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Progress in Russia: President Obama and Dmitry Medvedev have agreed to cut back their stockpiles of nuclear warheads. Medvedev will also allow the United States fly troops and weapons over Russia to Afghanistan—which will help the U.S. forces fighting the Taliban. The talks in Russia have been focused mainly on replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expires in December. As it stands now, both Russia and the United States are allowed 2,220 warheads, but with new negotiations, that number will likely be lowered to between 1,500 and 1,700. Obama said, "We are confident that we can continue to build off the extraordinary discussions that we had in London, and that on a whole host of issues—including security issues, economic issues, energy issues, environmental issues—that the United States and Russia have more in common than they have differences, and that if we work hard during these next few days, that we can make extraordinary progress that will benefit the people of both countries."
Set your DVRs: Outgoing Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin is set to speak to Fox News Tuesday morning. Despite a volley of Tweets and a big Facebook, Palin hasn’t given any interviews since her shock resignation at a rambling Friday-afternoon press conference. Though details are sketchy, the announcement comes on the heels of Fox News contributor Liz Trotta’s off-message remarks on Palin Monday afternoon. “The woman is inarticulate, undereducated,” Trotta said. “She just begs for adjectives like flaky and wacky.”
Helping to shed light on the dark, drug-filled past of the late King of Pop are confidential documents, including police interviews with a number of doctors and employees, that date from 2004, when Michael Jackson was being investigated for alleged molestation. In an interview with police, Christopher Carter, Jackson’s former bodyguard, named five doctors who prescribed drugs for Jackson, and the Los Angeles Times is reporting that five doctors who prescribed medicine to Jackson are being investigated, though it is not known if they are the same doctors. Carter revealed that he got Xanax prescriptions for Jackson under various false names and that Jackson was “taking 10+ Xanax pills a night,” down from the 30 to 40 pills reported by another Jackson employee. A toxicology report from 2004 revealed that Jackson had meperidine (Demerol), normeperidine, promethazine (an antihistamine) and cocaine in his system. His postmortem toxicology reports have not yet been completed.
Freshly turned away from the Tegucigalpa airport runway, where military forces prevented his plane from landing, recently deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya will next meet with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The talks, scheduled for Tuesday, will represent the American administration's highest-level contact yet with Zelaya since he was ousted eight days ago in a coup. Prior to this planned meeting, the Obama administration had taken little public action regarding the political upheaval. Large protests have been continuing in Honduras since the coup, with about 2,000 peaceful demonstrators acting near the presidential palace on Monday.
The death of former NFL quarterback Steve McNair might be getting less mysterious: Police announced today that the gun found beneath the body of Sahel Kazemi was bought by the 20-year-old two days prior to the incident. Kazemi was found fatally shot on Saturday afternoon along with the former MVP. Although McNair's death has been ruled a homicide, police have yet to classify Kazemi's death, and are awaiting the results of forensic tests. The married father of four had supposedly been dating Kazemi—whose ex-boyfriend was recently questioned, but is not currently a suspect—for several months, and even had a Cadillac Escalade registered in both their names. The pistol was purchased just hours after Kazemi had been pulled over in the Escalade and charged with driving under the influence. McNair, who had been with her at the time, was allowed to leave the scene in a taxi.
Have the telecom giants been behaving badly? According to The Wall Street Journal, "The Department of Justice has begun an initial review to determine whether large U.S. telecom companies such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. have abused the market power they've amassed in recent years." The investigation is in its early stages and isn’t targeting any specific company yes. One potential benefit of the investigation? It could free the iPhone from AT&T: "Among the areas the Justice Department could explore is whether wireless carriers are hurting smaller competitors by locking up popular phones through exclusive agreements with handset makers, according to the people."
Residents along the border of North and South Carolina may now be able to rest easy: Police have confirmed that a burglar killed during a break-in is suspected to be the serial killer wanted for the string of five shooting deaths in South Carolina over the last 10 days. At 3 a.m. Tuesday morning, police officers in Gastonia, North Carolina shot and killed an alleged burglar after receiving a call from a neighbor who saw the man enter a vacant house. Police officers arrived at the scene and entered the building after knocking several times. A police officer was shot in the leg during the incident, but was treated and released from the hospital. The killer's name has not yet been released. The terrifying South Carolina killing spree began on June 27, and claimed the lives of a peach farmer, an elderly woman and her daughter, and a father and his 15-year-old daughter.
It’s a concert for the ages, but one with a melancholy motive: Usher, Stevie Wonder, John Mayer, and Mariah Carey along with Jennifer Hudson, Smokey Robinson and Lionel Richie are all set to perform at Michael Jackson’s memorial service tomorrow at the Los Angeles’ Staples Center. Joining them will be Jackson’s long-time friend (and once rumored fling) Brooke Shields, Martin Luther King Jr. III, Reverend Al Sharpton, as well as Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson, the latter whom appeared in Jackson’s music video for “Remember the Time.” No word yet on who will perform what songs, or whether the rumors that Justin Timberlake may join the roster are true, but there will be one extra seat in the house: Debbie Rowe, Jackson’s ex-wife, has already announced she will not attend.
The Kennedy saga grows stranger with each passing year. C. David Heymann's new book, Bobbie and Jackie: A Love Story, claims that Robert Kennedy, the married senator and father of 11 kids, had a steamy affair with Jackie Kennedy after his brother died, according to the New York Post. Among the book's shocking admissions: Jackie, not RFK's wife, instructed doctors to pull the plug on the senator after he was shot; socialite Mary Harrington saw Jackie sunbathing topless and kissing RFK; and Commerce Department administrator Kenneth McKnight showed up for a meeting with RFK and found Jackie straddling his lap. Heyman spent two decades researching the book, during which he looked through old FBI and secret service files, and obtained recollections from Kennedy family insiders, including friends Gore Vidal and Truman Capote.
Robert McNamara, one of the central architects of the Vietnam war, died Monday morning at the age of 93. McNamara was secretary of Defense during the war under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. In 2004, he starred in the Oscar-winning documentary Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara about his role in the conflict.
Some of President Obama's supporters may have gone silent in response to his restrained approach to the unrest in Iran but, according to Clive Crook in today's Financial times, those supporters are mistaken about Obama's aims. "He never said a friendly smile would change everything. Nor has he shrunk from using hard power, as far as US opinion will allow." In fact, Crook writes, those ideological allies who criticize Obama for his approach seem to be calling for a form of politics they once derided: "They stupidly believed that the president's face was all it would take to change the world. Suddenly they want him to be less like Barack Obama and more like George W. Bush."
Not all state violence originates in Iran: Associated Press reports that 140 people were killed, over 800 injured, and hundreds more arrested in China’s far west Xinjiang region on Sunday. The violence started as a peaceful Sunday protest by 1,000 to 3,000 Uighurs—ethnic Muslims—but there’s little indication of how things spiraled out of control. The protest was organized in response to the death of two Uighur factory workers during a fight with Han Chinese coworkers last month.
Why did Sarah Palin resign the Alaska governorship? “I think what I heard from the governor,” said State Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell on Fox News Sunday, “really had to do with the weight on her, the concern she had for the cost of all the ethics investigations and the like — the way that ... weighed on her with respect to her inability to just move forward Alaska’s agenda on behalf of Alaskans in the current context of the environment. So that’s what I saw.” Palin owes more than $500,000 in legal fees due to 15 ethics complaints she’s racked up in her two-and-a-half years as governor.
Sadly, this does not mean Diana Ross will be in charge: Katherine Jackson has been removed as the temporary administrator of her son’s estate and been replaced by two men who were named as co-executors in Michael’s 2002 will. Katherine Jackson’s lawyers asked that she be allowed to serve as co-administrator with the new executors, John Branca, a lawyer, and John McClain, a music executive, but was denied.
Michelle, Malia and Sasha Obama added a splash of color to the gray skies in Russia on Monday. The First Lady stepped off Air Force One in a bright coral dress, and was immediately presented with a bright bouquet of flowers. They were greeted by the official delegation, which included the Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak and US Ambassador to Russia John Beyrle and Jocelyn Greene. The Washington Post reports that Russians are much more excited about the First Lady's gardening skills than anything else.
The effect of estrogen on corporate profits has been grossly exaggerated, according to Lucy Kellaway's latest column in the Financial Times. Kellaway, a non-executive director of the FTSE 100, challenges the connection between women and profitability suggested by the book Womenomics. In the first place, Kellaway writes, in order to prove such a link you'd need to run the numbers using a large sample of women executives, a sample that does not currently exist. Since running the numbers is out, Kellaway asked board members at FTSE what her femaleness contributed to the company. Male board members felt that she and the other female board member slightly tempered testosterone-fuelled aggression, had a small motivational effect on female staff members, were marginally good for external PR, and made board dinners more interesting.
This Fourth of July weekend saw a battle of the movie sequels. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Fox's third installment of the animated series, both scored $42.5 million over the three-day weekend session, Variety reports. Although the two films are in a dead heat now, numbers released later today should break the tie. On the international market, however, Ice Age trampled the competition with $215.5 million in worldwide sales, the biggest ever opening for an animated film.
Despite earlier reports, Michael Jackson's ex-wife Debbie Rowe will not be attending his memorial on Tuesday. In a statement, Rowe's attorney said: "Although Debbie had originally planned to attend tomorrow's Staples Center memorial service, we have concluded with Debbie that she will not be attending. The onslaught of media attention has made it clear her attendance would be an unnecessary distraction to an event that should focus exclusively on Michael's legacy. Debbie will continue to celebrate Michael's memory privately." The massive event, which will be broadcast on some of the broadcast networks, will include a performance by Mariah Carey.
It's no surprise that George W. Bush loves guns. Apparently, he particularly treasured the pistol found with Saddam Hussein in December 2003 when Delta Force Soldiers captured the Iraqi president, The New York Times reports. Strangely, the gun was unloaded when Saddam was found in his spider hole. Bush kept the 9 millimeter Glock 18C, which was mounted and encased in glass, for nearly five years and showed it to Oval Office visitors because it represented a presidential success. The gun will go on display at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, once the library is built.
Cross this possibility off the list: a federal official said Saturday that Sarah Palin is not under federal investigation. After the Alaska governor and political firebrand resigned suddenly on Friday, rumors were swirling that the FBI might be investigating her for a scandal she was preempting with her resignation."There is absolutely no truth to those rumors that we're investigating her or getting ready to indict her," Special Agent Eric Gonzalez said. Palin recently criticized the media for its speculation on her resignation on Facebook. "And though it's honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make," she wrote.
Tiger Woods has one item left on his to-do list: golf with Barack Obama. According to The Washington Post, Woods, who won the AT&T National Sunday, is looking forward to a round of golf with the president... sometime. "His schedule and my schedule are a little bit busy," Woods said. "His is really busy. He's got a lot on his plate. We'll get it done sometime down the road." Woods participated in the run-up to Obama's inauguration.
Ousted President Manuel Zelaya was not allowed to fly into his home country on Sunday as military tanks blocked the runway and police fired into a crowd of Zelaya supporters, killing at least one. Though Zelaya was accompanied by the U.N. General Assembly president, Honduran officials diverted the plane carrying their deposed leader into Nicaragua after the aircraft made two sweeps over the crowd of protesters, who cheered. Police used tear gas on the thousands of protesters gathered at the airport to welcome Zelaya. The Organization of American States voted on Saturday to suspend Honduras from its 34-member group, and Nicaraguan military carried out troop movements near the Honduran border as a show of support for leftist Zelaya. If Zelaya does succeed in re-entering the country, the violence is expected to escalate.
The U.S. and Russia are set to announce a nuclear arms treaty framework on Monday and President Dmitry Medvedev said he was "moderately optimistic" about the deal's progress. Obama and Prime Minister Vladmir Putin have a strained relationship, and Obama told the Associated Press last week that Putin has "one foot in the old ways of doing business." Nevertheless, arms control will be the main focus of the two-day summit and each side is expected to agree to own a decreased number of nuclear warheads and weapons launchers if the deal goes through.
The wife of Pro Bowl quarterback Steve McNair did not know about his four-month affair with a 20-year-old waitress until the two were found shot and killed this weekend, a source tells the New York Daily News. Four bullets fired from close range killed McNair, while Sahel Kazemi, his lover, died from a single gunshot. Nashville police are investigating the possibility of a "lover's quarrel" leading to their deaths. TMZ.com recently released photos of the couple on a beach vacation that took place three months ago.
Bernie and Ruth Madoff were inseparable. An old friend tells New York magazine's Sheelah Kolhatkar, "I never knew Ruth without Bernie; it's like bacon and eggs." Now, the hate directed towards Madoff is being visited upon his wife. Her kids won't talk to her. Her hairdresser won't do her hair. According to her statement that followed Madoff's sentencing, Ruth's entering the new, "meta" phase of the ordeal: managing how guilty people perceive her to be. Gloria Steinem weighed in, chalking up people's dislike of Ruth to—surprise!—her gender. "It's the gender politics of the culture," Steinem said. "It's easier to blame the person with less power."
Mir Hossein Mousavi is finding new ways to keep up his fight: The Iranian reform leader told a leading reformist newspaper on Sunday that he is planning on forming a new political party aimed at reining in the Islamic Republic’s leadership. He will file papers with the Interior Ministry before the election’s disputed winner, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is sworn in.
A fitting exit for the King of Pop? The New York Post writes, "authorities fear that up to 1 million Jackophiles will descend on Los Angeles tomorrow and wreak mayhem, even though only a tiny fraction of them will actually have tickets for the Michael Jackson memorial at the Staples Center—which were being offered on eBay for up to $20,000 late last night." 20,000 tickets were handed out to the public for the service. TMZ is reporting that Mariah Carey will be performing at the event, likely to sing her version of the Jackson 5 classic "I'll Be There." There are also rumors Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Justin Timberlake, and Jennifer Hudson will be involved.
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