Seeking to put the Roman Polanski fiasco behind her in 1988, Samantha Geimer, the victim of the director's alleged drug-fueled sexual assault, filed a civil suit against him. Five years later, Polanski agreed to a $500,000 settlement with interest, the Los Angeles Times reports. The payment came with a two-year deadline, which Polanski failed to make—though it is unclear exactly how much of the settlement the director did pay. A court document filed in 1996 states that Polanski still owed $604,416 to Geimer. Geimer has said that she hopes Polanski does not face prison time.

While President Obama is playing the good sport about Chicago's defeat to host the Olympics, the high-profile failure has left him open to attack at a time when he is trying to shore up support for his health-care overhaul. The Republican National Committee said Obama should be focusing on more pressing priorities at home, while Rush Limbaugh called Friday the "worst day" of Obama's presidency. Some conservative commentators have even expressed glee that Chicago lost its bid. An analysis by the Associated Press says the "high-profile failure" could be seen as emblematic should Obama not achieve his goals on larger issues such as health-care reform and climate change. Of course, if Obama does in fact fulfill his more ambitious goals, the Olympic snub will likely be seen as nothing more than a minor bump in the road. White House adviser David Axelrod said the decision was not a “repudiation” of either Obama or the first lady.

As Indonesia copes with the devastation from an earthquake last Wednesday, its neighbor to the northeast, the Philippines, is preparing for its own potential disaster. Thousands of Filipinos were evacuated from the coast ahead of Typhoon Parma, which is expected to make landfall Saturday. The typhoon has maximum sustained winds of 132 mph, and could be upgraded to a super typhoon with winds of 150 mph. Just last weekend, the Philippines was hit with a tropical storm that killed hundreds and flooded Manila, CNN reports. The president of the Philippines has already declared the country under a "state of calamity," and has ordered the authorities to use force if necessary when carrying out evacuations.

With Bernie Madoff already behind bars, members of the famed Ponzi schemer's family are now being brought into court. Irving H. Picard, a court-appointed trustee who has previously sued Ruth Madoff, filed suit on Friday against four more members of Madoff's family, seeking nearly $199 million, which would go to Madoff's defrauded customers. All four Madoffs held top-level positions as senior executives at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, and though the complaint doesn't implicate them in any criminal activity, they stand accused of extreme negligence that allowed the massive Ponzi scheme to thrive. "Simply put," states the complaint, "if the family members had been doing their jobs—honestly and faithfully—the Madoff Ponzi scheme might never have succeeded, or continued for so long."

Next week, the powerful Senate Finance Committee will likely pass their version of a health-care bill, as Democrats enjoy a 13-10 majority on the committee. Still, having Olympia Snowe, the Republican senator from Maine, vote for the bill would be a powerful symbol of bipartisanship that could help the bill's chances once it reaches the floor. Snowe, for her part, has not revealed which way she will vote. She has expressed great concern over the requirement that everyone have health insurance or else face a stiff penalty. "Why punish the average family or the individual to pay the onerous penalty? I just don't get it," Snowe said. The bill has been tweaked to accommodate those concerns, but Snowe said, "I've got to review the document and go from there. There's a lot to think about." Snowe could help overcome a potential filibuster by Republicans when the bill hits the floor. Lawmakers are still debating whether to offer larger tax credits to help people buy mandatory insurance or to exempt Americans who can't afford to buy it. Keeping the bill within the budget while beefing up financial assistance is a challenge.

Friday's Olympic announcement may be bad news for President Obama but it’s great news for Rio di Janeiro. Rio, the first South American city to host the Olympics, beat out Chicago, the first city ever personally plugged by a U.S. President. The loss is particularly embarrassing to Chicago and the White House as it comes on the heels of four years, $50 million worth of campaigning, and New York City’s loss of the 2012 games. In their bid for the 2016 games Rio’s promoters played up its underdog status, though the city will also be playing host to the 2014 World Cup. “For the others it would be just one more Games, for us it would be an unparalleled opportunity,” said Brazil’s 89-year-old President President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Following the announcement Rio lived up to its reputation, and beaches flooded with bikinis and beach ball’s bearing Brazil’s colors and the slogan “It’s Rio’s Time.”

If only he were still in the Senate: Doctor and former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has told Time magazine that he would vote for the health-care bill currently being debated by the Senate. "I would end up voting for it," the Republican said. "As leader, I would take heat for it. ... That's what leadership is all about." Frist complains that the bill doesn’t do enough to control costs, and thinks it will only extend coverage to about 20 million of the uninsured. Still, he supports the mandate, and criticizes conservatives for their alarmism: "Clearly, the death panels and public plan arguments have been overblown.”

The Taliban are on the run in the Swat Valley in Pakistan, but what has sprung up in their place is far from ideal. Militia groups are taking the duty of policing the region where the Pakistani government once ceded control to the Taliban, and are walking the streets armed with AK-47s, pitchforks, and other weapons. The Guardian reports that one militia group has at least 2,000 men, and that they have seized control of one wealthy Taliban commander's mansion, referring to it as "the spoils of war." The militias are policing the region with the blessing of the government. Still, arming militia groups does not have a very favorable history in the AfPak region, and there is concern that score-settling will take the place of the rule of law.

Has Elizabeth Edwards finally had enough? The National Enquirer is reporting that Elizabeth has “threatened to divorce her cheating husband John” after she learned from his former campaign aide Andrew Young’s book that he may have cheated on her with more women than just Rielle Hunter. The Enquirer says that Elizabeth “has vowed to destroy her husband of 32 years by disclosing everything she knows about his political career in divorce court.” Were they to divorce, Elizabeth would be able to claim part of their $53 million fortune.

Robert Halderman, the producer accused of attempting to extort $2 million from David Letterman, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in a Manhattan court today. Halderman allegedly wrote of his intention to "make a large chunk of money" off Letterman, saying, " [Letterman's] world is about to collapse around him." If convicted, Halderman could serve up to 15 years in prison.

Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, died Friday in Warsaw at the age of 90. After the war, Edelman worked in Lodz as a cardiologist, and was a member of the democratic opposition to the communist regime in Poland that fell in 1989. More than 55,000 people were killed or sent to Nazi concentration camps during the uprising.

The Alcor Life Extension Foundation must be staffed by Yankee fans. The Daily News reports that Frozen, a new book by former Alcor executive Larry Johnson, reveals the company’s abuse of the frozen body of Ted Williams, the Red Sox star and .400 hitter. Williams’s body was apparently kept in a steel tank alongside junk and cardboard boxes, and his head—“gleefully” removed by technicians with no medical certification—was balanced on a can of Bumblebee tuna. In an effort to remove the head from the can (we all get hungry sometimes), one employee whacked at it with a monkey wrench, sending “tiny pieces of frozen head” flying. Johnson, who once tried to sell photos of Williams’s corpse online, says that he hopes the book will lead to the fulfillment of Teddy Ballgame’s wishes: the major league star expressed in his will a desire for his body to be cremated.

Important scientific discoveries—including answers to the questions “Why don’t pregnant women tip over?” and “Is it better to be hit over the head by a full or empty beer bottle?”—were recognized Thursday at the Ig Nobel prize ceremony at Harvard. One laureate, Catherine Douglas, was cited for her extensive study demonstrating that cows with names produce more milk; another, Katharine Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, won her prize for her revolutionary discovery that pregnant women don’t tip over due to an extra wedge-shaped vertebra not present in men (flying in the face of the conventional wisdom that their “bigger bums” provide counterweight). The peace prize went to scientists from the University of Berne, who found that it takes less force to break a full beer bottle, but that empty or full, the bottle can fracture your skull. The Ig Nobels, given out a week before the Nobel Prizes, are intended to recognize “research that makes people laugh and then think.”

Steve Schmidt, campaign manager for John McCain’s failed 2008 presidential bid, said on Friday that if McCain’s vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, were the GOP nominee in 2012, the Republicans could have a “catastrophic election.” When asked how he thought he would be portrayed in Palin’s upcoming memoir, Going Rogue, Schmidt said he thought he might be called the “anti-rogue.” Nonetheless, the GOP strategist admitted that it wasn’t “inconceivable that she could be the nominee for 2012,” even if he thought that she wouldn’t be “a winning candidate.” Schmidt, who was speaking at the Atlantic’s First Draft of History Conference, indicated that he believes Palin has “talent,” but hasn’t expanded “into the middle of the electorate where elections are decided.”

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has spent $64.8 million so far in his campaign to be elected a third time. Almost half of that—$28 million—was spent in the last 11 weeks. His opponent, Democrat William Thompson Jr., has struggled to raise funds and has spent about half of the $8 million he collected in donations and public matching funds. It's a staggering sum, but given that Bloomberg is worth an estimated $17.5 billion, at this rate he could run for about 270 terms and still have a bit of cash left over.

Hollywood produced not only amazing films in the '70s, but also an amazing hedonistic excess. The Independent examines the culture of the era in which Roman Polanski thrived and Mamas and Papas musician John Phillips carried on an incestuous relationship with his daughter Mackenzie. Before AIDS came along and spoiled all the fun, drug-fueled orgies were the norm—at least according to wild and perhaps exaggerated accounts of the era. The old studio system had crumbled away, allowing more creative freedom for directors, but one tradition remained: the casting couch. Older men were as much Svengalis as exploiters—sleeping with young women, and then turning them into huge stars. Writer Geoffrey Macnab says that the "combination of profligate spending and profligate living" sabotaged many great careers. "Their hubris was self-evident, whether it was the belief that they could do what they liked on screen, whatever the expense, or behave how they liked off-screen, whatever the cost in broken lives."

Unemployment rose to a level not seen since 1983 as a higher-than-forecast number of jobs were cut last month. The Labor Department Friday reported a rise in unemployment from 9.7 percent to 9.8 percent, in line with many economists’ predictions, but payrolls fell by 263,000, despite a loss the previous month that was smaller than originally reported. Factory workers and builders were hit especially hard, with 51,000 and 64,000 jobs lost, respectively. With September’s figures added, the number of jobs lost since the start of the recession comes to 7.2 million, the biggest decline since the Great Depression. Of course, many remaining jobs now come with shorter hours—the average work week also shrank to match a record low of 33 hours a week. Fed Chair Ben Bernanke said that economic expansion may not “substantially” cut into unemployment.

Who knew this whole "diplomacy" idea might actually accomplish something? Mounting pressure on Iran over its nuclear program appears to be paying dividends as the U.S. engages in multilateral and direct negotiations with Iranian officials in Geneva this week. Already Iran has agreed to let U.N. inspectors into its recently revealed uranium enrichment plant and to send most of its uranium to Russia for enrichment, which would help reassure foreign powers that it is not on the path to produce nuclear weapons. The tentative arrangement could be enough to hold off a new round of sanctions on Iran, whose economy is suffering and whose government is still containing fallout from its dispute presidential election. Of course, the deal only works if Iran follows through on its word and some observers aren't holding their breath. "This is only a start, and we shall need to see progress through some of the practical steps we have discussed today," European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana told The Washington Post.

Seven years after being kidnapped, 21-year old Elizabeth Smart finally got her day in court on Thursday when she testified against captor Brian David Mitchell in Salt Lake City. According to Smart, Mitchell was a religious zealot who used drugs and alcohol, constant brainwashing, and physical restraints to keep her from leaving, all while raping her on a daily basis. "Anything I showed resistance or hesitation to, he would turn to me and say, 'The Lord has commanded you to do this, you have to experience the lowest form of humanity to experience the highest,'" Smart testified, according to the New York Post. Smart also discussed the night she was captured from her family home, describing how Mitchell woke her up in the middle of the night with a knife against her neck. "He came into my room and held a knife to my throat and threatened me with my life and my family's life to come with him," she said. Her testimony came during a mental competency hearing for Mitchell, who has been institutionalized since his 2003 arrest after being deemed insane.

Rescuers in Indonesia are frantically looking to locate and help survivors in collapsed buildings in the aftermath of Wednesday's 7.6-magnitude earthquake. The Associated Press reports that one rescue team was able to recover a still-conscious college student 40 hours after the disaster by pulling her through a hole drilled in the concrete, reviving spirits dampened by a death toll of over 1,000 that is likely to grow. But despite signs that some victims are still alive almost two days after the disaster, Indonesia’s lack of heavy digging equipment is making rescue attempts difficult, and in the absence of a working power grid in many places, fuel is being rationed to concentrate on finding the thousands of still-missing victims. Millions of dollars in aid is being donated by governments and charities in the U.S., Russia, Australia, China, Japan, and other countries. President Obama pledged $3 million of assistance, while the Indonesian finance minister said the government will distribute $25 million over a two-month emergency response.

No one’s laughing here: TMZ is reporting that the suspect in the $2 million extortion plot against David Letterman is Robert Halderman, a “well-respected” producer for 48 Hours. Until recently, Halderman was living with his girlfriend Stephanie Birkitt, Letterman’s former assistant. Letterman disclosed on the air last night that he had sexual relations with female members of his staff. TMZ says one of those woman was Birkitt, and that their relationship ended when Letterman’s son was born in 2003.

"Only in America can you make that much money crying," said Sen. Lindsey Graham of Fox News host Glenn Beck, breaking right-wing Washington’s reluctance to speak against the far-right television star. At The Atlantic’s First Draft of History conference, The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein reports that the South Carolina senator tried to distance Beck from the Republican Party: "Glenn Beck is not aligned with any party. He is aligned with cynicism and there has always been a market for cynics." Graham also said that people who continued to question whether President Obama was born in America are "crazy," as was a Newsmax article imagining how a military coup could topple the administration.

Taking their time in deliberating over troop requests for Afghanistan, White House officials may end up with an entirely new strategy for the region. According to the Washington Post, senior administration officials are questioning basic premises of the war, like whether the Taliban and al Qaeda are inherently linked in their interests, a dialogue that could produce a new approach requiring fewer resources. "A lot of assumptions... were exposed to the light of day," one official said. Driving the conversation have been political changes in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai's disputed election has cast doubts on whether his regime can be be a partner in rebuilding the country while neighboring Pakistan's recent push back against the Taliban in their country has convinced officials that it may be more stable than previously thought.

How’s this for a day at the beach: You’re strolling along the sand, soaking up the sea air, when all of a sudden you come across a severed foot inside a sneaker. In the new issue of Outside, the writer Christopher Solomon goes to the Strait of Georgia, near Vancouver, where seven appendage-filled sneakers have washed up on the shores. Who’s the culprit? Some think it’s a serial killer; some a wayward mortician dumping bodies in the ocean; one forensic entomologist suggests it’s nothing more than random chance. The story may be our first foot-related noir—don’t miss the appearance of knife-wielding “Mountain Mike.”

David Letterman shocked viewers Thursday when he announced on his show that someone was trying to blackmail him over his sexual relationships with female staffers—and new reports suggest the extorter was an employee at fellow CBS show 48 Hours. CBS reports that the 48 Hours employee was arrested on charges of attempted grand larceny in the first degree. The extorter allegedly threatened to make the affairs public if he did not pay $2 million. A CNN legal analyst said Letterman had affairs with at least two female employees. The late-night comedian contacted authorities, and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office set up a sting operation that resulted in an arrest Thursday, after the person was caught trying to cash a fake $2 million check. Letterman said he testified before a grand jury on Thursday morning, "something I've never done in my life." Of the affairs, he said, "Would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Perhaps it would… I feel like I need to protect these people. I need to certainly protect my family."

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s soon-to-be-released memoir, Going Rogue—already a pre-release best-seller online —now has a cover. The cover image, released Friday, shows a red fleece-wearing, flag-pinned Palin outdoors, smiling towards the sky (Is that Russia she sees?). Going Rogue, written with Lynn Vincent, will be published by HarperCollins imprint Harper on November 17, not quite four months after her resignation from the governorship of Alaska.

Maybe not a golden parachute, but it certainly isn’t shabby: Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis, who announced he was stepping down Wednesday, will receive $53 million for his pensions—that's roughly $3.5 million a year for the rest of his life. In an effort to align executive compensation with investor returns, the bank eliminated a supplemental executive retirement plan along with golden parachutes seven years ago, but before the change, Lewis had taken part in the supplemental plan for more than a decade. Accounting for deferred compensation and stock options, a researcher at Corporate Watchdog estimates that Lewis will take about $64 million—a number cut in half from what it would have been three years ago, when BofA's shares went for more than $50. Because of Lewis' decision to spend billions of dollars on the crumbling Merrill Lynch, Warren Buffett dubbed him the "ironic hero" of the financial crisis. Surely the $53 million will make that moniker easier to live with.

Somewhere, Taylor Swift is smiling. Following a spate of negative publicity after rapper Kanye West crashed Taylor Swift’s award-winning moment at the MTV Video Music Awards, concert company Live Nation announced Thursday that West’s tour with pop star Lady Gaga has been canceled. The ambitious international tour, called “Fame Kills,” was to kick off next month.

It was bad enough for Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) having to tell his constituents he had had an affair with a married staffer and was facing blackmail demands from the angry husband. But the worst part may be yet to come—according to The New York Times, Ensign could face legal consequences for his efforts to minimize the fallout from his infidelities. The problem originates with Ensign's efforts to find a job for aide Doug Hampton, husband of the woman he had an affair with. Hampton finally took a lobbying job with NV Energy using Ensign's recommendation and now he says that he used the position to directly lobby Ensign on relevant laws despite restrictions directly reventing him from doing so. “The only way the clients could get what John was essentially promising them—which was access—was if I still had a way to work with his office,” Mr. Hampton told The New York Times. “And John knew that.” Legal experts say that the relationship could end up putting Ensign in jeopardy.

All that time on the basketball court seems to have made President Obama a good sport. "You can play a great game and still not win," Obama said at the White House today, shortly after returning from Copenhagen with the bad news that Chicago had failed to win in its Olympic bid. "Although I wish that we had come back with better news from Copenhagen, I could not be prouder. … I have no doubt that it was the strongest bid possible and I'm proud that I was able to come in and help make that case in person."