I know, I know: this BackStory segment is from Friday.

Let's just say I posted it late on purpose, to tie into the whole "waiting" theme. (Yeah... that's the ticket!)

To start our second hour today, we looked at a report by The Center for Public Integrity on how colleges handle... or DON'T handle... rape cases.

If you'd like to check out CPI's coverage, here are the first and second articles in their series.

In the CNN NewsRoom we're passionate about helping our troops and their families.

We're featuring two ways you can help out.

If you want to brighten the holidays of military families who have a loved one deployed overseas or who is about to be deployed, you can reach out to Operation Homefront.

To find out more click here.

And if you want to mail holiday cards or packages to troops stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan, click here to link to a website with guidelines and how-to's.

Musical messenger Stevie Wonder has just been called to use his voice in a different way.

He joined Kyra live, to talk about Thursday's U.N. honor.

While the President, ecnomists and business leaders are figuring out what to do to create jobs, we're doing our own "job summit" every Thursday in the CNN NewsRoom.

Today we featured three laid-off job seekers and we'll have their pitches posted here soon.

Jean Senat is expecting his first child in a few weeks and has been looking for work since Februrary.

He is an experienced investment accountant and if you have a job for him e-mail him at:
jsenat@gmail.com

We're also featuring Jay Joseph, a man experienced in marketing and security.

He's currently in Philadelphia and if you have a job for him e-mail him at:
doublejrocks@aol.com

And our third pitch for the day is Atlanta resident Barry Jabbar Sykes.

The father of four is experienced as a hardware technician for an international communications company.

If you have a job for him you may e-mail him at:
rynajho@yahoo.com

In the meantime if you want to be part of the pitch e-mail your resume and some details about your situation to: 30secondpitch@cnn.com

*Besides the obvious, I mean!

Both were fodder for Tuesday's "What The...?" file:

It's a story that combines two things we're passionate about in the CNN NewsRoom-celebrating the spirit of the season and helping our troops.

Today we're highlighting Trees for Troops, a national effort to make sure military families who want one get a Christmas tree.

The charity's goal is to deliver 15,000 trees this year to military families in the United States and serving overseas.

If you want to find out more or help the cause you can click here to link to the charity's website.

The manhunt ended yesterday, with a police officer's fatal bullets.
But the controversy over Maurice Clemmons' rap sheet outlives him.

He'd been sentenced to 100+ years in prison for a crime spree in the late '80s. So by all rights, Clemmons should've been behind bars Sunday - when he allegedly ambushed and killed four Seattle-area cops.

In 2000, though, then-Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee granted him clemency. Clemmons would be one of 1,033 prisoners who were pardoned or had their sentences commuted while Gov. Huckabee was in office. The combined clemency record of his three immediate predecessors: 507.

Kyra talked to the prosecutor who put Maurice Clemmons behind bars in 1989.

We'd planned to tell you about these troops in our second hour Friday; unfortunately, the rundown kept changing, and we weren't able to air the Fallen Heroes segment.

Here's the original write-up:

These four soldiers from the Fourth Engineer Battalion trained together... deployed together... and died together.

At 34, Staff Sgt. Glen Stivison Jr. was a paternal figure to a lot of his troops, who called him "Stivey" or "Papa Sti". He loved pranks, karaoke, and fishing. But most of all, he loved his wife Eryn, and their boys - ages six and eight.

We honor the sacrifices of these troops - and the nearly 5,300 other Americans lost in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spc. Daniel Lawson

Spc. Jesús Flores Jr.

Staff Sgt. Glen Stivison Jr.

Pfc. Brandon Styer