Cheat Sheet

As Iraqi forces took formal control of Baghdad from U.S. troops, fireworks exploded and a countdown clock ticked down the remaining seconds on national TV. The country celebrated newly-created "National Sovereignty Day" in honor of the occasion. Thousands flocked to a park where singers performed patriotic songs while Iraqi militia, their vehicles decorated with flags and flowers, patrolled Baghdad. Some worry that violence will rise now that the American militia are out, but if Iraqi forces are able to keep the violence to a minimum, there will most likely be even more pressure on President Obama to end the unpopular war that's claimed thousands of U.S. and Iraqi lives.

Mary Altaffer / AP Photo

Expect to hear about this at Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings: The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a group of white firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut, who claimed they were denied promotions because of their race. The court ruled 5-4 that New Haven was wrong to throw out a promotion exam because no African Americans and only two Hispanics were able to earn promotions from it. Sonia Sotomayor, in a lower court decision, had ruled in favor of the city.

In one of the largest settlements of Amish people, about half the population works in the RV industry instead of on traditional farms. The economic downturn means that many workers like Freeman Wingard, who made $40 per hour working in the RV factory and took his family for vacations in Florida, were laid off from their jobs and had to return to the farm and a more traditional Amish lifestyle. Now instead of going to restaurants and taking vacations, Wingard wakes up at 3:30 a.m. to make 300 jars of jelly by noon, and all the hard work doesn't come close to replacing his former factory income. The decreased income in many of the Indiana Amish have them returning to "core values" of church and family. (In other Amish populations, almost everyone works on the farm or for Amish-owned businesses). Many say they like the change: "The factories can make a robot out of you," said one former RV worker.

President Obama spoke out against the military coup in Honduras, which toppled the country's democratically elected president early on Sunday. "It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition, rather than democratic elections," Obama said to reporters. “We do not want to go back to a dark past." Meanwhile, thousands of protesters clashed with Honduras' new military government. President Manuel Zelaya was forced from the country in his pajamas after he attempted to change the country's constitution so that presidents can run for re-election.

Steve Jobs is back on the job. The Apple CEO will return to work on Tuesday after a six-month medical leave. Though Jobs had a live transplant only two months ago, it was reported that he made a brief cameo in the office last week. The tech community is speculating what his return will mean for Apple, and, as CNN reports, many think Jobs will become “less of the company’s day-to-day face and more of its visionary.” Writes Tim Bajarin in PC Magazine: " Part of the reason is that Jobs has had a near-death health issue to deal with, and he may now realize that his most important role will be to create a vision that can be carried forward for decades, not just the next product cycle."

Jerry Lewis will make his debut as a theater director with The Nutty Professor, a musical adaptation of the 1963 comedy classic he starred in and co-wrote. The legendary Marvin Hamlisch (best known for his music to A Chorus Line) is composing and the book and lyrics will be by Tony Award winner Rupert Holmes. In the film, a dorky professor named Julius Kelp concocts a potion that transforms him into a babe magnet called Buddy Love. He gets the girl he's dreamed of, but then the potion wears off and, naturally, hilarity ensues. Lewis, who won an Oscar this year for his humanitarian work, has appeared on Broadway before but never as a director.

A cure for cancer may not be so far off. Reuters reports that a cancer therapy based on "nano cells" and developed by Australian scientists has achieved a 100 percent survival rate in mice with human cancer cells over the past two years. The problem with traditional chemotherapy is that it targets healthy and cancerous cells, and that some cancerous cells can become resistant to the therapy over time. The Australians' new treatment works around that weakness using bacterially-derived nano cells. An initial wave of nano cells enters cancer cells and releases molecules that turn off the cell's production of proteins that make the cell resistant to chemotherapy. A second wave of nano cells then enter the cancerous cells and releases chemotherapy drugs, which kill the cells. The scientists plan to start human clinical trials in the coming months.

Who knew shape-shifting robots were so universal? Director Michael Bay’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, starring Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox, rocked the U.S. box office this weekend with $112 million—its next closest competitor was The Proposal, with a puny $18.5 million—but it also dominated foreign box offices, finishing first in all international markets. The poorly reviewed film brought in a staggering $162 million from foreign screens, for an overseas total of $181.6 million. The movie’s global gross is now $363.2 million. Despite the eye-popping figures, however, it failed to land a record for a foreign box office launch: Finishing before it internationally are the 2007 hits Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Spider-Man 3, and 2006’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Bill Kostroun / AP Photo

Yankees closer Mariano Rivera—by many accounts, the best relief pitcher to ever live—bolstered his Hall-of-Fame credentials on Sunday night by earning his career 500th save. He joins Trevor Hoffman as the only pitchers to ever save more than 500 games. Rivera earned the save in a 4-2 victory over the Mets, and the career mark was not even the game’s event that most excited him: He notched an RBI in the ninth inning when he walked with the bases loaded.

In an interview Sunday, President Obama praised the groundbreaking energy bill that squeaked by the House on Friday, calling it an “extraordinary first step” and adding that he hoped it would “prod” action by the Senate. Still, he suggested a handful of changes to the bill, which is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote renewable energy and energy efficiency. Before it reaches his desk, he’d like to get rid of a clause that would impose a tax on imports from countries that don’t have their own systems for pricing or limiting carbon dioxide emissions. But Obama is savoring the victory, The Washington Post reports, and noted Sunday that the legislation could make renewable energy into “a driver of economic growth.”

AP Photo

General Electric isn't a bank, so how did it nab tens of billions of dollars in federal bank relief? A smart piece by The Washington Post and investigative nonprofit ProPublica reveals how GE nabbed the money but evaded restrictions such as executive-compensation limits—the best of both worlds. GE's massive financial arm, GE Capital, is not classified as a bank. It originated during the Depression to offer consumers loans to buy GE products, but now, as the Post writes, it is "one of the world's largest and most-diverse financial operations." It would be the nation's seventh-largest banking company if it were a bank.  The Obama administration essentially wants to close this loophole and make companies that accept bailout money accept bailout rules by forcing companies like GE to pick either commerce or banking.

The Iranian authorities are moving full speed ahead with damage control. In an attempt to placate protesters, the Associated Press reports that on Monday, Iranian officials began a recount of 10 percent of the ballots from the disputed presidential election—odd considering that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Guardian Council have already said the vote was free from major fraud. In addition, Iran released five of the nine British Embassy employees it detained on Sunday. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also asked a top judge to investigate the death of Neda Agha Soltan, the woman whose gruesome death made world headlines as footage of it was released on YouTube.

Our bad: TMZ is reporting that the article about Michael Jackson’s autopsy report that was printed in The Sun and linked to on the Cheat Sheet on Monday “was fabricated and completely false.” The report, which was picked up by the New York Post, alleged that Jackson weighed 112 lbs, was covered in needle tracks, and had nothing in his stomach except for dissolved pills.

It’s been awhile since we last heard from Dick Cheney, but the former vice president emerged on Monday to attack the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities over the next 24 hours. “One might speculate that insurgents are waiting as soon as they get an opportunity to launch more attacks,” he told The Washington Times’ America’s Morning News radio show. "I hope Iraqis can deal with it. At some point they have to stand on their own. But I would not want to see the U.S. waste all the tremendous sacrifice that has gotten us to this point."

Is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad capable of self reflection? According to CNN, "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday called the death of Neda Agha-Soltan 'suspicious' and urged the country's authorities to identify those responsible for it." Neda was killed on June 20, and the video of her death almost immediately went viral.