The swine flu outbreak may be stabilizing, but the World Health Organization's updated tally of the infected is still chilling: 898 sickened across 17 countries, with two additional deaths reported in Mexico. The organization attributes the higher tally to ongoing tests on previously collected samples, and the numbers are expected to rise as results from more countries come in. Also this weekend, Canadian officials confirmed the first human-to-pig transmission of the H1N1 virus, at a pig farm in Alberta; the swine, since quarantined, may have been infected by a Canadian farmer just back from a trip to Mexico. The U.S. now has 160 confirmed cases, with one dead, while Mexico has 506 cases, with 19 dead.

And around and around we go. While at a Washington school on Sunday, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended Bush administration policies regarding interrogation of terrorism suspects, specifically saying that President Bush “was only willing to authorize” interrogations that were legal. “He was also very clear that we would do nothing—nothing—that was against the law or against our obligations internationally,” she said. Rice was one of the top Bush advisers who approved the CIA’s use of waterboarding on those in custody. “I hope people understand that it was a struggle, it was a difficult time,” she said, making reference to Sept. 11, before continuing: “Even under those most difficult circumstances, the president was not prepared to do something illegal.”

Sen. Arlen Specter today made his Sunday show debut as a Democrat—and defended his party switch. The real reason behind his decision? Not just his bleak chances in a Pennsylvania Republican primary in 2010, he said. And not promises, from him or the Democrats: The party made no pledges to get him to switch sides, he said, and he, despite the rumors, did not vow to be a "loyal Democrat." A "critical factor" was his vote for Obama's $787 billion stimulus package. "I bucked the Republican line," he said. "And that created a schism. My approval rating dropped 30 points with Republicans as a result of that vote." After he became one of only three Republican senators to support the stimulus, Republicans "ostracized" Specter, he said. "I was sorry to disappoint many people; frankly, I was disappointed that the Republican Party did not want me as their candidate," he said. "But as a matter of principle I am becoming much more comfortable with the Democrats' approach."

Jack Kemp, the football player turned congressman and Republican vice-presidential candidate in 1996, passed away last night from cancer at his home in Bethesda, Maryland. Once a quarterback for the Bills, where he won two championships, Kemp then became a congressman in Buffalo and was one of the first Republicans to embrace supply-side economics. He also worked to recruit minorities to the Republican Party. Bob Dole chose him as a running mate in 1996, though the two did not like each other. Kemp once said, “In a recent fire, Bob Dole’s library burned down. Both books were lost. And he hadn’t even finished coloring one of them.” Kemp was 73.

Many are awaiting a decision that would be widely felt across the publishing landscape tonight, as the beleaguered newspaper The Boston Globe desperately tries to stay afloat by striking a deal with its parent company, The New York Times Co. The paper’s union, the Boston Newspaper Guild, has offered up “deep cuts in our members’ pay and benefits,” said the guild president. The Times, and its chairman Arthur Sulzberger, are looking for $20 million in cuts from the 137-year-old paper, which was purchased in 1993 for $1.1 billion but whose value is now estimated to be $20 million. The deadline for an agreement is midnight on Sunday.

Obama's first 100 days were cause for celebration, judging by much of the network news' coverage. But the events of last week mark a significant moment of transition: Now the president cannot blame his predecessor for the nation's economic woes, the Los Angeles Times reports. After passing a budget that forecasts a $1.2 trillion deficit in 2010, forcing Chrysler into bankruptcy, seeing his party likely win a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and getting his first chance to appoint a Supreme Court justice, it is Obama's presidency now. But the public is wary of a president who is a majority shareholder in major banks and automakers. Obama, for his part, appears to recognize this, saying at his latest press conference: "I don't want to run banks. I've got two wars I've got to run already. I've got more than enough to do."

One of the keys to the turnaround in Iraq was paying Sunni militias, known as the “Sons of Iraq" or the "Sunni Awakening," to join America’s cause. Now, with the money drying up, those same allies are returning to the insurgency. The leader of one such militia tells The Times of London that “up to half their members have resigned from the Awakening and rejoined the resistance.” Reports The Times, “The US had been paying nearly 100,000 Sons of Iraq to participate in its security ‘surge,’ but handed over responsibility for their welfare to the Iraqi government last month. Their pay has since dried up. Only 5,000 members of the Awakening have been employed by the Iraqi security forces.” The Times adds, “There is also growing Sunni anger about arrests of Awakening leaders, including Adil al-Mashhadani, from Baghdad, who warned recently: ‘There’s a 50-50 chance that Awakening guys who are not very loyal to Iraq or who need to support their families will join Al-Qaeda again.’”

Goodbye weepy winter films, and hello summer. X-Men Origins: Wolverine took in a huge box office haul this weekend and positioned itself as number one nearly everywhere internationally. The Hugh Jackman-fronted film took in $87 million in the U.S. and nearly $170 million worldwide, and marks the highest premiere weekend all year. The Lost Angeles Times notes that the film played particularly well with female audiences, who represented 47 percent of ticket buyers. Matthew McConaughey’s latest, the critically-reviled Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, took in a meager-by-comparison $15.3 million. After Wolverine leaked to the Internet in early April, Fox was anticipating a much smaller take, but its huge bow should assuage studio fears that Internet piracy deters audiences.

John Edwards' image, ruined after news broke of his long-running affair, likely will never recover. Now federal investigators are digging through his 2008 campaign records to see if he used funds to cover up his affair with his traveling videographer, Rielle Hunter. Edwards, a talented lawyer himself, walked a legal fine line in his campaign, using generous amounts of money funneled to him from nonprofits with which he had close ties. The nonprofits, with names such as "The Center for Promise and Opportunity" and "Alliance for a New America," were not required to disclose their finances as fully as other donors. The ambiguity in their financial records has aroused suspicion that some of the money may have been used for "personal expenses," i.e. covering up a career-ending affair from the public and his cancer-stricken wife. Edwards, who has been keeping a low profile, denies all wrongdoing.

Here is a "glass half-full" perspective: With so many employees getting fired, companies are going to have hire somebody, right? Businesses are still hiring new employees, The Wall Street Journal reports—the market is just a lot more competitive. Over a recent 90-day period 410,000 new job were posted on Monster.com, with the most in-demand occupations "computer systems analysts, accountants, registered nurses and sales managers." The Journal offers up a few recommendations for the ever-growing number of people in the job market. First, don't abandon your area of expertise out of panic; you won't make it competing against people with better experience. Second, if you're in the health care industry, congratulations, you can get a job. Three, don't show up to an interview looking like a bum (even if you are living on the street after having your house foreclosed). And lastly, talk a big game. Convince the employer you know their company inside and out—even if you're desperate just to pay the bills.

“Many American presidents have been lawyers, but almost none have come to office with Barack Obama’s knowledge of the Supreme Court,” Jodi Kantor writes in today’s New York Times. Who should we expect him to choose to replace David Souter? “ “[N]ot a larger-than-life liberal to counter the conservative pyrotechnics of Justice Antonin Scalia, but a careful pragmatist with a limited view of the role of courts.” According to Kantor, “Mr. Obama believes the court must never get too far ahead of or behind public sentiment” and “he has almost always disappointed those who expected someone in his position—he was Harvard’s first black law review president and one of the few minority members of the University of Chicago’s law faculty—to side consistently with liberals.” Not surprising to people who follow his politics closely, Kantor says Obama is more than anything else a “pragmatist” with “an unwillingness to deal in abstraction, a constant desire to know how court decisions affect people’s lives.”

On Monday evening, everyone who is anyone in New York City will be attending Anna Wintour's Costume Institute Ball at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One person not likely to be in attendance: Michael Gross, author of Rogues' Gallery, a new unauthorized history of the Met. In the book, Gross blasts Vogue editor Anna Wintour for using the revered museum as a means to prove her place in high society. According to Gross, celebrities like Justin Timberlake, Marc Jacobs, and Kate Moss have no place at the Met—an institution that used to embody an "old money" image that shunned ostentatious displays of wealth. Supporters of the gala say the $75,000 tables rake in tremendous amounts of cash for the museum in tough economic times. But many can only shake their heads at the soiree that exalts an exhibition of Jackie O's clothes over the latest magnificent canvas from the Renaissance.

The economy may be in the tank, but that's no reason not to head down to the cinema and enjoy yet another movie with a heaping helping of explosions. Plenty of franchises will be returning to the big screen, including Transformers, Star Trek, Angels and Demons (of Da Vinci Code fame), and Terminator. Other hotly anticipated action flicks included in USA Today's big roundup are Johnny Depp's gangster movie Public Enemies and Quentin Tarantino's war epic, Inglourious Basterds. There is more family friendly fare as well, like another installment of Ben Stiller's Night at the Museum and Pixar's latest: Up. The one movie that's decidedly not for the kids, but a sure bet? Bruno, Sacha Baron Cohen's newest parody of America's hangups.

Since 2001, the U.S. has funneled billions into Pakistan in an effort to help it put down the Taliban insurgency there, to no avail. Now that the Taliban have set up shop a mere 60 miles from the country's capital, have the Pakistani military and government got the "wake-up call" they need? It's unclear, writes Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek. The military insists on putting the bulk of its troops on the border with India to defend against an attack that no one seriously expects to occur, while the Taliban overtake the western part of the country. In the last week, a major offensive has been launched against the Taliban, but will this conflict follow the pattern in which Pakistan "bombs, declares victory and withdraws—and the jihadists return"? Until Pakistan realizes the error in its sympathies for "freedom fighters" (what we call "terrorists"), the country will remain in a precarious position.

Really, she was a hero for lasting this long in the first place: Veronica Lario, wife of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, wants a divorce after nearly 19 years of marriage, according to several Italian papers. The duo has had a strained relationship for many years. Before the current showdown, Veronica criticized her husband for flirting with younger women in a letter published in a newspaper. The president has asked for privacy during this difficult time, saying, "This is a strictly personal matter." Last week Veronica had said the wave of beautiful starlets her husband was considering bringing into Italian politics was a "shamelessly trashy process." In an email to an Italian news organization, Veronica derisively referred to her husband as the "emperor," adding, "What's happening today [in Italy] behind a front of bodily curves and female beauty is grave."

Around the nation, from big companies like Microsoft to smaller operations like the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, workers are seeing their hours and pay reduced and coping with forced furloughs. According to statistics assembled by The Washington Post, a third of Americans say "they or someone in their household has had their hours or pay cut in the past few months." Though wages have not begun falling, their rate of growth has shrunken to the smallest amount since 1982. The forced furloughs and fewer hours add insult to injury for workers, as most of them have seen their home values and investments in the stock market plummet. And the real bummer? Don't expect all this to be a distant memory anytime soon. "Once the recession ends, economists expect, the recovery will be long and slow, with sluggish job creation," The Post reports.

The hysteria surrounding the first couple is becoming reminiscent of the British going gaga for the royal family. Last night, on a pleasant spring evening, Michelle and Barack dined at one of the top-rated restaurants in the country, and naturally attracted a throng of onlookers. Only one person in the crowd didn't seem too thrilled with the ultimate celebrity sighting: She was protesting incoherently with a bullhorn. The couple then headed back home for a stroll around the White House lawn. The secret service gave the Obamas some space, and they slipped behind some shrubbery while holding hands. It was one of the few private moments they've had outside of the White House. It was expected that after the date, Barack would retire to the White House to watch game seven of the Bulls-Celtics series.

A huge upset in Louisville yesterday, as underdog race horse Mine That Bird beat 50-1 odds and won the Kentucky Derby. Originally purchased for just $9,500, Mine That Bird had never won a graded race before. Liveblogging the race, The New York Times' The Rail blog blurted at the moment of the win: "Mine That Bird, 50-1 in morning line, wins!!!! An impossible upset!" Jockey Calvin Borel was "in tears" after his win, his second in three years.

Swine flu fears seem to be calming, but should they be? “I would still propose that a pandemic is imminent because we are seeing the disease spread," Michael Ryan, WHO director of Global Alert and Response, said yesterday. The number of countries with the disease rose to 18, but it’s not spreading in a sustained way outside of North America. Mexico, meanwhile, thought that its outbreak might be stabilizing. "Each day there are fewer serious cases and the mortality has been decreasing," Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said, but 11 Mexicans have died from the virus in the past 24 hours.

How does your nation rank in terms of the "Nation Brands Index"? Do you care? Apparently, South Korea does, as its president has established a Presidential Council on Nation Branding, whose goal is to raise the country's ranking from an embarrassing 33 of 50 to 15th place. South Koreans were reportedly appalled to find their country ranked behind the Czech Republic and Poland. (The U.S. was seventh; Germany first.) Some of the reasons for the low opinion of South Korea internationally? Its association with its trouble-making neighbor to the north, its relatively recent arrival on the global stage, and that video of South Korean politicians brawling. One blogger living in South Korea says the country just needs to accept its quirky image and that it is "stuck in this way of thinking that it has to outdance, outspend and out-palace other countries."

Déjà vu for Madonna? The man believed to be the biological father of the 4-year-old Malawian girl the pop star is trying to adopt, Mercy, tells CBS News in an interview that will be broadcast tomorrow that he is capable of taking care of his daughter and that he doesn’t want Madonna to adopt her. James Kambewa has never met Mercy, who has lived in an orphanage all her life. Madonna’s appeal of a court ruling that denied the adoption will be heard in Malawi tomorrow.

Coach Joe DeCamillis of the Dallas Cowboys was among five people injured today when 64mph winds knocked the roof of the team's practice facility in. The collapse occurred during a severe thunderstorm on the second day of the Cowboys' rookie minicamp, reports the Associated Press. According to Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, 27 rookies participated in the weekend; in addition to DeCamillis, four team staff were injured. All players and coaches were accounted for, and there is no word yet on the exact nature of the five injured people's medical conditions.