Cheat Sheet

Colin Powell played an important role endorsing President Obama before the election--so what does he think of the commander in chief now? "I'm a little concerned," the former secretary of State told CNN in an interview airing Sunday. "I'm concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs and the additional government that will be needed to execute them." Specifically, there's too much to do and not enough money to pay for it. "I think one of the cautions that has to be given to the president—and I've talked to some of his people about this—is that you can't have so many things on the table that you can't absorb it all. And we can't pay for it all," he added.

AP Photo

What do you give the girl who has everything? When Malia Obama turns 11 on July 4th, the White House pastry chef will probably bake her birthday cake, the U.S. Marine Band will likely serenade her with "Happy Birthday," and she'll be able to celebrate with the thousands of Americans celebrating Independence Day on the front lawn. So far, 20 of her friends have descended on Camp David for Malia's birthday. Said President Obama: "There are 24 double-X chromosomes up in Camp David as we speak. It's a little intimidating."

There's new evidence on what caused the foreclosure crisis—and it may not all fall on the shoulders of subprime lenders. A new study from a database of millions of individual loans suggests the most important factor was whether a homeowner had negative equity in their home, and that the balance of the mortgage was greater than the value of the house. So-called "liar loans" had almost no impact on foreclosures, the Wall Street Journal's Stan Liebowitz reports, and the most important factor was "whether or not the homeowner currently has or ever had an important financial stake in the house."

Despite the recession, the country’s largest fireworks shows—from Las Vegas to Mount Rushmore—will be bigger and better than ever. The New York City show has been moved from East River to the Hudson, where 45,000 pounds of explosives will travel over a mile on six barges before they’re launched 1,000 feet into the sky. Pyro Spectaculars, the company that puts on New York’s show, traveled to China for specific designs for this year’s extravaganza. The show will use at least 10,000 more than last year’s—and eight times as many fireworks that explode at more than 600 feet in the air. The 27-minute show will attract around 3 million people on the ground and hopes to appeal to a wider television audience.

When Woodward, Okla. invited George W. Bush to their Independence Day celebrations, they thought they'd never hear back. But they did—with an RSVP yes! The former president will attend Woodward's Let Freedom Ring 2009 festival on July 4th. And now the community of 12,000—where cows outnumber people—is rushing to get ready for what locals are calling the biggest event ever to happen to their tiny town. And almost everyone's turning out to greet him: so far 9,200 tickets have been sold—the largest crowd Bush has greeted since he's left office. Said the shocked event promoter who sent the invitation to the former president: "I thought, `President Bush, July 4, no way is he even available. I almost asked for an off day in October or November, because I felt it would even be a stupid question to ask for the Fourth."

Many will be fooled by the rocks that she got. Danielle Deleasa, a name now on the minds of Jonas Brothers fans everywhere, has gone straight to the tabloids to talk up her recent proposal to Kevin Jonas. “I didn’t see the ring for a while because I couldn’t believe what he just asked me,” Deleasa told People magazine. “I was looking at him, like 'Are you serious?' When he pulled out that ring, I was like ‘Oh gosh.’ I said something like ‘Oh my God,’ and then I started crying.” The ring is described as a "three-carat cushion-cut diamond set in platinum above double shank band with 210 round pave diamonds" apparently designed by Kevin, the 21 year-old virgin-until-marriage pop star.

It's scarier than Jurassic Park: Australian paleontologists say they have found three new dinosaur species dating back 100 million years—a discovery they say is important to understanding prehistoric life in Australia. One species, Australovenator wintonesis, is a predator with three large claws on each hand, which, according to a Queensland paleontologist, was the "cheetah of his time," and bigger and scarier than the velociraptor from the Jurassic Park movies. The other two dinosaurs were four-legged herbivores, one resembling a giraffe, and the other a hippopotamus.

American reality shows have tried to get contestants to lose weight, eat bugs, and cheat on their significant others, but a new show in Turkey has come up with a new twist: converting atheists. In Penitents Compete (or Tovberkarlar Yarisiyor in Turkish), 10 unbelieving participants will face representatives from four religions—Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism — who will try to convince them to join their faith. Those who get religion will receive fabulous prizes, like a pilgrimage to one of their new faith's holy sites. According to the show's producers, the goal of the program is to educate the country's population about religions other than Islam, the country's dominant faith.

California's fiscal emergency deepened Thursday with the announcement that the state will send nearly 30,000 IOUs to its creditors, reports the San Jose Mercury News. Recipients will receive 3.75 percent interest on their notes. Though unconventional, IOUs—formally called registered warrants—are not unprecedented for California; the last time they used the was in 1992. At a news conference, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the state's budgetary woes are the fault of Democrats who insist on prioritizing labor support instead of the state's fiscal needs, whereas Democrats say Schwarzenegger is pushing for too ambitious a budget. "We don't have the money to pay our bills," the governor said. "It's a sad story."

AEG Live, the controversial concert company that some say forced Michael Jackson into a grueling rehearsal regimen leading up to his death, plans to keep making money even after his death. Footage from Jacko's final rehearsal, which made its way to the public on Thursday, could turn into a motion picture, AEG CEO Randy Phillips says. "He [Jackson] was our partner in life and now he's our partner in death ... If we do our jobs right, we could probably raise hundreds of millions of dollars just on stuff we have worldwide and then the estate could eradicate its debt," Phillips told the Associated Press. The AEG chief said that he released the clip of the final rehearsal because he thought Jackson was being portrayed too negatively in the media: "I said let's grab one piece where we can show people where he was headed. He was getting his moves together."

New president, new rules. While President Bush sought to crack down on illegal immigration with high-profile raids of companies suspected of hiring undocumented workers, President Obama has sought a far more conciliatory approach that uses fines and sanctions to influence companies. In one recent case, immigration authorities sent a notice to clothing manufacturer American Apparel that 1,800 of its employees appeared to be illegal immigrants and warned that the company faced civil penalties and would have to replace its illegal workers. Now the company has 30 days to either dispute the claims or fire the workers in question, but faces no criminal charges or raids.

Apparently subjecting vast swaths of Europe and Central Asia to a repressive totalitarian regime for much of the last century has somehow failed to put Russia in their good graces when Moscow comes calling once again. Hoping to secure their influence in the region, Russia has offered billions in aid to neighboring countries and threatened to cut off energy, but with seemingly little to show for their efforts. In one recent example of the country's declining influence, the country of Kyrgyzstan reversed a previous decision to close an American military base despite heavy pressure from Russia to kick the troops out and promises of $2 billion in aid. "A game of chance has developed in the post-Soviet space: Who can swindle the Kremlin in the coolest way?" a Russian military analyst, Aleksandr Golts, wrote at the time in response. Russia's 2008 war on Georgia has proved counterproductive as well in this regard, leading small ex-satellites to look to the West for greater protection.

Could President Obama's health-care push finally have a bill to rally behind? Senate Democrats are discussing a new plan that would cost $611 billion over the next decade and include a public health-insurance option to compete with private companies. Efforts at health reform suffered a devastating setback last month when another proposed health plan in the Senate was determined by the Congressional Budget Office to cost more than $1 trillion over 10 years while only covering 16 million uninsured Americans. The newer, cheaper plan is seen as a more politically sustainable option thanks to its lower cost. The new approach, according to Sen. Chris Dodd, would cover 97 percent of Americans and raise additional funds by charging fees to businesses that don't offer employee health insurance and to private individuals who don't acquire health insurance. "We are on the cusp, on the brink, of doing something here that is absolutely critical," Dodd told Bloomberg News.

This holiday weekend, remember to use the bathroom before you hit the road: States are closing rest stops as a part of new budget cuts. Louisiana has shuttered most of its rest stops already; Virginia has announced it will save $9 million a year by closing 19 rest areas; and Maine, Vermont, and Colorado will soon follow. The Wall Street Journal reports that as this all-American staple becomes scarce, people aren't just learning to hold their bladders: The closings have generated a backlash in states, with the American Trucking Associations opposing the move and town hall meetings in Virginia focused on reversing the cuts.

The Obama administration will protect a court filing that reveals conversations Dick Cheney had with top officials over the Bush administration's response to "Plamegate." The information, derived from interviews between Cheney and special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, was kept private during the Bush administration, and now the Obama administration has agreed that it should not be disclosed out of fears that it will discourage future public officials from holding similar interviews. But the document could shed more light on Cheney's role in the Valerie Plame case, in which the CIA spy was outed in the press, setting off a scandal. The document is said to reveal conversations between Cheney and top officials about Bush's mention of uranium in a speech on Iraq and conversations between Cheney and Scooter Libby, who was convicted of obstruction of justice over the Plame case only to have his sentence commuted by the president. As for Plame, Assistant Attorney General David Barron said Cheney discussed "the appropriate response to media inquiries about the source of the disclosure."