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Newser Story Index from September, 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.

Stadiums, Hotels Told to Watch for Terrorists
Associated Press | Sep 22, 2009 11:16 AM CDT
(AP) - Counterterrorism officials have issued security bulletins to police around the nation about terrorists' desire to attack stadiums, entertainment complexes, and hotels, the latest in a flurry of such internal warnings as investigators chase a possible bomb plot in Denver and New York. In the two bulletins—sent to police departments yesterday and...
Blue Dog Gets Real Estate Windfall From Drug Company
ProPublica | Sep 22, 2009 10:55 AM CDT
(Newser) - Arkansas Rep. Mike Ross, a Blue Dog Democrat who’s taken a leading role in the health care debate, sold a piece of commercial real estate to a pharmaceutical company for an eye-popping sum in 2007, Pro Publica reports. USA Drug paid $420,000 for the property in Prescott, Ark.—substantially more than both a county assessment of its worth...
Julia Roberts Flick Bars Indian Worshippers From Temple
Telegraph (UK) | Sep 22, 2009 10:50 AM CDT
(Newser) - She may be America’s sweetheart, but villagers in India are not feeling the love for Julia Roberts after the actress caused them to be barred from their temple—at the beginning of a religious celebration, no less, the Telegraph reports. Ironically, Roberts—and her 350-member security team, derided in India as “presidential”—was...
Eight Dead in Southeast Floods
Associated Press | Sep 22, 2009 10:34 AM CDT
(AP) - Washed-out roads and flooded interstate highways around Atlanta added to the misery today after days of torrential rain in the Southeast that claimed at least eight lives, including a 15-year-old boy whose body was found in the Chattooga River. Authorities urged people who don't need to drive to stay home, a day after Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue declared...
Plaxico Hit With 2 Years
TMZ | Sep 22, 2009 10:32 AM CDT
(Newser) - Former New York Giant Plaxico Burress was sentenced today to two years in prison for possessing an unlicensed gun—the gun with which he accidentally shot himself in the leg at a New York nightclub in 2008, TMZ reports. The footballer, joined by his wife, son, and father at the sentencing, apologized and thanked his family for their support before...
Plague Bacteria Linked to Death of Scientist
Chicago Tribune | Sep 22, 2009 10:26 AM CDT
(Newser) - A 60-year-old researcher at the University of Chicago died earlier this month from an infection that may have been set off by the bacteria that causes the plague. Malcolm Casadaban was working with a weakened strain of the bacteria that is normally harmless, and the CDC has been called in to investigate why he died. The university says that there...
Obama Vows New US Resolve on Climate Change
Associated Press | Sep 22, 2009 10:17 AM CDT
(AP) - President Obama declared the United States a serious partner in combating global warming today, telling world leaders at the UN, "We understand the gravity of the climate threat. We are determined to act. And we will meet our responsibility to future generations." In brief remarks at a high-level climate summit convened by UN Secretary-General...
Feds Have Up to 12 Suspects in NYC Bomb Plot
Los Angeles Times | Sep 22, 2009 10:05 AM CDT
(Newser) - Investigators have linked up to 12 others to the alleged bomb plot that led to the arrest of Najibullah Zazi, his father, and an informant Saturday, the Los Angeles Times reports. While details of the investigation and the plot are sketchy—an assistant AG says “no specific information regarding the timing, location, or target of any planned...
Megan Fox Should Stop Talking
Nerve | Sep 22, 2009 9:59 AM CDT
(Newser) - Though she's the star of two Transformers movies, “which I guess is an 'accomplishment' of sorts," Megan Fox's real talent has nothing to do with acting, but “lies in her seemingly endless arsenal of opinions, ” writes James Brady Ryan of Nerve. “She’s accumulated a list of sound bites much longer and more memorable...
Worst. Blog. Name. Ever.
CNET | Sep 22, 2009 9:42 AM CDT
(Newser) - The fine, no doubt well-intentioned people at PETA have a new blog, notes Chris Matyszczyk of CNET, and they evidently didn’t put too much thought into the name. It’s called (drum roll please): The PETA Files. At least, let’s assume they didn’t put much thought into it, because if that pun’s intentional, the fine, well-intentioned...
Hasselhoff Was Dizzy, Not Drunk
E! Online | Sep 22, 2009 9:32 AM CDT
(Newser) - Though it probably depends on your definition of “normal,” David Hasselhoff “is totally normal,” his lawyer tells E!, claiming the Hoff’s hospitalization Sunday wasn’t due to substance abuse. A bad combination of drugs—one for an ear infection and one that helps keep alcoholics from drinking—made him...
Chili Peppers Could Help Heart Attack Victims
Wall Street Journal | Sep 22, 2009 9:22 AM CDT
(Newser) - Capsaicin, the chemical that makes chili peppers so spicy, could turn out to be the newest—and oddest—heart drug, the Wall Street Journal reports. Scientists applied the chemical to the abdominal skin of mice then induced heart attacks; their hearts suffered 85% less cell damage than the mice treated with a placebo, possibly because capsaicin...
Anna Nicole Had Lesbian Affair With Drug-Happy Shrink
Associated Press | Sep 22, 2009 9:07 AM CDT
(Newser) - Newly unsealed documents in the Anna Nicole Smith investigation reveal the Playmate had a lesbian tryst with her psychiatrist, Khristine Eroshevich—the same psychiatrist who ordered a drug cocktail so dangerous that one pharmacist who refused to fill the order called it “pharmaceutical suicide,” the Los Angeles Times reports. Smith’s...
Barack Flirts Earned Wrath of Michelle
New York Post | Sep 22, 2009 9:02 AM CDT
(Newser) - The latest tidbit from Christopher Andersen’s Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage , out today, reveals the punishment Michelle Obama meted out for women who “pushed their bodies up against his, slipped phone numbers into his pockets,” and grabbed his butt, the New York Post reports. Then-campaigning Barack just...
Met Audience Boos Drab Tosca
Bloomberg | Sep 22, 2009 8:48 AM CDT
(Newser) - New York's Metropolitan Opera opened its season last night with a gala production of Puccini's Tosca , a crowd-pleasing war horse given an aggressive new staging by the Swiss director Luc Bondy. The black-tie crowd was not pleased with the stark, modern production, erupting in boos during the curtain call. Critics were disappointed, too; Manuela Hoelterhoff...
150K Gay Couples Check 'Married' on Census
Associated Press | Sep 22, 2009 8:32 AM CDT
(AP) - Nearly 150,000 same-sex couples reported being in marriages last year, many more than the number of actual weddings and civil unions, according to the first US census figures released on same-sex marriages. About 27% of the estimated 564,743 total gay couples in the US said they were in a relationship akin to "husband" and "wife,"...
US Redeploys to Afghan Cities, Leaves Rural Areas to Taliban
Washington Post | Sep 22, 2009 8:27 AM CDT
(Newser) - Gen. Stanley McChrystal has ordered a major shift in US troop deployment in Afghanistan, telling his commanders to pull out of the sparsely populated, Taliban-controlled areas and focus instead on protecting population centers, the Washington Post reports. US officials say they’ve realized that they’re not going to wrest control of the...
Baucus Sweetens Subsidies as Bill Goes to Mark-Up
Washington Post | Sep 22, 2009 8:22 AM CDT
(Newser) - The Senate Finance Committee finally meets today to consider Max Baucus' health care reform bill—a bill Baucus has already reworked to counter complaints that it puts too much burden on the middle class. Baucus has upped subsidies to those too strapped to buy insurance, and says he may also lower penalties for those who don't. He's also backing...
Airport Seize Your Stuff? Look for It on eBay
CNN | Sep 22, 2009 8:19 AM CDT
(Newser) - From knives to baseball bats to cake-cutters to corkscrews, and including at least one kitchen sink, the Transportation Security Administration confiscates around a million items from air travelers every month, CNN reports. Guns are turned over to law enforcement and shampoo bottles end up in the trash, but the rest is given to state surplus agencies,...
Winter Babies' Real Problem? Less-Educated Mothers
Wall Street Journal | Sep 22, 2009 8:00 AM CDT
(Newser) - For years, economists have been trying to explain why winter babies have it so tough. In study after study, those born in winter consistently perform worse in school, earn less, and are less healthy than peers born at other times of year. Now Notre Dame economists Kasey Buckles and Daniel Hungerman have found, by accident, surprising statistical evidence...
Tom DeLay Shakes Booty to 'Wild Thing'
Politico | Sep 22, 2009 7:50 AM CDT
(Newser) - Tom DeLay strutted his stuff last night, lip syncing, cha-chaing and—stop the presses—shaking his booty to “Wild Thing” on his Dancing With the Stars debut. Politico staffers weigh in on the performance that earned 16 points and led judge Bruno Tonioli to deem DeLay “crazier than Sarah Palin”: Marty Kady...
Empire State Lighting Thrills Iranian Activists
Wall Street Journal | Sep 22, 2009 7:38 AM CDT
(Newser) - With Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York to speak at the annual opening of the UN general assembly, opponents of the Iranian regime petitioned to have the Empire State Building bathed in protesters' trademark green. The building's managers said no, but the activists got a lucky break, reports the Wall Street Journal . This week is the 70th anniversary...
Obama Set to Bankrupt US, Appease Foes
Wall Street Journal | Sep 22, 2009 7:08 AM CDT
(Newser) - President Obama's agenda can be summed up as "beggar thy neighbor, bankrupt thy country, and appease thy foe," as can be seen in his plans for summit meetings this week, Bret Stephens writes in the Wall Street Journal . The president chairs a UN Security Council meeting on nuclear disarmament this week but won't focus on any particular...
Generation of Rich Brats Sparks Chinese Anger
Wall Street Journal | Sep 22, 2009 7:03 AM CDT
(Newser) - Public outrage aimed at new generation of elites is widening class divisions as China prepares to mark 60 years of Communist rule, the Wall Street Journa l reports. The sons and daughters of those who got rich after the economic reforms of the early '80s are widely seen as being above the law, as their parents use their wealth to consolidate political...
Obama on Letterman: Funniest Moments
Time | Sep 22, 2009 6:52 AM CDT
(Newser) - Yes, there was that whole potato thing. But President Obama’s stint on Letterman included more funny moments, and Time runs down the top 10: During Dave’s Top 10 list, the No. 2 reason why Obama agreed to appear on the show: “Said yes without thinking, like Bush did with Iraq.” After Obama mentioned his daughters...
FDIC May Borrow Billions From Banks
New York Times | Sep 22, 2009 6:37 AM CDT
(Newser) - After a year of government bailing out the banks, now the banks may bail out the government. Regulators are considering a plan for the FDIC, which protects bank depositors, to borrow billions from healthy banks, enabling the fund to refresh its accounts after a wave of bank failures. Banks and their lobbyists are strongly in favor; writes the New...
Airlines Pledge to Halve Emissions by 2050
Guardian (UK) | Sep 22, 2009 6:28 AM CDT
(Newser) - The airline industry is pledging to cut carbon emissions by 50% in 2050, reports the Guardian, in a reluctant concession meant to stave off more dramatic action—but one that will likely increase fares and trigger a race for new, greener technology . The plan will be presented at the UN today and will be on the agenda at the critical climate...
White House Throws Weight Into State Races
New York Times | Sep 22, 2009 6:15 AM CDT
(Newser) - The Obama administration is becoming increasingly assertive in trying to influence state-level elections around the country, the New York Times reports. White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and other top political strategists have made it plain that they're willing to play hardball to strengthen the Democratic ticket where necessary—they've...
Obama May Boost Drones Instead of Troops
Associated Press | Sep 22, 2009 5:59 AM CDT
(AP) - The White House is looking at expanding counterterror operations in Pakistan as an alternative to a major military escalation in Afghanistan, two senior officials tell the AP. The military would rely on armed drones that could contain al-Qaeda in a smaller, if more remote, area and keep its leaders from retreating back into Afghanistan. The officials...
White Philly Cop Busted Down to Desk for Cornrows
Philadelphia Daily News | Sep 22, 2009 5:43 AM CDT
(Newser) - A white Philadelphia police officer with cornrows was ordered by a black superior to cut his hair and was temporarily busted down to desk duty because of the braids, reports the Philadelphia Daily News . Thomas Strain was ordered to cut his hair to look more "professional," even though dozens of black officers on the Philly force wear their...
Job Market Splitting Up Couples
Wall Street Journal | Sep 22, 2009 5:18 AM CDT
(Newser) - With the job market failing to recover along with the larger economy, two-career couples are facing tough choices and increasingly being forced into long-distance relationships. A recent survey has found that 18.2% of Americans who took new jobs in the second quarter also relocated, up from 11.4% a year earlier. Not everyone survives the pressures...
Google Doodles Latest Wells Tribute
Telegraph (UK) | Sep 22, 2009 4:44 AM CDT
(Newser) - Google has confirmed what many had guessed—that its mysterious UFO-themed logos this month were a tribute to British science fiction writer HG Wells, the Telegraph reports. The latest logo, which features the Martian fighting machines from War of the Worlds , takes Googlers to a list of search results for Wells, who would have been 143 years...
MIT Students Snap Space Pics on the Cheap
Guardian (UK) | Sep 22, 2009 4:22 AM CDT
(Newser) - A trio of MIT students managed to take photographs from the edge of space for less than $150, the Guardian reports. The students sent a digital camera and a GPS-equipped mobile phone in a coolbox into the stratosphere by attaching the kit to a helium balloon. They retrieved the photos and equipment when the balloon popped and they returned to...
Gitmo Defendants Given My Lai Massacre Film
Reuters | Sep 22, 2009 4:00 AM CDT
(Newser) - Guantanamo Bay prisoners accused of planning the 9/11 attacks asked for and were given copies of a film about the My Lai massacre, Reuters reports. The Guantanamo war crimes court was told during a hearing yesterday that Judgment: The Court Martial of Lt. William Calley , a 1975 courtroom drama about the Vietnam War killing of civilians by US soldiers,...
French Roust Migrant 'Jungle'
Guardian (UK) | Sep 22, 2009 3:36 AM CDT
(Newser) - French riot police stormed in today to clear an immigrant camp known as "the Jungle," the Guardian reports. The camp in woodlands outside Calais was home to hundreds of asylum seekers living in squalid conditions. Most were men and boys from Afghanistan seeking to cross to Britain on trucks going through the nearby Channel Tunnel.
Beck 'Fesses: McCain Would Be Worse Than Obama
Gawker | Sep 22, 2009 3:11 AM CDT
(Newser) - Glenn Beck seemed to surprise even himself yesterday when he confessed to Katie Couric on CBS News that "John McCain would have been worse for the country than Barack Obama." McCain is "this weird progressive like Theodore Roosevelt was," he explained. He said he would have "much preferred" Hillary Clinton than Obama and...
G-20 Summit Puts Spotlight on Reborn Pittsburgh
Portfolio | Sep 22, 2009 2:42 AM CDT
(Newser) - The choice of Pittsburgh for this week's G20 summit highlight a Rust Belt success story, Kris Mamula writes in Portfolio . The smokestacks and steel mills Mamula remembers from his Pittsburgh childhood are long gone, victims of the collapse of Big Steel that left the city in a state similar to today's Detroit. But gleaming new buildings attest to...
Ex French Prez Pens Steamy Princess Novel
Guardian (UK) | Sep 22, 2009 2:19 AM CDT
(Newser) - Did they or didn't they? That's what the French wonder now that Valéry Giscard d'Estaing has penned a steamy novel about a French president's affair with an "unhappy" English princess who could be Diana's doppelgänger, reports the Guardian . The pair consummate their love in The Princess and the President after D-Day celebrations...
Fox Reminds DC Staff They're Journalists
Mediaite | Sep 22, 2009 1:54 AM CDT
(Newser) - Fox News reminded its staff to follow journalistic standards after a producer was caught on camera whipping up a crowd at a tea party protest, Mediaite reports. Bill Sammon, the channel's vice-president of news, sent staff at Fox's DC bureau an email warning: "We do not cheerlead for one cause or another. We do not rile up a crowd. If a crowd...
Pragmatic Style Makes Gates White House Heavyweight
New York Times | Sep 22, 2009 1:26 AM CDT
(Newser) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates has bridged the gap between the Bush and Obama administrations and become a major player in reshaping national security policy in the process, officials tell the New York Times . His pragmatic style—as seen in his decision to ditch the missile defense system he signed off on under President Bush—has helped...
WWE Offers Kanye $10M to Get Into Ring
Media Take Out | Sep 21, 2009 10:23 PM CDT
(Newser) - World Wrestling Entertainment has offered Kanye West nearly $10 million to step into the ring, sources tells MediaTakeOut.com. The rapper, swamped by a wave of disastrous publicity following his award-show interruption of country star Taylor Swift, would be on the hook for some “light wrestling” in three events under the proposal from WWE...
Latest Garrido Search Yields Little, Could End Tuesday
San Francisco Chronicle | Sep 21, 2009 9:48 PM CDT
(Newser) - Today’s search of the property of Phillip and Nancy Garrido, charged in the rape and kidnap of Jaycee Dugard, found no evidence to link them to the 1980s disappearances of two other northern California girls, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Investigators will continue sifting through areas dug up after cadaver dogs showed interest, but...
Meet This Year's MacArthur 'Geniuses'
Associated Press | Sep 21, 2009 9:07 PM CDT
(AP) - A newspaper reporter who refuses to forget decades-old murders is among 24 recipients of this year's $500,000 MacArthur Foundation "genius grants." As in previous years, a wide variety of fields are represented on the list of recipients: There is a novelist and an applied physicist, a photojournalist and a molecular biologist, a painter and...
Lawyer With Alleged al- Qaeda Clients Behind Capitol Islam Event
FrontPage Magazine | Sep 21, 2009 8:15 PM CDT
(Newser) - One of the men leading an effort to bring some 50,000 Muslims to Capitol Hill on Friday for a “day of Islamic unity” is a lawyer who’s defended a number of men charged with al-Qaeda-related offenses, including one suspect in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Front Page Magazine reports. Hassen Abdellah, however, says he wants...
Russians Kasparov, Karpov Rekindle Chess Rivalry
Telegraph (UK) | Sep 21, 2009 7:29 PM CDT
(Newser) - More than 25 years after their rivalry gave chess, and Russia, a much-needed jolt, former champions Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov will face off for a series of matches in Spain, beginning tomorrow, the Telegraph reports. The younger Kasparov took Karpov’s world title in 1985, and then seemed to mirror the ascendancy that brought Mikhail...
Ralph Nader Pens Odd Utopian Novel
New Yorker | Sep 21, 2009 6:52 PM CDT
(Newser) - Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate and sometime presidential candidate, has written his first novel, the New Yorker reports. Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! , out tomorrow, is a “practical utopia” in which real-life characters undertake a fictional quest to—progressively—save the country. Over the course of its 736 pages,...
Where Glenn Beck Came From
Salon | Sep 21, 2009 6:24 PM CDT
(Newser) - One could be forgiven for thinking that Glenn Beck emerged, fully formed, from some radio talk-show host birthing chamber. But the Beck of today was once a pot-smoking teen from a broken home in Washington who considered suicide, a Salon profile reveals. Beck would later clash with Mormons at an early radio gig in Provo, Utah, deriding his religious...
'I Was Black Before the Election'
CBS News | Sep 21, 2009 5:53 PM CDT
(Newser) - President Obama's media blitz continues tonight on The Late Show With David Letterman, where he'll remind the host, "I think it's important to realize that I was actually black before the election." Snippets CBS released after this afternoon's taping reveal lighthearted moments and more serious stretches, as well as an interaction...
Drug Dealers: Experts in Recessionary Business
Financial Times (UK) | Sep 21, 2009 5:26 PM CDT
(Newser) - 50 Cent is the first rapper to pen a book of management advice. It’s a shame, then, that The 50th Law , co-written by Robert Greene, boils down to the worst kind of “be authentic” self-help boilerplate, writes Lucy Lucy Kellaway for the Financial Times . As a former drug dealer, 50 has a lot to offer managers, especially in a recession....
Murdered Family's Dad Held in Haiti
Naples Daily News | Sep 21, 2009 5:09 PM CDT
(Newser) - The Haitian National Police have apprehended a man believed to be the husband and father of the woman and five children found murdered Saturday in their Florida home, the Naples Daily News reports. Mesac Damas, who flew to Haiti Friday, is not officially a suspect in the case. He is apparently being held on a warrant issued after a January probation...
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