Sarko Kicks Back on Moguls' Dime

Leaders scarf burgers, begin to patch up old alliance

(NEWSER) - Praise from a vacationing French President Nicolas Sarkozy and a down-home welcome from President Bush to the family compound in Maine this weekend signaled a radical switch in the tense relations between the two nations. The leaders were relaxed and affable with one another as they boated, chatted and chomped on hotdogs and burgers at Kennebunkport. More»

Summer vacations send 'terrible signal to the markets'

(AP) - Europeans have always treasured their long summer vacations, and that goes for their leaders as well. As the European economy teeters on the precipice, Nicolas Sarkozy is by the Mediterranean in his swimming trunks. His prime minister is vacationing in Tuscany. British Chancellor George Osborne is in California, where he rode the Jurassic Park log flume at Universal Studios in Los Angeles. The entire 15-member Cabinet of debt-ridden Ireland has left Dublin, though the finance minister is taking calls from his home in Limerick. More»

What do Sarkozy, Clinton and the Taliban have in common?

(NEWSER) - The decision to award President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize has clearly made some people unhappy, writes Katie Connolly for Newsweek. Here are six of the most peeved:

1. Nicolas Sarkozy: The French president was also up for the honor but was passed over for someone he’s described as “naïve and inexperienced.”
2. Michelle Obama: If you thought controlling “the one’s” ego was hard before…

(NEWSER) - The president's first summer vacation is to a classified destination, but on the streets and beaches of Martha's Vineyard, it's no secret that Barack, Michelle, and their daughters are spending August on the island. The first family is expected to stay in Oak Bluffs, a longtime vacation spot for the black elite. The low-key commander in chief is planning nothing like Bill Clinton's celebrity-studded Vineyard holidays, reports the New York Times. More»

(AP) - George H.W. Bush celebrated his 85th birthday by skydiving over the coast of Maine today. The 41st president made a tandem jump with a member of the Army's Golden Knights parachute team onto a landing zone near a church in Kennebunkport, where the family has a summer home. "I don't feel a day over 84," he told the Portland Press Herald. More»