Cheat Sheet

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Looking for a little breathing room, Democrats are targeting Maine's two centrist Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, hoping they can attract them to vote for the coming health-care reform bill. President Obama sent a member of his cabinet, former Colorado Senator Ken Salazar, to meet with Collins. On Saturday, the Senate passed a vote to move forward with the health-care debate along party lines, 60-39. “I have ruled out voting for this bill, but I still very much want to vote for a bill and that is why I am continuing to have discussions,” Collins told The New York Times. “I still cling to the belief that it is possible for a group of us to come together and rewrite the bill in a way that would cause it to have greater support.”

Four U.S. service members have been killed in Afghanistan in the last 24 hours. Three Americans died Sunday in southern Afghanistan, two after a bomb attack and a third in a separate firefight, while a fourth service member died after a bomb exploded in east Afghanistan on Monday. So far, 15 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan during the month of November. Last month 58 Americans died in Afghanistan, making it the deadliest month for U.S. troops to date in the eight-year war.

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With Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's popularity waning on Capitol Hill as frustration with the Obama administration's handling of the economy grows, J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has emerged as a potential replacement. As the New York Post put it, Dimon "achieved rock-star status" by leading J.P. Morgan through the financial crisis and by serving as the "go-to guy" when the government needed industry help last year as Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual collapsed. Although Dimon has publicly said that he intends to stay at J.P. Morgan for another six or seven years, in recent weeks he's traveled to Washington frequently, and White House visitor logs show that he has been a frequent guest. Earlier this month Dimon raised his profile by publishing a high-profile op-ed in The Washington Post arguing the virtues of letting big banks risk collapse rather than receive government aid.

Brendan McDermid / Reuters

The recession is ending but the debt pile only grows: The U.S. is now more than $12 trillion in the red. Servicing that national debt will cost the country $202 billion this year, and more than $700 billion per year by 2019, according to White House estimates. For comparative purposes, $500 billion in interest expenses could cover the federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and still have some left over. While this year's spending surge is widely believed to be a necessary response to the financial crisis and recession, the long-term budget crisis, which arrived just as baby boomers are beginning to retire en masse, has sent the Treasury is scrambling to lock in today's low interest rates by shifting short-term borrowings to long-term bonds. But much like overstretched homeowners with a subprime mortgage, the government can probably look forward to payment shock.

Microsoft and News Corp. have met about plans to help the media company "de-index" its Web sites so that their stories could not be detected by Google. News Corp., the Rupert Murdoch company that controls The Wall Street Journal, approached Microsoft, according to the Financial Times. But Microsoft has gone to other publications offering its services to remove their sites from Google's search engine, the paper said. “This is all about Microsoft hurting Google’s margins,” said one online publisher.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is making the first visit to Brazil by an Iranian head of state, during a diplomatic tour through South America and Africa. The U.S. government worries that by welcoming Ahmadinejad, who was forced to cancel a scheduled visit to Brazil last May after protesters took to the streets alarmed by Ahmadinejad's views on the Holocaust and Israel, Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva could signal implicit approval of Iran's resistance to international pressure surrounding the country's nuclear ambitions. Ahmadinejad and Lula are expected to sign a number of agreements during the visit, including cooperation pacts in biotechnology, energy, and agriculture. Tehran is also seeking to up its petrochemical, energy, agricultural, and medical trade with Brazil from $2 billion to $15 billion.

There must be something in the water at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Seniors Henry Spelman and Libby Longino will be heading to Oxford as a couple after each of them won a Rhodes Scholarship on Saturday. The prestigious Rhodes award, won by the likes of former President Bill Clinton, pays tuition, board, and living expenses for two years of study at Oxford, an annual value of about $50,000. Each year about 80 students are chosen worldwide for the honor, and this year, 32 U.S. students won. Spelman said that the "really cool" part about winning the prize was that his girlfriend won too. Spelman will use his the opportunity to pursue a doctorate in Latin and Greek while Longino will study human trafficking.

Thibault Camus / AP Photo

An escort girl to Silvio Berlusconi says the Italian prime minister has direct ties to Mafia dons in a soon-to-be-published memoir. Patrizia D'Addario also says she was attacked and threatened after she slept with Berlusconi. The Italian leader's lawyer said the claims are "baseless and can be in no way verified." D'Addario says that her mother was attacked by a man who said, "This is to teach your whore of a daughter a lesson." In another incident, she said a car tried to run her off the road. She writes in the new book, “It was a miracle that I survived and did not hit another car." Berlusconi has faced allegations revolving around his relationships with escorts since last spring.

One month into an offensive designed to rid the South Waziristan region of the Taliban, Pakistan is greeting new costs of war as the growing conflict hurts the nation's economy and scares off investment from abroad. Some Taliban militants have settled in other regions of the country forcing companies, like a London-based oil group, to leave Pakistan. “Naturally, this violence is not good for the investment climate, but the government’s decision this year to tackle the Taliban is a good one for the long term,” said a Karachi-based asset manager. The effort has cost the military $8.5 billion a year and the number is rising, according to Pakistani officials.

Mark Humphrey / AP Photo

The competition was stiff, but 19-year-old Taylor Swift managed to beat out Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Kings of Leon, and Eminem for Artist of the Year at the 2009 American Music Awards. Swift also took home awards for favorite female pop/rock artist and best country album. Jermaine Jackson accepted favorite male soul/R&B artist, best soul/R&B and pop/rock album, and favorite pop/rock male awards on his brother Michael's behalf. Other winners included the Black Eyed Peas and Green Day. Sunday night's show included a few notable showstoppers. Rihanna took to the stage to perform a single from her new album Rated R. Lady Gaga put on one of the night's most memorable performances when she sat down to play a grand piano and it caught fire. Jennifer Lopez had a blooper moment when she slipped up on a dance move and landed on her bottom.

The head of the Federal Reserve takes a lot of heat, but this year the U.S. central bank is taking more criticism than ever. Amid higher unemployment and bank bailouts, the Associated Press predicts that the Senate confirmation hearings for Ben Bernanke may be the site of heated debate. The hearings could begin as early as next month. Adding to the Fed's trouble is Congress's effort to strip it of many of its regulatory powers, spreading them out to other organizations.