They may have won the battle—but will it help them win the war? House Democrats led a winning 240-179 vote Tuesday to formally sanction Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) for his outburst during Obama's health-care speech last week. Wilson and other Republicans argued strenuously against the Democrats' resolution: "When we are done here today," said Wilson, "we will not have taken any further steps toward helping" America solve its problems. "It is time that we move forward and get back to work for the American people." But Democrats argued that Wilson's behavior was exactly the type of divisive behavior that prevents political productivity by degrading House decorum and the dignity of political office. What's more, Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia noted, "It only happened when this country elected a president of color." Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia added, "No president has been subjected to that type of treatment on the floor of the House of Representatives, and if we go down that road, then it's the law of the jungle, and I think that's just wrong." Wilson called his outburst a "town-hall moment—a type of moment that the Democrats appear to be losing patience for."

More than 20 police and FBI agents stormed the Middletown, Connecticut apartment of Yale lab technician Raymond Clark late Tuesday night, executing search warrants and naming Clark, 24, as a “person of interest” in the investigation of Yale pharmacology student Annie Le’s murder. New Haven police led Clark away in handcuffs so they could obtain samples of his blood, hair, and skin, reports Newsday. The news came mere hours after the New York Post identified Clark as the polygraph-failing “person of interest” various publications had previously described. According to the Post, police had the apartment—which Clark shares with his girlfriend and fiancée—on lockdown for much of Tuesday.

He may be in the running for worst president ever, but George W. Bush still talks a big game: Matt Latimer, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, writes in his new memoir, Speech Less: Tales of a White House Survivor, that Dubya dissed pretty much everyone, including Barack Obama. "He came in one day to rehearse a speech, fuming," Latimer writes in an excerpt in GQ’s October issue. "'This is a dangerous world,' he said for no apparent reason, 'and this cat [Obama] isn't remotely qualified to handle it. This guy has no clue, I promise you.'" When it comes to Sarah Palin, Bush was equally harsh. “This woman is being put into a position she is not even remotely prepared for,” he said. “She hasn’t spent one day on the national level. Neither has her family. Let’s wait and see how she looks five days out.” 

That's it. The recession is over, according to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. "From a technical perspective, the recession is very likely over at this point," Bernanke said on Tuesday. But unemployment will "be slow to come down—it will come down, but it may take some time." He went on to say that economic forecasters expect economic growth to be relatively slow in 2010 because of "moderate headwinds" like financial and credit problems and families' desire to pay off debts. One key aspect of the economic recovery is reform of financial regulation, a move that Bernanke said he is "quite confident" is coming.

Jay Leno may have a shiny new show, but his old rival, David Letterman, has the president: Barack Obama will be Letterman’s sole guest on the Late Show on Monday, September 21. “President Obama’s appearance will mark the first by a sitting U.S. president on the Late Show and his first visit back to the show since his election,” CBS said. Obama appeared on Leno’s old program, the Tonight Show, in March, where he made his “Special Olympics” gaffe. Obama will also appear on all five Sunday-morning talk shows this weekend.

Her ex just introduced his younger girlfriend to their kids and is on a media tour saying he “despises” her, but Kate Gosselin is taking the high road—and with new hair to boot. While co-hosting The View on Tuesday, the day after confessing she had a “meltdown” over her failed marriage, the reality-TV star debuted a new ‘do, courtesy of the show’s stylists. She opted for a wavy and softer look instead of her well-known (and oft-mocked) asymmetrical bob with sideswept bangs and spiked-up crown. "Isn't it cute?" she asked Barbara and Co.—they all, of course, agreed. This development comes days after Project Runway’s Christian Siriano—in the midst of being hailed for his show at New York’s Fashion Week— told Us Weekly the soccer mom was “trying to rock my look” and she needs to “up her game.” Will he deem her new style fierce—or a fail?

A report from the United Nations released Tuesday accuses both Israel and Gaza of numerous war crimes in their most recent conflict, which lasted only three weeks. The U.N. also found evidence of violence that may amount to crimes against humanity. Israel, which criticized the U.N. investigation from its inception, said in a statement that numerous investigations of their own had found no wrongdoing. The report directly contradicted this claim, saying there is “a justice crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory that warrants action.” The New York Times notes that while the report does acknowledge the rocket attacks fired by Hamas into Israel, the bulk of the findings center on Israel’s “continuing policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population.” The report cites specific incidents that seem difficult to justify: In one case, Israeli bulldozers demolished a major chicken farm in Gaza. In another, they blew up the wall of a sewage plant, flooding the surrounding area with waste for no apparent reason.

Has the Mafia moved on from garbage trucks to ships carrying nuclear waste? An informant in Italy has told authorities he blew up three ships carrying the deadly cargo. Apparently, there is much money to be made by bypassing normal nuclear-waste disposal guidelines. A video taken by an underwater robot camera shows the ruins of a sunken ship and toxic yellow canisters by its side, though tests of the site off Italy's southwest coast are still under way. Italian authorities are now looking into at least 30 other suspicious shipwrecks. If the informant’s confession turns out to hold water, it will indicate a new, environmentally damaging direction for the Mafia.

Two days after his mic-grabbing VMA outburst, Kanye West is still dealing with the fallout. After apologizing on Jay Leno’s new show and twice on his blog, West has now called singer Taylor Swift to make amends. Swift appeared on The View Tuesday morning, mentioning that she had yet to hear from Kanye himself, at which point co-host Whoopi Goldberg hinted, “Well, I’m sure if Kanye’s watching, he’ll know what to do.” Shortly after the show, a contrite West phoned Swift, who later told ABC News, “Kanye did call me and he was very sincere in his apology, and I accepted that apology."

Not everyone was lining up to greet Joe Biden when he visited Baghdad on Tuesday: The Green Zone was hit by four mortar shells during Biden’s surprise visit. They came from across the river, on the east bank of the Tigris, and at least one explosion was audible. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage. The trip is Biden’s third this year—the same number of trips, Jason Zengerle points out, that Dick Cheney made during his entire vice presidency.

It was a gamble that seems to have paid off—at least for its first night. The Monday night premiere of NBC’s Jay Leno Show was watched by more than 17 million viewers and managed a 5.1 preliminary rating among adults aged 18-49, which is 34 percent better in demographic than the premiere of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien in June. “Obviously Jay got off to a very nice start last night" with "an incredibly strong audience,” NBC chief Jeff Zucker said Tuesday morning. But hoping to lower expectations, he added, “There's a very long way to go from here. We'll judge this on 52 weeks, not one night."

Serena Williams has womaned-up to eat a little crow. In an interview Tuesday with Good Morning America, she backed away from the expletive-ridden tantrum she threw at a line judge at Saturday’s U.S. Open who ruled that her foot crossed the line during a serve, resulting in a double fault and costing her a $10,000 fine. "At that point, I had really just lost control," she said, adding that she wanted to give the line judge "a big hug, obviously after the whole tirade was over" and tell the judge "you know, 'I'm sorry.'" On her site Monday, Williams officially apologized to the lines woman, opponent Kim Clijsters, and tennis fans, especially the kids. "I need to make it clear to all young people that I handled myself inappropriately, and it's not the way to act [...] in any sport."

Why is a minor story about a common occurrence—a student being beaten up on a school bus—being headlined as the top story of the day by Matt Drudge under the headline “White student beaten on school bus; crowd cheers”? It’s the second time this week that Drudge has transparently race-baited his audience: On Monday, Drudge juxtaposed an image of Barack Obama warning that “they can’t stop us” on health care with a picture of Serena Williams’ infamous threatening of a linesperson at the U.S. Open. Michelle Malkin has leaped on board, writing, “I wonder where President Obama will be.” Meanwhile, the police official who originally described the school-bus attack as “racially motivated” is backtracking, saying “after having reviewed the video, it doesn’t strike me nearly as racially motivated.”

More troops in Afghanistan are beginning to look inevitable: Adm. Mike Mullen, who, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is the nation’s top military officer, told Congress on Tuesday that victory in Afghanistan would probably require more troops and definitely require more time. “I do believe that—having heard [Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s] views and having great confidence in his leadership—a properly resourced counterinsurgency probably means more forces, and, without question, more time and more commitment to the protection of the Afghan people and to the development of good governance,” Mullen said. The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, challenged Mullen’s assessment, saying that the training and equipping of Afghan security forces should take precedence over any further deployment of American troops. But John McCain said that more troops are “vitally needed.”

Police are narrowing in on a suspect in the murder of Yale student Annie Le, according to the New York Daily News: a lab tech who flunked a polygraph test and had scratch marks on his chest. The tech works in the building where Le’s body was discovered in a wall on Sunday, and has been questioned several times. He is under surveillance, though is not in custody. A New Haven police source also tells the Daily News that the bloody clothing found in the lab on Saturday “does belong to the likely killer.”

You can delete a tweet, but you can’t erase it from the public memory—especially when you have more than a million followers. The Twitter-sphere erupted Monday night when ABC News’ Terry Moran tweeted, “Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a ‘jackass’ for his outburst at VMAs when Taylor Swift won. Now THAT’S presidential.” Moments later, Moran removed the tweet, but by then it had been retweeted so many times, ABC’s PR department had to make a statement: “In the process of reporting on remarks by President Obama that were made during a CNBC interview, ABC News employees prematurely tweeted a portion that turned out to be from an off-the-record portion of the interview. This was done before our editorial process had been completed,” ABC continued, prompting wayward tweeters across the Internet to wonder: Does ABC have an “editorial process” for tweets?

And we thought Joe Wilson was making politics uncivil: Word Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon may be running for Senate in Connecticut, The Hill reports, challenging incumbent Chris Dodd. McMahon's decision on whether to run on the GOP ticket is "imminent" according to a Republican strategist, while an unnamed source said McMahon is "99 percent" in. She's already done polling on the race, hired consultants, and brought in former National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Ed Patru to hone her early communications. McMahon's vast personal fortune could be a game changer, as she'd potentially be able to spend tens of millions of dollars to pile-drive Dodd into submission.

Muntader al-Zaidi, the Iraqi man who hurled a shoe at then-President George W. Bush last year, has been released from prison after nine months of detention, during which he says he was tortured. Al-Zaidi became a hero to many Muslims and Arabs around the world for his act of protest and now says he will leave Iraq because he fears his life is in danger there, and because he plans on releasing the names of high-level government officials he says were involved in his abuse, which included beatings, whippings and electrocution. But al-Zaidi is unrepentant. "I saw the chance and I seized it," he said. "If those who blamed me knew how many destroyed houses I walked over with those shoes that I threw; and how many times those shoes mixed with the blood of the innocent; and how many times those shoes went into homes where the honor of those who lived there was disgraced, then it was probably the proper response."

Sad news out of Hollywood: Patrick Swayze has died. The Ghost star had been battling pancreatic cancer since January 2008, but had managed to film a television series, Beast, while he fought the disease. Swayze, best known for his roles in Dirty Dancing, Ghost, and Road House, was named People’s Sexiest Man Alive in 1991.

Is the taxpayers' portfolio about to slim down? Citigroup has asked its investment bankers to look into options for selling the government’s 34 percent stake in the bank, according to the Financial Times. The bank is hoping the move would raise capital, though it has yet to alert the U.S. Treasury, which has final say, to its plans. The Treasury has purchased more than seven billion shares of Citigroup stock at $3.25 a share. The share price is now at $4.25, but Timothy Geithner may hold on until he can secure a better deal for taxpayers.

Though at first Speaker Nancy Pelosi wanted nothing to do with Rep. Joe Wilson’s “You Lie!” fiasco, she has since come around and led House Democrats to vote on a “resolution of disapproval” against Wilson late Monday. Wilson—who famously heckled the president during his joint address to Congress, then apologized, then turned his bad manners into a fundraising tool—has repeatedly said he “won’t be offering any more apologies,” an oath that rankles fellow South Carolina Representative and House Majority Whip James Clyburn. Clyburn, a Democrat, has led the charge against Wilson on the grounds of Congressional decorum and sending a message that degrading treatment of the president will not be tolerated. House Republicans say they will oppose the sanction, characterizing it as “petty partisanship.”

Jay Leno should thank his lucky stars. The day before his new show premiered, one of his booked guests, Kanye West, became the most in-demand celebrity after he stole the mic from Taylor Swift at the Video Music Awards. So what did West have to say for himself on Leno’s show? The rapper apologized for the third time and said he’s going to take time off for reflection. “It was rude, period,” Kanye said. "So many celebrities, they never take the time off," he said. "I've never taken the time off to really—you know, just music after music and tour after tour. I'm just ashamed that my hurt caused someone else's hurt. My dream of what awards shows are supposed to be, 'cause, and I don't try to justify it because I was just in the wrong. That's period. But I need to, after this, take some time off and just analyze how I'm going to make it through the rest of this life, how I'm going to improve."

The bad blood between Barack Obama and Bill Clinton has apparently settled: The two have certainly been seeing a lot of each other, The Washington Post reports. Monday, after Obama's financial speech, he grabbed lunch with former President Clinton at an Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village, where, according to a spokesman, the two "split the bill." That's not the only place they've been seen together. They hobnobbed at Walter Cronkite's funeral last week, and conferred when Clinton came to the White House to brief Obama on his journalist-saving North Korea visit. Next week they'll see each other again when Obama speaks at the Clinton Global Initiative's annual meeting.

The Pakistani army may have saved Swat Valley from the Taliban, but The New York Times reports that order in the war-torn region comes at a high price: “Perhaps hundreds” of bodies are being dumped on the streets, and many say blood is on the military’s hands. The murders appear to be revenge killings of former Taliban members and supporters; they mimic Taliban torture methods and are “systematic,” suggesting something more organized than rogue civilian murders. The U.S.-supported Pakistani army denies the claims: “There are no extrajudicial killings in our system,” said a spokesman. But NYT notes that the deaths do not occur in places where the Pakistan army’s control is firm; they appear strategic at quelling and punishing Taliban sympathies. Some even say mass graves are involved. Human Rights Commission, a nongovernmental organization, claims reports on the military’s involvement are credible; meanwhile, government officials kicked out the International Committee of the Red Cross, which investigates illegal killings, from Swat Valley last month.

On the same day Osama bin Laden took to the airwaves, an American helicopter gunned down al Qaeda commander Saleh Ali Nabhan, a leader of Somalia’s al Shabab organization, which works closely with al Qaeda, The Guardian reports. Nabhan was allegedly involved in the deaths of 229 people when American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed in 1998, as well as a 2002 attack on a hotel in Mombasa and a botched missile attack on an Israel-bound Mombasa airplane. Nabhan was traveling by car south of Mogadishu when U.S. special forces opened fire on his vehicle; two other passengers were killed, and two others were wounded and captured. The Pentagon and White House declined to comment on Nabhan’s death.

An amazing upset at Flushing Meadows on Monday evening: Big-hitting Argentine Juan Martin del Potro has defeated Roger Federer to take the U.S. Open men’s tennis championship. The No. 6-seeded del Potro stunned the No. 1 defending champion, who was seeking his record 16th Grand Slam title, in five sets, 3-6, 7-6, 4-6, 7-6, 6-2. The victory is the 20-year-old del Potro’s first Grand Slam title and breaks Federer’s streak of five straight U.S. Open championships. Del Potro reached the final by defeating Rafael Nadal 6-2, 6-2, 6-2.

After a hidden-camera exposé caught ACORN employees helping to falsify tax forms and to organize a child-prostitution business, the left-leaning voter-registration group is between a rock and a hard place. Their solution? Sue. Politico reports that ACORN is threatening to sue Fox News, Breitbart.com, and the two conservative activists who produced the film. If ACORN follows through, they’ll be using laws governing the use of undercover filming in Maryland and Washington, D.C. “It is clear that the videos are doctored” said ACORN’s chief organizer, who says the filmmakers’ crime is a felony. ACORN claims the filmmakers made many failed attempts to lure their employees into compromising situations. The producers themselves describe their undercover work as a “silly idea” that “escalated into a full-blown operation with scripts, Method acting, undercover gear, scandalous outfits” including posing as a pimp and a prostitute.

You can't teach an old late night host new tricks, at least not in the case of Jay Leno whose "new" variety show aired Monday night. The Los Angeles Times critic Mary McNamara put it grimly, "It's not a good sign when the Bud Light commercial is funnier than the comedy show it interrupts." Despite appearances from Seinfeld, Oprah, and Kanye West, the new Leno is much the same as the old Leno—jokes about Bush, Biden and Pelosi, wacky headline segments, and a "Cheaters" sketch where the joke is that Jay and bandleader Kevin Eubanks are having an affair. If this is the future of television, McNamara asks, should we worry?

Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Iraq Tuesday morning on an unannounced visit to the region. Biden will meet with top Iraqi leaders, including President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, as well as with American troops, according to a statement from the White House. Biden's special mission is to keep focus on Iraq as the U.S. moves toward total withdrawal of all combat troops by August of next year. Biden will also be meeting with representatives from the United Nations mission in Iraq in order to "convey the strong U.S. commitment to Iraq's future and national unity," the statement said.

A U.N.-backed monitoring body has ordered the Afghan election commission to recount ballots from 10 percent of the country’s polling stations. Ordered after allegations of fraud, the recount raises the possibility that President Hamid Karzai’s lead could drop below 50 percent, which would require a runoff between him and the top challenger, Abdullah Abdullah. The order affects stations that had 100 percent turnout or where one candidate had more than 95 percent of the vote—about 2,500 stations in total.