At a private service for Senator Edward Kennedy, prominent politicians used his death as a rallying cry for health-care reform while also sharing personal memories of the senator. Senator John Kerry and Kennedy's nephew, Rep. Joe Kennedy, vowed to carry on Kennedy's fight. "Don't ever, ever, ever, ever give up," Joe Kennedy said to applause. The audience included a dozen U.S. senators, as well as the vice president and the entire Kennedy clan. Joe Biden remembered Kennedy’s support when Biden's wife and son were killed in a car crash in 1972. “He crept into my heart and before I knew it, he owned a piece of it,” Biden said. “He took on the role of being my older brother—I couldn’t understand why he was going out of his way for me.” Sen. Orrin Hatch remembered Kennedy donning an Elvis outfit for an office Christmas party. Sen. John McCain said he was "excellent company" and that "the place won't be the same without him." More than 50,000 mourners flocked to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library to pay their respects to Kennedy over the past two days. All living presidents except George H.W. Bush will attend Kennedy’s Boston funeral on Saturday.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi will no longer be allowed to pitch his tent in a small New Jersey city, reports NBC News. He will be issued a conditional visa that limits his travel to New York City when he visits next month. Englewood's mayor, Michael Wildes, was seeking a state injunction on renovations to a Libya-owned mansion, where Gaddafi was planning on pitching his traditional Bedouin tent, because he and other New Jersey politicians objected to the leader staying in the town. Gaddafi gave a hero's welcome to Pan Am bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi upon his return to Libya, and Libyan intelligence is widely believed to have orchestrated the 1988 attack that killed 271. The State Department hasn't confirmed that Gaddafi will get a conditional visa.

Adam Goldstein, known as DJ AM, was found dead at 36 years old in his New York apartment on Friday, TMZ reports. The NYPD confirmed his death, after a source said he hadn't been heard from in several days. The Daily News reports that police discovered DJ AM on his stomach with a near-empty bag of crack stuck to his chest. A glass crack pipe and seven bottles of prescription pills like Xanax, were found at the scene, the Daily News reports. In 2008, Goldstein survived a plane crash with Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker. The four other passengers died. Goldstein battled drug addiction and obesity as a teen, and was set to star in a MTV show about interventions.

The case of rescued kidnapping victim Jaycee Dugard is inspiring a lot of "if onlys" in Northern California, especially among law enforcement. A few years ago, the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Department received a phone call reporting that Phillip Garrido had a tent in his backyard, and that children lived there. The caller also described Garrido as "psychotic" and said that he had a sexual addiction, the Los Angeles Times reports. The department sent a deputy to investigate the situation, but he and Garrido never left the convicted sex offender's front yard. The deputy warned him that living outside was a code violation, but concluded that there was no criminal activity taking place. Now, Sheriff Warren Rupf is apologizing for what was likely a missed opportunity to rescue Dugard and her two daughters, allegedly kept captive by Garrido behind his home for 18 years. "I cannot change the course of events," Rupf said. "We are beating up ourselves over this." Garrido and his wife could face multiple life terms if convicted of the more than 24 criminal counts they've been charged with.

The Kennedys and the Reagans weren't the most likely of friends until a simple speech drew them together, Peggy Noonan reveals in The Wall Street Journal. In 1981, Rose Kennedy visited the White House for the first time since her son was president, delighting the Reagans, and the families struck up a friendship. A few years later, President Reagan gave an eloquent speech at Ted Kennedy's McLean, Virginia home to help raise money for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library—the only presidential library without an endowment. In the speech, Reagan called JFK a man of "contradictions" who "loved mankind as it was, in spite of itself," and had "a good, hard, unillusioned understanding of man and his political choices." Afterward, at the meet and greet, Jackie O. said Reagan had perfectly described her former husband. The next morning, Ted Kennedy wrote an impassioned thank-you letter, telling Reagan, "The country is well served by your eloquent graceful leadership." And so, a friendship was born.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) told a crowd at a town-hall meeting that the House will pass a bill by October requiring a "complete audit" of the Federal Reserve, with limiting its lending power in mind. Frank chairs the House Financial Services Committee and said he wants "to restrict the power of the Fed in a number of ways." Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) introduced the bill, which is supported by a majority of the House. Frank said he wants to curtail the Fed's lending power. "[Ron Paul] agrees that we don't want to have the audit appear as if it is influencing monetary policy, because that would be inflationary and Ron and I agree on that," Frank said. Politicizing monetary policy would destabilize the financial system, say proponents of an independent monetary policy, which include members of both parties. Frank said information about the Fed's audit will be made public, but at a delay, to avoid impacting the market.

Southern California is having a hot time of it. Four fires are raging across the region and the two most severe blazes, near La Cañada Flintridge and on the Palos Verdes Peninsula close to Los Angeles, threaten hundreds of homes. Midday Friday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in L.A. County. In Palos Verdes, approximately 3,000 people were evacuated, and 500 homes near the two fires were evacuated. Hundreds of firefighters are struggling to bring all four fires under control. The fire near La Cañada Flintridge consumed more than 500 acres, while a fire near Hemet in Riverside County torched 600 acres, and a fire that started Tuesday in Morris has consumed 1,700 acres but was 45 percent contained by Thursday evening. Overnight, flames even jumped Highway 2.

With political bet-takers focused on who will replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has reportedly settled on his choice to succeed outgoing Sen. Mel Martinez. And of course Crist's pick is a close friend: his former chief of staff, George LeMieux. LeMieux is tasked with completing Martinez's term, which runs until January 2011. At that point, Crist hopes to have won the Senate race and will take over from there. LeMieux, who headed Crist's run for governor in 2006, isn't expected to pick a fight with his former boss over the seat. Florida's Democratic Party chair called the move a "political cronyism."

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has launched a legal attack on Italian and international media for their reporting on his alleged involvement in various sex scandals. Berlusconi is seeking damages of €1 million from the Espresso Group, which owns the newspaper La Repubblica, for spearheading the campaign in reporting his relationships with various actresses and prostitutes. Writs have also been served on magazines and newspapers in at least two other countries. Berlusconi has accused La Repubblica of being "rhetorical and blatantly defamatory" in asking 10 questions of him about various scandals. La Repubblica said that "for the first time in the history of Italian journalism, the questions [posed by] a newspaper will end up in a civil court.".\

While Glenn Beck seems increasingly unhinged of late, the dog days of August are doing wonders for his ratings. According to Nielsen Media Research, the Fox News host attracted 2.8 million viewers Monday, his third-largest audience since his show launched in January, and 2.7 million viewers the next night. The boycott of Beck by major advertisers like Wal-Mart and Sprint (over his remarks that Obama has a "deep-seated hatred of white people") seems to only have stoked his fire. "Even if the powers to be right now succeed in making me poor, drum me out... I will only be stronger for it," he said on the air Wednesday. He has also been helped by a plug from Sarah Palin, who urged people to watch his program in a post on her Facebook page.

Celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz—whose $24 million debt doesn't make a picture perfect—might have finally found her ticket out. In 1996, Leibovitz purchased 220 acres of property—once part of the Astor family's estate—in New York's Hudson Valley for $2.3 million and later expanded her ownership. The property includes a pond, meadows and woodlands, as well as stone barns and a former creamery. She also owns historic 19th century homes in Manhattan's West Village—which could be worth $30 million. In total, Leibovitz's property could fetch more than four times what she paid, perhaps as much as $40 million, brokers say. Leibovitz must repay her debts by Sept. 8, according to a suit Art Capital filed in New York State Supreme Court on July 29.

Between her racy Vanity Fair shoot and the pole dance she performed at the Teen Choice Awards in Los Angeles, Miley Cyrus just isn't a kid anymore. Enter Selena Gomez, who is being groomed to take her place. For the uninitiated, Gomez plays a teen with magical powers in the hit Disney sitcom Wizards of Waverly Place, and over the next few weeks she'll appear in a movie based on the series, sing on the soundtrack, release an album, and lend her face to 30 million packages of Sara Lee bread products. Plus, next year she'll play Beezus in a film based on the Beverly Cleary book Beezus and Ramona. At age 17, Gomez, who got her start on Barney & Friends, is a year older than Cyrus, although she's keen to polish the young image that keeps her tween fans screaming. The Wall Street Journal reports that Disney execs love her for her wholesome looks, comedic timing, down-to-earth nature, and the Hispanic roots which help widen the company's appeal.

Months of speculation and countless theories later, the L.A. County Coroner has finally declared the cause of Michael Jackson's death to be homicide—by acute Propofol intoxication. But for those seeking details, there are few. The coroner is withholding its full report, which includes the toxicology findings, because of a request from the LAPD. The coroner's press release Friday did note that the "Benzodiazepine effect"—referring to a mix of anxiety and insomnia drugs—contributed to Jackson's death. In addition to propofol, the coroner also cites lorazepam (Ativan), midazolam (Versed), diazepam (Valium), lidocaine (topical anesthetic) and ephedrine as related drugs in the singer's death on June 25.

Antonin Kratochvil spent his early childhood in a labor camp, fled the grip of Communism in the Czech Republic as a teen, then wandered Europe ending up in the French Legion—fleeing once more. It's no wonder, Daily Beast contributor Eliza Griswold says in September's Outside magazine, that Kratochvil has become one of the world's best photojournalists, a profession that depends on intuition and instinct. "I empathize with people who are being f--ked," he says. "When I photograph them, I am photographing myself." His subjects have been as heavy as they are many: Chernobyl, Sierra Leone, the Niger Delta, Pakistan after Benazir Bhutto's assassination, Darfur, Iraq, and Afghanistan. How does he face such trauma? "Since I was little in refugee camps, I've seen people hang themselves," he says. "I don't close my eyes."

To the extreme relief of her family, Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was kidnapped from her family at age 11 in 1991, has emerged alive. Dugard, now 29, spent the last 18 years in a set of creepy backyard shacks behind the home of her alleged kidnapper, convicted rapist Phillip Garrido, who allegedly forced himself on her and fathered her two daughters, now 11 and 15. Garrido and his wife were arrested for kidnapping and conspiracy, and Phillip is also being held on rape charges. Garrido was caught after bringing Dugard and her children to a parole meeting. Garrido, meanwhile, told Sacramento television station KCRA 3 that people should wait to hear from Dugard because she'll tell "the most powerful heartwarming story." Garrido's brother called him "a fruitcake." The Telegraph reports that in recent years, Garrido became convinced that God was talking to him, inventing a "headphone amplification system" to help him focus the voices in his head, and claiming to be speaking in "the tongues of angels."

Because he knew the end was coming, Ted Kennedy spent his final days enjoying a few last pleasures. The Independent reports that he ate ice cream—preferably mocha chip and butter crunch mixed together—and watched James Bond movies plus episodes of 24. He enjoyed the sea air and being at home with family and friends. During a string of dinner parties his wife Vicki organized for him in late July, he sang dinner table duets like "You Are My Sunshine" and "Just a Closer Walk with Thee." Although he spent recent weeks in a wheelchair, unable to walk, Kennedy made it out of the bed every day except Tuesday, the day he died. Bill Delahunt, a Democratic congressman from the Hyannis district, said Kennedy had "a fierce determination to live," but wasn't "afraid to die." Delahunt said Kennedy looked forward to a reunion with his brothers to tell them, "I did it; I carried the torch. I carried it all the way."

Michael Jackson's family reportedly picked Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, for his Saturday burial in part due to concerns that deranged fans might run away with his corpse. Are their fears completely wacky? Not so, writes Bess Lovejoy for Faster Times, who details a litany of attempted and sometimes successful corpse-napping efforts over the years. Jackson's closest cultural parallel, Elvis Presley, for example, was the subject of an attempt by four men to steal his body and ransom it. Charlie Chaplin's widow refused to pony up a six-figure ransom after kidnappers robbed his grave in 1978, but fortunately the body turned up intact in a cornfield once the criminals apparently realized their scheme was a bust.

Presidents don't really get weeks off. Despite his best efforts, President Obama's vacation on Martha's Vineyard wasn't too relaxing, The Washington Post writes. Sure, according to spokesman Bill Burton, Obama "was talking as much trash as he usually does" on basketball court and golf course. But the week wasn't all helmet-less family bike rides along the Aquinnah beach, accompanied by cadres of bare-headed Secret Service agents. The island paradise also served as an incongruous backdrop as Obama reappointed Ben Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve. But it was something Obama couldn't control—Ted Kennedy's death—that really put a somber pall over the intended week of fun. Nothing spoils the free and breezy mood like eulogizing a friend and colleague, as Obama will on Saturday, before returning to Blue Heron Farm for one last night.

President Obama's tough stance on Israeli settlements doesn't seem to be winning him many friends among Jewish Israelis, even while sizable margins disagree with the settlements themselves. Just 4 percent of Jewish Israelis think Obama is "pro-Israel," according to a new poll by the Jerusalem Post. Some 51 percent of respondents said Obama's administration was more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israel while 35 percent said it was neutral. In a May 17 poll by the same paper, 31 percent of Israelis considered Obama pro-Israel, a precipitous decline. While a dispute over the Obama administration's call for a freeze on Israeli settlements in the West Bank has accounted for much of the drop in popularity, only half of Jewish Israelis say they're opposed to freezing settlements for a year as part of a deal brokered by the United States, versus 41 percent who say they support the idea and 9 percent who expressed no opinion.

More than 50,000 people passed by Senator Edward Kennedy’s flag-draped casket over the past two days to pay their respects to the senator. The crowds outside the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library were so long on Thursday night that the senator's family left the building open an extra two hours, until 2 a.m. On Friday, officials had to close the line early so that the library could be prepared for a private family service. Kennedy's widow, Vicki, shook hands with hundreds of visitors, thanking them for coming. Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. John McCain, and several other prominent politicians are scheduled to speak at the private service. All living presidents except George H.W. Bush will attend Kennedy’s Boston funeral on Saturday.

Sen. Ted Kennedy may be remembered as the lion of the Senate, but for
Massachusetts residents he was a local hero. As his motorcade traveled
from the family compound in Cape Cod to the JFK Library in Boston on
Thursday, it passed many monuments that marked the Kennedys' lives. His body passed the St. Stephen's Church, where his mother was
baptized and her funeral held; Bowdoin Street where he worked as a young
district attorney; and Faneuil Hall, where he announced his bid for the
presidency in 1980. There, citizens gathered while the mayor of
Boston rang the Faneuil Hall bell 47 times—each marking a year Kennedy
served the state in the U.S. Senate. And as he went, just as the coffin
of his brother Robert F. Kennedy was mourned as it traversed the nation
on a train, Bostonians gathered in tribute. Red Sox fans packed
Fenway Park on Wednesday night to listen to "Taps" in honor of Kennedy;
others gathered outside the JFK Museum.

Could Mark Sanford be taking a hike for real this time? The Washington Times is reporting that South Carolina Republican lawmakers are preparing to call a special session that could impeach Governor Mark Sanford and remove him from office by the end of the year. GOP lawmakers will use their annual retreat this weekend to discuss Sanford’s fate. So far, there are two bills of impeachment being prepared in the state House—one by a Republican, and another by a Democrat.

After seven years of imprisonment, Mohammed Jawad—one of the youngest detainees held at Guantánamo Bay—has announced plans to sue the U.S. government over his arrest and detention. Jawad was taken into custody in December 2002, when he was just 12 years old, on suspicion of throwing a grenade into a jeep carrying American troops through Kabul, injuring two of them and an interpreter. Authorities released him last month. "This mistake has already been made," Jawad's lawyer told reporters. The Afghan and U.S. governments should compensate his client "to help train him and get him back to normalcy," he said. "To now not give him any compensation, any way to help him back to civilization, this is unacceptable."

Insult to injury? Not only has Sarah Palin canceled a speech for the Alaska Family Council, which has been billing her for weeks, but she is claiming that she was never invited in the first place. “This is the first we have ever heard of a speech,” said Palin’s spokeswoman, who added that the former governor is out of state but would not provide details on what she is doing. It is, according to the Anchorage Daily News, “the fourth time in recent months that an anticipated Palin speech has fallen through after Palin and her camp disputed they had ever confirmed it.” The event was expected to be her first public appearance since she resigned as governor in July. 

He came, he shocked, and he won’t apologize. Rex Rammell, a former elk rancher who is challenging incumbent C. L. “Butch” Otter for Idaho’s GOP gubernatorial primary, joked Thursday that he’d buy a license to hunt President Barack Obama. The Associated Press reports that, when conversation at a Twin Falls rally turned to wolf hunting—an activity for which Idahoans must purchase a $11.50 wolf tag—an audience member shouted a question about “Obama tags.” Rammell replied, “Obama tags? We’d buy some of those.” Rammell later said he was being sarcastic and sees no reason for an apology.

Has the mystery regarding the paternity of Michael Jackson's two oldest kids finally been solved? The lawyer for Arnold Klein, Jackson's long-time dermatologist, told Us Weekly that Klein suspects he is the father of Prince, 12, and Paris, 11. "There was a possibility that the two older kids could be biologically linked to Dr. Klein. And Dr. Klein was well aware," his lawyer, Mark Vincent Kaplan told the magazine. Yet he says Klein refuses to take a DNA test: "It is not going to help the children...other than to solve the answered question, which is a selfish motive to see who the ultimate provider of the 13 chromosomes [is]."

In 2003, faced with a standoff between Democrats who filibustered to block confirmation of federal judges and Republicans who threatened a "nuclear option," Ted Kennedy brought historian Robert A. Caro into the Senate to talk about the founding fathers' vanishing vision of civil legislative debate, The New York Times reports. Kennedy's despair over recent partisan rancor underscored the sea change he saw over his 46 years in the Senate. Politically, the collegial atmosphere of his early days vanished as centrism dwindled in both parties and senators spent more time fundraising and less making friends on the other side of the aisle. Filibusters moved from one in 1963, after Kennedy joined, to about 50 last year. On the upside, Senate diversity increased too; in Kennedy's time, the number of women senators rose from 2 to 17. The space also changed physically, as overstuffed couches were eliminated and lighting was brightened for TV cameras, producing what former Wyoming Republican Alan Simpson called "peacock syndrome," as Senators began dying their hair.

One week after Afghanistan's presidential election, a winner has yet to be declared. The Washington Post reports that accusations of voter fraud and coercion are multiplying, with all five leading candidates filing complaints and election-related prisoners still populating jails. An imprisoned election monitor in northern Afghanistan told the Post he was beaten after complaining to police that his polling station had been shut down by opponents of incumbent President Hamid Karzai. Will the election turmoil affect the Obama administration's goals in Afghanistan? The BBC reports that U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke recently had an "explosive" meeting with Karzai in which the envoy demanded, for the second time, that Karzai hold a second-round runoff election. A "number of senior sources" reported a "dramatic bust-up" with Karzai reacting angrily and cutting the meeting short.

Ted Kennedy's famed policy acumen didn't come out of nowhere: supporting the senator were generations of staffers briefing him on the issues of the day and carrying out the hard work of piecing together legislation. The tough job proved to be a stepping stone for many prominent Washington figures, including Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and Obama's top domestic political adviser, Melody Barnes. "Teddy's staff was the farm system for the Democratic Party for a generation," Sen. John Kerry, himself a former volunteer on Kennedy's first senate campaign, told The Washington Post. "He was a magnet for brilliant, creative, progressive minds and hard-charging, hard-nosed operatives." Some of his aides stayed with him his entire career: Barbara Souliotis, who he hired for his 1962 campaign, still works in his Boston office and Kennedy's legislative director, Carey Parker, took a job with the senator in 1969.

A common mantra during the financial crisis was that certain banks had grown "too big to fail" and threatened the entire system were they to collapse. One year later, some of these very same institutions have expanded even further, leaving in place the potential for another meltdown should things go awry. J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America, for example, each now holds more than $1 out of every $10 in deposits in the entire country, the Washington Post reports. Treasury officials say that encouraging competition and penalizing banks for being too large are top priorities in a new regulatory reform plan yet to be approved by Congress. "It is at the top of the list of things that need to be fixed," Sheila C. Bair, chairman of the FDIC said. "It fed the crisis, and it has gotten worse because of the crisis."

Philadelphia fans are notoriously tough to please (they famously booed Santa Claus at an Eagles game), but new hire Michael Vick seems to have won them over with ease. In his first game since returning from prison on dog-fighting charges, a 33-32 preseason victory over Jacksonville, Vick received warm cheers whenever he was on the field for the Eagles. "I didn't think it would be that positive," Vick said in the postgame news conference Thursday night. "I was very pleased." Vick will miss his first five regular season games due to suspension and be on thin ice with the league given his checkered past. In the meantime, however, things are looking up: even much publicized anti-Vick protests outside his first game turned out to be relatively small and drowned out by counter protests led by the NAACP in support of Vick.

The Jacksons won't let a $4 million custody deal stand in the way of anyone's grief. Michael Jackson's family has invited Debbie Rowe, the biological mother of Jackson's two oldest children, to his funeral. The New York Post reports that if she accepts the invitation, the event would be Rowe's first supervised visit with Prince Michael, 12, and Paris, 11, since inking the custody deal with the Jackson family in the wake of Michael's death. The funeral is scheduled for Sept. 4 in Glendale, California. In other Jackson news, search warrants were unsealed yesterday. The police evidently found marijuana, the generic form of Valium, and other sedatives in Jackson's house the day after he died.

Criticism of the release of the Lockerbie bomber comes as a surprise to Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, the son of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. "There is no reason for people to be angry. Why be so angry?" he said in his first interview since the release. "Lockerbie is history. The next step is fruitful and productive business with Edinburgh, London. Libya is a promising rich market and so let's talk about the future." He added that the mercy shown by the Scottish government has changed the Arab view of Britain as "crusaders" against Islam.