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Newser Story Index from August, 2009

Welcome to the Newser Story Index. Here you find stories written by Newser writers and editors, assembled with supporting photos and videos from the files of the news story.

Vatican Snubs Berlusconi Over Cheeky News Article
Wall Street Journal | Aug 30, 2009 11:40 AM CDT
(Newser) - He may still be beloved by Italian voters, but there’s clearly no love lost between Silvio Berlusconi and the Vatican, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Holy See has disinvited the scandal-ridden Italian premier from a religious service and dinner after a newspaper owned by his brother ran a scathing article criticizing an influential Roman...
Too Much Exercise Is Gross, Dangerous
Times (UK) | Aug 30, 2009 11:22 AM CDT
(Newser) - Madonna’s sinewy arms, Elle Macpherson’s “saggy knees,” Nicolas Sarkozy's collapse: Extreme exercise regimes are taking a noticeable toll on some celebrity bodies, highlighting the negative effects of an overly heavy workout, the Times of London reports. Experts say too much exercise does nothing to make us look better—instead,...
Hatch: Vicki 'Ought to Be Considered'
Politico | Aug 30, 2009 10:53 AM CDT
(Newser) - Vicki Kennedy would be a good replacement for her late husband in the months before a special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat, Orrin Hatch told CNN’s State of the Union . “She’s a very brilliant lawyer, she’s a very solid individual,” Hatch said. “I think Vicki ought to be considered.” Chris Dodd...
Legal System 'Dropped Ball' on Garrido: Cop
New York Daily News | Aug 30, 2009 10:26 AM CDT
(Newser) - A furious cop has blasted the legal system for "dropping the ball" on Jaycee Dugard's accused kidnapper Phillip Garrido, who served only a fraction of a 50-year conviction for a previous kidnap-rape. "How he got out after 10 years, I'll never know," Nevada Police Officer Clifford Conrad told the New York Daily News .
Kennedy to Pope: Pray for Me
CNN | Aug 30, 2009 10:00 AM CDT
(Newser) - In the months before he died, Ted Kennedy penned a letter to Pope Benedict beseeching the pontiff's prayers—and enlisted no less a messenger than the leader of the free world to deliver it, reports CNN. “I am writing with deep humility to ask that you pray for me as my own health declines,” Kennedy wrote in the letter Barack Obama...
Daschle: Insurers Can Talk to Rush—Or Me
New York Times | Aug 30, 2009 9:42 AM CDT
(Newser) - Why is Tom Daschle taking money to advise an insurer that’s against the creation of a public health care option—a measure he supports? Pish-posh, the former Senate majority leader tells Deborah Solomon in the New York Times . Who would doubters on the left “advise these insurance companies talk to? They can talk to Glenn Beck and...
Ryan Kept Me From Farrah's Deathbed: 'Secret Lover'
Daily Mail (UK) | Aug 30, 2009 9:06 AM CDT
(Newser) - One of Farrah Fawcett's first loves says he rekindled an 11-year affair with her but was kept from her death bed by Ryan O'Neal. "We were blind, crazy, in love," said former football player Greg Lott. "Farrah was my best friend and my inspiration. I never got to say goodbye. Ryan shut me out of her life."
Trounced, Japan's Ruling Party to Quit
Associated Press | Aug 30, 2009 8:34 AM CDT
(AP) - A top official in Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party has announced that he and other officials plan to step down after the party's apparent crushing defeat in today's parliamentary elections. LDP Secretary-General Hiroyuki Hosoda said that he and two other top officials plan to submit their resignations to Prime Minister Taro Aso, who serves as...
Current Care Kills More Than 'Army of Death Panels'
New York Times | Aug 30, 2009 8:09 AM CDT
(Newser) - Despite screeches that a government-run health care program will bump people into an early grave, "it’s a good bet that our existing dysfunctional health system knocks off far more people than an army of ‘death panels’ could, even if they did exist," writes Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times . The current system allows...
First Pics Reveal Jaycee's Trashy 'Prison Camp'
New York Post | Aug 30, 2009 7:44 AM CDT
(Newser) - The first photos of the junk-strewn California backyard "prison camp" where Jaycee Dugard and her two children were kept hidden for years reveal a chaotic hodge-podge of decrepit furniture, rumpled clothing, cat and sci-fi books, and a crude shrine to accused kidnapper Phillip Garrido, reports the New York Post . Naked Barbie dolls, a box...
Letters Link Lockerbie Bomber to Oil Deal
Times (UK) | Aug 30, 2009 7:17 AM CDT
(Newser) - When talks over British exploration of Libyan oilfields stalled 2 years ago, Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi became a key bargaining chip, according to the Times of London, citing leaked letters. The letters, from London Justice officials to their Scotland counterparts, initially favored excluding Megrahi from the British-Libya prisoner...
Cheney: Learn From CIA, Don't Investigate Interrogators
Fox News | Aug 30, 2009 6:49 AM CDT
(Newser) - The Obama administration should be asking CIA interrogators how they managed to ward off terrorist attacks for 8 years rather than investigating possible breaches of law while doing so, former Vice President Dick Cheney told Fox News today. Investigating interrogators is an "outrageous political act" that will do long-term damage, said...
Garrido 'Went Bonkers' Last Year
San Jose Mercury News | Aug 30, 2009 6:23 AM CDT
(Newser) - For decades, accused Jaycee Dugard abductor Phillip Garrido seemed normal enough to the customers of his printing shop. Then, about a year ago, he slipped off the deep end, reports the San Jose Mercury News . Garrido—who allegedly kidnapped Dugard in 1991 and sexually assaulted her for 18 years—started preaching to anyone who would listen....
Travis Tweets on DJ AM: 'I'll Always Think of You'
People | Aug 30, 2009 5:54 AM CDT
(Newser) - Devastated Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker tweeted a message expressing his grief over the death of friend Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein, vowing: "Every time I play the drums I'll think of you," reports People . "Rest in Peace, my brother." The pop-punk drummer survived a plane crash with the popular DJ last year that killed...
Japanese Voters Head to Polls to Boot Leaders
Wall Street Journal | Aug 30, 2009 5:28 AM CDT
(Newser) - Japanese voters began casting ballots today in a general election expected to clean house, reports the Financial Times . The Democratic Party of Japan will almost certainly thump the Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled the nation 11 months out of the last 54 years.
Pressure Mounts for Sanford to Resign
State (Columbia, SC) | Aug 30, 2009 5:03 AM CDT
(Newser) - South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is running out of allies in his own political party, reports The State . Republicans at the state House Majority Caucus meeting yesterday bashed the scandal-plagued Sanford. Furious legislators called for his immediate resignation, though South Carolina House Speaker Bobby Harrell urged holding off on any action until...
Kennedy Laid to Rest Near His Brothers
Washington Post | Aug 29, 2009 8:03 PM CDT
(Newser) - About 15 members of the Kennedy clan gathered with Joe Biden today at the burial ceremony of Edward Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery, the Washington Post reports. An honor guard carried the senator's coffin to an area between two maple trees, near the graves of Kennedy's brothers, John and Robert. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a friend of Kennedy's,...
How to Sell Health Reform Like Don Draper
The Stimulist | Aug 29, 2009 7:35 PM CDT
(Newser) - If Barack Obama’s going to sell the masses on health care reform, he’s going to need to hire a consultant: Don Draper. If the Sterling Cooper impresario of Mad Men were running this campaign, he wouldn’t bother talking about low premiums or subsidies. That's too mundane. “Draper realizes that people don’t want to be...
New Orleans Repair an Experiment in Green
Time | Aug 29, 2009 7:12 PM CDT
(Newser) - Four years after Katrina, the rebuilding of New Orleans is becoming an exercise in environmentally friendly reconstruction, Bryan Walsh writes in Time . Global Green USA, the American arm of a group founded by Mikhail Gorbachev, is leading the pack by building a sustainable village in the city's Lower Ninth Ward, and retrofitting schools with solar...
All That Folic Acid May Give You Cancer
Economist | Aug 29, 2009 6:53 PM CDT
(Newser) - Health experts once trumpeted folic acid, but now warn against taking too much of a good thing, the Economist reports. For more than 10 years, aspiring mothers have been told to down double the recommended dose with vitamin pills, and some countries have added folic acid to grain products. It's worked, too: Spina bifida is down in US babies...
'Reborn' Jesus Leads Vegans in Russia
Daily Mail (UK) | Aug 29, 2009 6:17 PM CDT
(Newser) - A former traffic cop in Russia has declared himself a reincarnation of Jesus and amassed a following of 5,000 devotees, including artists and intellectuals, the Daily Mail reports. Sergei Torop, "reborn" as "Vissarion" after losing his job in 1991, preached against the evils of war and harming the environment. Now he passes his...
This Year's Must-See College Games
FOXSports | Aug 29, 2009 5:54 PM CDT
(Newser) - College football season is just a few yards away, so Fox Sports scans the schedule for must-see affairs. The picks: Ohio State at Penn State, Nov. 7: With Michigan in its present state, this is the Big 10’s showcase game, and the winner is a good bet to go to the Rose Bowl.  USC at Ohio State, Sept. 12: An early look...
Job Loss Anxiety Hurts More Than No Job at All
Ann Arbor News | Aug 29, 2009 5:33 PM CDT
(Newser) - Worried about your job? It may be better for your health if you just quit, new research suggests. Looking at studies of nearly 2,000 adults, scientists at the University of Michigan have found job loss anxiety can be more harmful to your health than unemployment, hypertension, or even smoking, Ann Arbor News reports. “These findings apply...
Teen to Blame for Exploding iPhone? So Says Apple
PC World | Aug 29, 2009 5:11 PM CDT
(Newser) - Tales of spontaneously combusting iPhones across Europe may be fodder for easy jokes, but the whole "business is no laughing matter," writes JR Raphael for PC World . The EU has opened a formal inquiry into the latest incident, in which a French teenager says an exploding screen sent a shard of glass into his eye, and Apple has begun blaming...
Unreleased Kennedy Memoir Climbing Bestseller Lists
Politics Daily | Aug 29, 2009 4:30 PM CDT
(Newser) - Ted Kennedy’s unreleased memoir, True Compass , is already creeping up the bestseller lists. Originally scheduled for 2010, it's been moved up to mid-September by publisher Hachette, which plans to ship 1.5 million copies to booksellers. Pre-orders have put True Compass at No. 9 on Amazon and No. 3 on Barnes and Noble, reports Politics Daily....
Kids Pick Their Own Books in Classroom Revolution
New York Times | Aug 29, 2009 4:11 PM CDT
(Newser) - To Kill a Mockingbird or Captain Underpants ? The choice, for most middle school students, is a no-brainer—and an increasingly prevalent one now that schools from New York to Seattle hope to revolutionize English classes by letting students choose their own books, the New York Times reports. The approach, known as reading workshop, does...
Investors Ditch Once Lofty Cerberus Fund
Wall Street Journal | Aug 29, 2009 3:48 PM CDT
(Newser) - Hedge-fund investors are leaving once-vaunted investment firm Cerberus Capital Management in droves, the Wall Street Journal reports. The firm, whose acquisitions of Chrysler and GMAC turned disastrous, is seeing $5.5 billion in capital—or 71% of its hedge fund assets—walk out the door. "We have been surprised by this response,"...
Intuition Led Campus Cops to Jaycee's Captor
People | Aug 29, 2009 3:30 PM CDT
(Newser) - Two UC Berkeley police officers broke the Jaycee Duggard case open this week after her alleged captor visited the campus, People reports. "He was clearly unstable," UC officer Lisa Campbell said of Phillip Garrido. Campbell had a background check run on him and discovered he was a sex offender. When she met with Garrido and his daughters...
Honor Kennedy By Fixing Arlington
Salon | Aug 29, 2009 3:06 PM CDT
(Newser) - Ted Kennedy will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery today, but for many soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan the wait for an Arlington burial is a lot longer, writes Mark Benjamin at Salon. Kennedy himself once intervened for a Massachusetts family who was told they’d have to wait at least six weeks to bury their son, more if they wanted...
World's Oldest Bartender Calling It Quits
Associated Press | Aug 29, 2009 2:45 PM CDT
(Newser) - The longest serving bartender in the world—that Guinness-certified honor came 10 years ago—and slinger of one of the first beers after Prohibition ended is hanging up his cocktail shaker, the AP reports. Ninety-five-year-old Angelo Cammarata, owner of the beloved Cammarata’s Café in Pittsburgh, is selling after more than 70...
Agents Say Waterboarding Turned Around Terrorist
Washington Post | Aug 29, 2009 2:20 PM CDT
(Newser) - After being waterboarded 183 times and deprived of sleep for a week, self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Kalid Sheikh Mohammed transformed from an avowed enemy of the US into a sort of CIA guest lecturer, the Washington Post reports. Two anonymous sources, looking to build the case that harsh interrogation worked, say that in 2005 and 2006, KSM gave...
Back Off, Golf Haters
Wall Street Journal | Aug 29, 2009 1:53 PM CDT
(Newser) - There’s been a lot of hatred leveled at golf this year, with everyone from Bill Maher to Hugo Chavez putting down the game—Chavez called it bourgeois, and Maher complained that Obama only played it to “relax the white people.” One USA Today writer even blamed golf for the recession and everything “that’s retrograde...
Sen. Vicki Kennedy? No Consensus on What's Next
Politico | Aug 29, 2009 1:31 PM CDT
(Newser) - All agree that Vicki Kennedy turned around husband Ted’s life, but there is little consensus on where the 55-year-old widow will go from here, Politico reports. “All this stuff about her going to the Senate is completely wrong,” says longtime family adviser (and speechwriter) Bob Shrum. Indeed, Mrs. Kennedy has told friends she has...
UN Staffers Kidnapped in Darfur
Associated Press | Aug 29, 2009 1:10 PM CDT
(Newser) - Two staffers supporting peacekeeping operations in Darfur were kidnapped from their homes this morning, the AP reports. The joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force has established contact with the abductors. “We are here to protect civilians," the head of the mission told them. "We are not part of the conflict.” A spokesman...
$23M Lawsuit: Steinbrenner Stole My Idea
Newsday | Aug 29, 2009 12:54 PM CDT
(Newser) - The former president of Madison Square Garden is suing George Steinbrenner for $23 million, accusing the Yankees boss of stealing his idea for a team-owned TV network, Newsday reports. Bob Gutkowski claims he brought the idea for what would become YES to Steinbrenner in the mid-'90s and was given assurances that he would head the network. The Yankees...
Credit Disparity Tells Tale of Two Recoveries
Wall Street Journal | Aug 29, 2009 12:31 PM CDT
(Newser) - A fractured, polarized credit market is splitting America’s companies into the recovering and the desperate, the Wall Street Journal reports. For the mostly big companies with easy access to credit, the recovery is in full swing, but for the mostly small companies that can’t borrow, things seem as desperate as ever. “There is a...
Obama: Kennedy a 'Kind and Tender Hero'
CBS | Aug 29, 2009 11:54 AM CDT
(Newser) - President Obama paid homage to the "greatest legislator of our time" today in his eulogy of Ted Kennedy—"the baby of the family who became its patriarch, the restless dreamer who became its rock." He ticked off the personal and public tragedies of Kennedy's life, "a string of events that would have broken a lesser man,"...
Kennedy Funeral in Photos
Associated Press | Aug 29, 2009 11:22 AM CDT
(AP) - Ted Kennedy received a final tribute today befitting his huge profile on the American political scene. President Obama, three former presidents, dozens of congressmen past and present, and celebrities ranging from Jack Nicholson to Tony Bennett attended the funeral at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in Boston. Placido Domingo and Yo-Yo Ma performed...
Yale Sides With Dictators by Censoring Cartoons
Washington Post | Aug 29, 2009 10:57 AM CDT
(Newser) - Yale University has “handed a victory to extremists” by deciding to pull images of the prophet Muhammad from its upcoming book on the Danish cartoon controversy, writes Mona Eltahawy in the Washington Post . Eltahawy is a Muslim living in Denmark, and she knows full well that the cartoons offended some Muslims like her mother. But she...
Modern Novels' Shift: We Can Understand Them
Wall Street Journal | Aug 29, 2009 10:30 AM CDT
(Newser) - The 21st-century novel is being reacquainted with an old friend: the plot. Today's best writers are abandoning the notion that literary novels need to be all but impenetrable to readers without advanced degrees, writes Lev Grossman in the Wall Street Journal . "The revolution is under way," he says. "The novel is getting entertaining...
Megrahi Knows 'Truth,' Wants Lockerbie Inquiry
Times (UK) | Aug 29, 2009 9:52 AM CDT
(Newser) - Convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi has always maintained his innocence and now he wants an inquiry into the 1988 plane explosion that killed 270 people, the London Times reports. Megrahi claims to hold documents that could shed light on the real culprits and says that interest among the victims’ families runs high. “It...
Snowe Could Be Lone GOP Health Care Vote
New York Times | Aug 29, 2009 9:15 AM CDT
(Newser) - As health care talks grow more polarized, Democrats are looking to Olympia Snowe as their most likely—and quite possibly only—Republican vote, the New York Times reports. “I certainly hope not!” exclaims Snowe when asked about the possibility. But the centrist Maine senator has long been engaged on health care issues, and...
In Politics and Love, Vicki Rescued Ted
New York Times | Aug 29, 2009 8:42 AM CDT
(Newser) - As a love story and a political partnership, Ted Kennedy's relationship with wife Victoria defined the last decades of his life, the New York Times reports in a piece on the most powerful and politically savvy of the Kennedy wives. When the senator fell in love with banking lawyer Victoria Reggie in 1991, he was a scandal-plagued aging playboy and...
Cops Bummed as Ford Kills Crown Vic
Detroit News | Aug 29, 2009 8:24 AM CDT
(Newser) - In June, Ford brought the heads of the nation’s top police fleets to its Dearborn headquarters and had them test drive its latest Taurus. The goal: to convince them that there would be life after the Crown Victoria. The Crown Vic is the unrivaled king of cop cars, making up 85% of American police fleets. But Ford is pulling the plug on the lumbering...
Jaycee Bonded With Kidnappers, Not Always Hidden
San Jose Mercury News | Aug 29, 2009 8:22 AM CDT
(Newser) - Jaycee Dugard, though kidnapped at just 11 and raped a month later, bonded with her kidnapper, Phillip Garrido, and came to see him as her husband, the San Jose Mercury News reports. "Jaycee has strong feelings with this guy," her stepfather, Carl Probyn, said yesterday. "She really feels it's almost like a marriage." At her reunion...
GOP Suggests Reform Would Deny GOP Patients Care
Associated Press | Aug 29, 2009 7:39 AM CDT
(AP) - The GOP has mailed a fundraising appeal suggesting Democrats might use an overhaul of the health care system to deny medical treatment to Republicans. A push-poll questionnaire accompanying the appeal says the government could check voting registration records, "prompting fears that GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment...
The 10 Douchiest Colleges in the US
GQ | Aug 29, 2009 7:08 AM CDT
(Newser) - In college, acting insufferable is pretty much a given. “The question for America's youth is: What kind of douche bag do you aspire to be?” asks GQ . The mag helpfully offers the top options. Brown University: Peace Sign on My Mom's 7 Series Douches are limo liberals too good for grades. Duke University: Original Douches....
Penny Pinching May Linger Long After Recession
New York Times | Aug 29, 2009 6:40 AM CDT
(Newser) - The Great Recession is loosening its grip on Americans, but the spirit of thrift it inspired isn't, reports the New York Times . Consumer spending, which until recently accounted for 70% of US economic activity, looks unlikely to return to full steam as consumers emerge from the recession cramped by lower home values, lingering debts and scarcity...
Earlier Garrido Kidnap, Rape Mirrors Dugard's
Associated Press | Aug 29, 2009 6:33 AM CDT
(AP) - The crime that landed Phillip Garrido in Leavenworth, where he met his current wife, bears striking similarities to the kidnapping and rape of Jaycee Lee Dugard 18 years ago. In 1976, Garrido kidnapped a woman from a South Lake Tahoe parking lot, handcuffed her, took four hits of acid, and raped the victim in a storage unit in Reno, the AP reports....
DJ AM 'Devastated' Over Recent Breakup
TMZ | Aug 29, 2009 6:12 AM CDT
(Newser) - DJ AM was "completely devastated" after girlfriend Hayley Wood broke up with him this week, TMZ reports. The celebrity disc jockey found dead of an apparent drug overdose yesterday had been sober for 9 years, but had struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder since surviving a plane crash last September. As recently as August 15, AM and...
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