Congressmen who proclaimed “not in my backyard” during the debate over where to house terror detainees once the Guantánamo facility is shuttered are in for an unpleasant surprise. The Obama administration is “looking at creating a courtroom-within-a-prison complex in the U.S. to house suspected terrorists,” the Associated Press reports. A state prison in Michigan and the 134-year-old military penitentiary in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas are both possible locations for the site, which would hold the 229 suspected terrorists from Guantánamo prison. "The administration is going to face a severe public backlash unless it shelves this plan and goes back to the drawing board," said the spokesman for Rep. John Boehner (R-OH). Congress shot down the White House’s $80 million request to bring detainees home earlier this year, citing safety concerns. Since the courtroom would be inside the prison, the estimated 80 detainees who can be prosecuted would not have to be transported out of the facility for trial. A host of legal questions surrounds the proposal, such as how the courts will select juries and how the White House will get around jurisdiction laws in moving the prisoners.

Iran is now able to create and detonate a nuclear warhead and is only waiting for its supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to approve the project, reports The Times of London. Western intelligence sources say the country could produce a bomb within a year, taking six months to enrich the uranium and another six to assemble the warhead. Though U.S. intelligence said they thought Iran ended its nuclear-research program in 2003 because of the American invasion of Iraq, sources say Iran halted the program because they had figured out how to detonate a warhead on a long-range missile. If Tehran doesn’t agree to talks with Washington on nuclear disarmament within the next month, the U.S. plans to build a coalition and enforce tough sanctions on the country.

Scientists have discovered a new strain of HIV in a Cameroonian woman. Unlike the HIV-1 strain, which infects 33 million people worldwide and originated from a virus in chimpanzees, this strain comes from gorillas. The 62-year-old woman is being treated in France and is the only person known to be infected with the new strain. Lab studies show the virus can replicate in human cells, and since the woman had no contact with gorillas or bush meat, scientists think she caught the virus from someone else. Scientists do not know if the virus will lead to AIDS in the patient, but say because routine tests do not pick up on the new strain, the virus could be spreading “cryptically” throughout the population.

The head of the CIA called on Congress to bury the hatchet, saying the focus on past actions of the agency was distracting it from its "core mission." Writing an opinion piece in the The Washington Post, sure to be a leading topic on the Sunday morning shows, Leon Panetta said the past eight years have been marred by "an atmosphere of declining trust, growing frustration and more frequent leaks of properly classified information." The nation's leading spook tried to shift some of the blame for past abuses. "It is worth remembering," he wrote, "that the CIA implements presidential decisions; we do not make them." Panetta criticized Congress for leaks. He added, "Debates over who knew what when—or what happened seven years ago—miss a larger, more important point. We are a nation at war in a dangerous world, and good intelligence is vital to us all."

Henry Louis Gates revealed Sunday that he has had to change his email address and telephone number after receiving numerous death and bomb threats, including one email that read "You should die, you're a racist." Harvard officials have also suggested that he move homes since his arrest by a white officer sparked a national debate on race. But Gates said he can now joke about the incident. He said Sgt. James Crowley looked relieved when they shook hands at last week's "Beer Summit" with President Obama. "I said to him, 'I would have sworn you were 6-feet-8 inches tall,'" Gates said at the Martha's Vineyard Book Festival, where he was representing his latest book. "He said, 'I used to be, but I've lost 2 to 3 feet over the last two weeks.'" Gates said he and Crowley might meet up again for dinner or a Red Sox game.

Days before Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be sworn in for his second term, Iranian authorities are beginning a mass trial of more than 100 members of the opposition who have protested the results of the widely disputed presidential election. The protesters are accused of "conspiring with foreign powers to stage a revolution through terrorism," The New York Times reports. Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami criticized the trials, calling them “show” trials, and saying he hoped they would not “lead to ignorance of the real crimes.” Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who will not be tried, urged his followers to resume their chants of "God is Great" to protest the trials. Many of the charges come out of a confession by Muhammad Ali Abtahi, a reformist cleric who is also a widely read blogger. In a tearful videotaped confession that human-rights leaders say was most likely forced out of him, Abtahi said the elections weren't fraudulent and that the three opposition leaders "promised to always back each other up," which some are touting as proof of the opposition's malign intent.

Though Funny People topped the box office, bringing in $23.4 million over the weekend, the movie is a disappointment for both Judd Apatow and Universal Pictures, who were banking on a blockbuster. The two-and-a-half-hour dramatic comedy, following the life of a dying comedian, cost about $75 million to make, an increase from what Universal spent on Apatow's earlier movies, T he 40-Year-Old-Virgin and Knocked Up, which were both smash hits. Much was riding on the success of Funny People: Films that flopped like Land of the Lost and Drag Me to Hell have cost Universal this summer. But the studio is backing the much-hyped director. “It was a pleasure to be supportive of Judd’s move into a more serious and dramatic kind of film,” said Universal’s president for marketing and distribution. “No regrets.” Apatow signed a three-picture deal with the studio last week.

Israeli police are recommending that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman be indicted on charges of "bribery, fraud, money laundering, witness harassment and obstruction of justice," reports Haaretz. The attorney general must approve the charges, which could put away the minister for 31 years. "For 13 years, the police have conducted a campaign of persecution against me," the foreign minister said in a statement denying wrongdoing. "In a country governed by civil laws, a person—even if he is a minister—is innocent until proven guilty." The investigation, which began in 2006, alleges Lieberman set up multiple front businesses through which he laundered millions of shekels. He is also accused of changing the shell companies' names when he suspected police had found out about them.

Swiss diplomats are trying to find out what happened to three American tourists who were detained while allegedly hiking over the Iran border over the weekend. Iran's state TV claims the three were detained after they crossed the border from the Kurdish region of Iraq, where they were visiting a resort town. Switzerland has intervened in the region on the U.S.' behalf before. Thirty years ago, when American diplomats were taken hostage in Tehran, the Swiss negotiated with Iran for their release. American Joshua Fattal has been identified by Kurdish authorities as one of the detained.

Port Authority police officer Robert Keane described a harrowing scene Sunday to the New York Daily News, explaining how a man who would not speak shut down LaGuardia Airport in New York with a fake bomb. "Sweat was rolling off this guy," Keane said as the man identified as Scott McGann stood silently in front of a security checkpoint. He had a backpack on with a cylindrical object hanging off it. "There were some wires sticking out," Keane said—two wires and a red switch. "He closed his eyes and hit it," Keane recalled. The officer quickly tossed the bag behind a pole. "It felt like sticks of dynamite with tape around it," the cop said. "I felt I had a bomb at that point." Keane wrestled the man to the ground, and the bomb squad arrived, declaring that the device which the mute man carried into one of the nation's busiest airports was fake.

The remains of the first American pilot shot down in the Persian Gulf War have been found in Iraq’s Anbar province, the Navy said in a statement on Sunday. Navy pilot Michael Scott Speicher’s plane was shot down on the first day of combat on January 17, 1991, and he was the only American ever missing in action during the war. But after his plane crashed, many believed Speicher was still alive—one rumor even said his name had even been scratched into a jail cell. Iraqis remembered that Bedouins buried his remains in the desert, and lead U.S. Marines to the site. The remains were flown to Dover Air Force base for examination, where it was determined that Speicher’s dental records matched the jawbone recovered at the site. Said Admiral Gary Roughead in a statement: “Our Navy will never give up looking for a shipmate, regardless of how long or how difficult that search may be,” adding that “I am also extremely grateful to all those who have worked so tirelessly over the last 18 years to bring Captain Speicher home.”

The fearless Clark Hoyt, public editor of The New York Times, casts a rather disapproving eye against his own paper this weekend, drawing attention to the numerous mistakes warranting correction in a July 22 article hailing Walter Cronkite. Alessandra Stanley wrote the error-ridden appraisal of the newsman, who, ironically, was stringent in his own methods of reporting, and the piece contained seven mistakes, including the claim that Cronkite stormed the beaches on D-Day (he was actually in a B-17 bomber) and the wrong dates of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s death and the moon landing. Because a “television critic with a history of errors wrote hastily and failed to double-check her work, and editors who should have been vigilant were not” the “authority of a newspaper” was undermined, writes Hoyt. Meanwhile, Stanley, who was writing another article under deadline at the time and didn’t fact-check her piece, says, “This is my fault,” and, “There are no excuses.”

Vacation couldn’t have come sooner: After weeks of debate over health care reform, Congress adjourned for their August recess on Friday. And negotiations in the Senate Finance Committee on how to pay for the $900 billion plan do not look like they’re going anywhere before the Senate’s recess on August 7. But as they throw in the towel for the summer, lawmakers may not exactly be escaping the heat: Interest groups at home are already rallying on health care by dominating airwaves and releasing ads, and Republicans are running radio spots in 33 states against Democrats and their health care plan. A study shows that 56 percent of Americans now oppose the plans, which may mean members of Congress face unenthusiastic voters at home. But they’re not unprepared: Nancy Pelosi has armed House Democrats with local talking points on health care, including statistics about specific hospitals and health care providers.

Log on with caution: The head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales has warned that Facebook and MySpace may cause teenagers to commit suicide. Social networking, he says, forces teens to form “transient relationships,” which leaves them unequipped to cope with friends in the real world. “Among young people often a key factor in them committing suicide is the trauma of transient relationships,” the Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols said. His warnings come after a 15-year-old girl overdosed on painkillers after being bullied on the social networking site Bebo. Nichols said the social networking sites—along with cell phones—were “dehumanizing” community life, and that teenagers “throw themselves into a friendship or network of friendships, then it collapses and they’re desolate.”

Muslims have immigrated to Europe—and they’re changing the continent’s culture as a result. Or so argues Christopher Caldwell, in Reflections on the Revolutions in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West—which The New York Times’ Dwight Garner calls “a hot book presented under a cool, scholarly title.” Caldwell explains that Muslims in Europe aren’t assimilating, instead forming a “parallel society,” listening to Al Jazeera, and not BBC. And, Caldwell writes, this society may be responsible for bringing anti-Semitism back to Europe. He also examines the debate, explaining that critics of Muslim immigration have been labeled Islamophobic, and a “standing fatwa” now exists against them. But he does go on to hail French President Nicolas Sarkozy as an ally to Muslim immigrants and a leader unfettered by “uncritical multiculturalism.” According to Garner, “like an action-movie hero, [Caldwell] walks calmly away from his own detonations while the fire swirls behind him” in a book that reads as a “wake-up call to many of Europe’s liberal democracies.”

Sarah Palin’s spokeswoman, Meg Stapleton, is stamping out rumors that Palin and her husband are getting a divorce, preemptively cutting off reports before the media picks them up. The news sprang up on Alaska Report, a blog that claims to have been the first to report Palin becoming McCain's running mate. It cited "multiple sources in Wasilla and Anchorage" as well as a National Enquirer story that alleged both Todd and Sarah had affairs and wanted to divorce. The report also mentioned that Sarah didn't speak to her husband at her resignation event and left without him. “Yet again, some so-called journalists have decided to make up a story. There is no truth to the recent 'story' (and story is the correct term for this type of fiction) that the Palins are divorcing. The Palins remain married, committed to each other and their family, and have not purchased land in Montana (last week it was reported to be Long Island),” Stapleton wrote. On Politico, Jonathan Martin writes that "conflating such allegations by political opponents with the reporting of the mainstream media also endears Palin to her conservative base." Even in the rumor stage, it seems Palin can do no wrong.

President Obama may have a little competition from Paul McCartney, who dedicated his song “Michelle,” to Michelle Obama on Saturday. After announcing the dedication to 60,000 fans at the FedEx Field in Maryland, McCartney launched into the lyrics: “I love you, I love you, I love you. That’s all I want to say.” He continued: “I need to, I need to, I need to, I need to make you see. Oh, what you mean to me.” Unfortunately for McCartney, the First Lady wasn’t around hear him, as she and her husband had already left for Camp David.

A masked gunman opened fire at a club for gay youths in Tel Aviv on Saturday, killing two and wounding at least eight. Police say the shooting is "criminal rather than nationalistic," though the security clampdown that followed the incident is reminiscent of Palestinian attacks of the past. The gunman stormed the Tel Aviv Gay and Lesbian Association building and "opened fire in a basement room where teenage homosexuals were holding a weekly support group," Reuters reports. Police stopped short of labeling it a hate crime.

Olympic great Michael Phelps will have a chance to compete for a fifth gold medal at the swimming world championships, which are taking place this week in Rome. On Saturday, the Baltimore native defeated Serbian rival Milorad Cavic in the butterfly in dramatic fashion. The once ubiquitous spokesman, who got into a little hot water when photos surfaced of him smoking marijuana, has picked up four gold medals and one silver in the Eternal City. Phelps's last medal dash will come Sunday in the 400-meter medley, a team event.

Seven hundred people were killed in the northern city of Maiduguri, Nigeria, a military official from the African country said Saturday. Fighting broke out between police and a radical Islamist sect, which was previously believed to have claimed 300 lives. The total number of deaths in the country is unknown. Mass burials have begun to remove the bodies from the bloody streets of the Borno state capital. Violence has spread throughout the region since last Sunday when the sect, Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sacrilege," began to attack police stations, churches, and government buildings. The group aims to implement strict Islamic Shariah law in Nigeria. Its leader, Mohammed Yusuf, was killed on Thursday, and the details of his death remain unclear.

Sad news from Afghanistan: July was the deadliest month for Americans and their foreign allies since the war began. Seventy-two foreigners—43 of them American—died in July, largely from roadside bombs. Twenty-two British soldiers also died, marking the highest death toll for the nation's troops since the Falklands War in 1980. The high number of deaths is the result of the recent American offensive, and the growing U.S. troop build-up, which will reach 68,000 by the end of the year. Fighting was especially bloody because U.S. troops are trying to secure the country by the August 20 presidential election—which the Taliban is trying to disrupt. The bloodiest month had previously been July 2008, in which only 28 U.S. soldiers died.