commission will meet at 9 a.m. Tuesday (11 p.m. ET Monday) and is expected to make a final decision on whether the vote will be delayed.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The United States is warning of problems with the Kenyan election and is withholding congratulations for incumbent President Mwai Kibaki, who is claiming victory in last week’s vote.

In a statement released by the U.S. State Department Monday afternoon, spokesman Tom Casey congratulated the Kenyan people for turning out in record numbers on Thursday, but added: “The United States has concerns about irregularities in reporting the results, which should be resolved promptly through constitutional and legal remedies.”

He added, ‘We urge all parties to restrain their supporters and reach out to each other to find a peaceful resolution in the interest of continuing to advance Kenya’s democracy and development. The United States is working with all parties to this end.”

–From CNN Producer Charley Keyes

(CNN) — Three Palestinians were killed and more than 10 wounded Monday in clashes between Fatah supporters and Hamas police in southern Gaza, Palestinian security and medical sources said.

Fatah supporters were celebrating the anniversary of the party’s founding, despite a Hamas ban on such rallies in Gaza.

Hamas police surrounded the Fatah supporters and clashes ensued.

(CNN) — A mother and four children were killed by an allegedly intoxicated man driving his pick-up truck on the wrong side of a Toledo, Ohio, highway Sunday evening, Ohio officials say.

The near head-on crash happened shortly before 11 pm, when Michael Gagnon, 24, was driving north on the southbound side of Interstate 280 and hit a minivan carrying eight people — a mother, father, and six children or stepchildren — said Toledo Fire Department Assistant Chief Luis Santiago.

–From CNN’s Sarah B. Boxer in New York

(CNN) — Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour announced Monday that he is naming Republican Rep. Roger Wicker as Trent Lott’s replacement in the Senate.

Wicker, a 13-year veteran of the House of Representatives, has a “record of getting things done for Mississippi,” Barbour said.

He said one of the first requirements for a replacement was that “the appointee share Senator Lott’s conservative values and views and those of Senator (Thad) Cochran’s as well. Congressman Roger Wicker clearly meets that test.” Cochran, Mississippi’s other senator, also is a Republican, as is Lott.

(CNN) — Dutch police raided five homes in Rotterdam early Monday, arresting three men suspected of planning an imminent act of violence, according to a spokeswoman for the Netherlands’ Justice Department.

Two of the suspects, ages 31 and 32, are Dutch-Moroccan and the third is a 39-year-old Sudanese man, spokeswoman Desiree Leppens told CNN.

She said special police forces conducted the raid after the Justice Department received information from General Intelligence and Security Services on the three men. “We got the information yesterday evening and around 6 o’clock (Monday morning) we had the first arrest,” Leppens said.

BAGHDAD (CNN) — While 2007 has been the deadliest year for U.S. troops in Iraq, December marks the second-lowest monthly death toll of the war.

As of evening Dec. 31 in Baghdad, the U.S. government has reported 899 U.S. troops killed in Iraq in 2007. Last year the toll was 822.

The reported death toll for December stands at 21. The only lower monthly toll was 20 in February 2004.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — In another one of the shortest sessions in its storied history, the Senate was in session for a total of 12 seconds Monday.

Only one senator, Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island, was in the chamber to gavel open the Senate and adjourn it until January 3.

Monday’s event was the latest in a series of “pro forma” sessions the Senate has called — last Wednesday’s last for a total of 11 seconds — that are part of the last political scuffle of the year between the White House and the Democratic-led Congress.

JERUSALEM (CNN) — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has ordered his government not to start any new construction projects in the West Bank without his approval.

The announcement comes after Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas decided during their meeting last week not to take steps that could prejudice a final status agreement, Olmert’s spokesman Mark Regev said.

In a letter sent out to ministries of Defense, Housing and Agriculture, Olmert wrote “construction, new building, expansion, preparation of plans, publication of residency tenders, confiscation of land stemming from other settlement activities in the (West Bank) area will not go forward and will not be implemented without requesting and receiving in advance approval by the defense minister and the prime minister.”

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) — An official at the hospital where Benazir Bhutto was declared dead said Rawalpindi’s police chief told doctors not to conduct an autopsy, a decision he said prevented a medical conclusion about what killed her.

Athar Minallah, a lawyer on the board that manages Rawalpindi General Hospital and a prominent anti-government critic, said the doctors “suggested to the officials to perform an autopsy,” but Rawalpindi police chief Aziz Saud “did not agree.”

The police chief, however, told CNN that he suggested an autopsy be done, but that Bhutto’s widower objected.

BAGHDAD (CNN) — Two suicide bombs — including one strapped to a woman — and a roadside bomb killed at least eight people and wounded 25 in cities north of Baghdad Monday, according to Iraqi officials.

The woman detonated her bomb around noon near an Iraqi police patrol in Baquba, killing the bomber and wounding seven people, including four Iraqi police officers and three civilians, a Baquba police official said.

East of Baquba, in the city of Mandali, near the Iranian border, a roadside bomb killed two Iraqi border guards and wounded three Monday, according to Col. Ragheb al-Aumairi, a Diyala Military Op