Unhappy with rising unemployment, which hit 9.8 percent this week? Pass health-care reform. That's President Obama's argument at least, which he laid out Saturday in his weekly radio address. The idea is that by allowing aspiring entrepreneurs to buy affordable health care without an employer, the legislation would lead to growth in new small businesses. Obama said he knew people "who've got a good idea and the expertise and determination to build it into a thriving business. But many can't take that leap because they can't afford to lose the health insurance they have at their current job." Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI) delivered the GOP response and said that tax cuts for small businesses were the better route toward turning around unemployment.

The United Nations' nuclear agency has found that Iran has acquired “sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable” atom bomb, according to the agency’s report. The conclusions are tentative, the report stresses, and based on information from intelligence agencies and its own investigations. American intelligence officials said two years ago that Iran had stopped trying to design a nuclear weapon in 2003, but Britain, Germany, France, and Israel have disputed that finding in the past few months. Iran has done extensive research and testing on how to make each component of a weapon, the report found. The report represents the analysis of the U.N. agency’s senior staff, but its departing director, Mohamed ElBaradei, does not want the report made public and has cautioned that they have no concrete proof that Iran wants to make nuclear arms. Iran has agreed to allow inspectors this month to visit its most recently unmasked site in Qom, which it claims would only enrich uranium to produce nuclear power.

It hardly seems sporting. Billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is taking no chances on his reelection this year, already dropping $65 million of his own money to power his race against the city's Democratic comptroller, Bill Thompson, who has only spent $3.8 million. The spending spree puts Bloomberg, who already has two similarly priced campaigns under his belt, on a record pace to finish in November with most expensive election in New York history. But government watchdog groups are concerned Bloomberg's cash advantage could have terrible implications for democracy. “It badly distorts the city’s democracy to have one candidate spend his own money like a drunken sailor—or more accurately, like a million drunken sailors,” said a staff attorney for the New York Public Interest Research Group.

Iran's Holocaust-denying leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, might have changed his last name to hide his Jewish roots, the Daily Telegraph reports. A photo of Ahmadinejad holding up his identity card reveals his last name used to be Sabourjian, a Jewish name meaning "cloth weaver," before his family changed it after converting to Islam. The "jian" at the end of the name means the family were practicing Jews, according to one expert. The name is on a list of reserved names for Iranian Jews kept by the Ministry of the Interior. Ahmadinejad’s virulent attacks against Jews might be a sort of overcompensation to hide his roots in a radical Shia society, experts say. Ahmadinejad has admitted his family changed their name but has not said why.

It’s a lucky day for the Irish. Early results reveal that Ireland is on board for the European Union Lisbon treaty. More than half of the 3 million people eligible to vote in Ireland turned out to the polls yesterday, with 67 percent voting “yes,” and all major parties (except one) campaigned in favor of the treaty that would create a full-time E.U. president and streamline decision-making. Ireland voted “no” to the treaty a year and a half ago and the change of heart is thought to be a result of the poor economic climate, combined with new pro-Irish amendments instated since the first referendum. The E.U. is excited about the Irish victory, but there is still a long way to go—the Czech Republic and Poland are the last two member countries left to approve it. "The Irish people showed an Ireland embracing her future with Europe," said Irish PM Brian Cowen of the victory.

Maybe some loud public criticism is exactly what President Barack Obama needs to distract from his failed Olympic bid. In the latest public admission in a nuanced debate over whether Iran acted appropriately regarding the development of its nuclear facility near the city of Qom, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says that Iran divulged facts about its nuclear facility early and that Obama was wrong to say that it didn’t. "The U.S. president made a big and historic mistake," said Ahmadinejad on Saturday. The debate over when Iran should have revealed its nuclear site is twofold: Both the IAEA and the U.S. say the country should have announced plans as soon as they existed; Iran says that according to protocol, it was not obligated to alert the U.N. until six months before bringing “nuclear material” into the machines, which it did. IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei arrived in Iran today to set up the U.N. inspection of the facility, which Iran agreed to last week.

In a departure from his usual tough-love stance toward traditional media, Google CEO Eric Schmidt says his company is not a newspaper killer, and that Google has a “moral responsibility” to help newspapers survive. In an extensive interview, Schmidt said Google is often blamed for the Internet as a whole, which has changed reading habits to the detriment of print media’s profits. But Schmidt says he wants to experiment with new ways of presenting news that could help print institutions better transition to the Web, and survive. Schmidt also talks about the importance of investigative and local government journalism to democracy, and laments that there are fewer and fewer journalists on these beats as newspapers cut back. “But what happened to the guy who’s investigating the misdeeds of the CFO in the mayor’s office? And again, I’m talking about the stuff you can’t do in an hour. The gumshoe kind, walking around talking to people. There are very few of those people,” he says.

Friday box-office numbers have rolled in and it looks like a good weekend for one former Cheers bartender. Zombieland, the low-budget Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg horror comedy, bowed with a better-than-expected $9.4 million on Friday. Sony took the second spot as well, with its well-reviewed Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs earning an additional $3.7 million. Disney’s rerelease of audience favorites Toy Story and Toy Story 2 took in $3.2 million on far fewer screens, while the Ricky Gervais comedy The Invention of Lying, starring Jennifer Garner, Jonah Hill, and Tina Fey, also surpassed studio estimates with $2.5 million.

Angelina Jolie is spending her free time far from red carpets and film sets this weekend, instead speaking out on behalf of the nearly 4.2 million Iraqi refugees displaced by the violence in their home country. Jolie, who is a goodwill ambassador for The U.N. Refugee Agency, visited the homes of two Iraqi families in southern Damascus, one of which fled to Iraq after their son was abducted and they were forced to pay a ransom. The mother of the family said, "I was assaulted every day for 13 days by up to 10 men…I wanted to kill myself and the only reason I decided not to go ahead is because of my children.” The U.N. agency helps refugees in neighboring countries, including Syria and Jordan. "Most Iraqi refugees cannot return to Iraq in view of the severe trauma they experienced there, the uncertainty linked to the coming Iraqi elections, the security issues and the lack of basic services,” said Jolie.

International aid is finally arriving near the Padang area of Sumatra, where Wednesday’s catastrophic 7.6-earthquake has killed more than 1,000 people and trapped at least 3,000 additional more who may or may not be alive, the BBC reports. International aid workers are in the process of arriving from the U.K., Australia, South Korea, the E.U., and Russia, and rescue efforts are being coordinated by the Red Cross. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has also promised $10 million in emergency government aid. "The... fund has to flow quickly, no more bureaucracy for this," he said. "This is an emergency, so speed is crucial." In the meantime, many victims are suffering as they wait for help to arrive and some of the areas near Padang have been difficult to reach because of the lack of physical access in areas where the earthquake occurred. “We have not received a thing. We need food, clothes, blankets, milk. It seems like the government has forgotten us,” said survivor Siti Armain.

David Letterman was one bad breakup away from dodging an even bigger scandal. According to the New York Post, Stephanie Birkitt, the 34-year-old Late Show staffer whose reported affair with the show's host touched off the blackmail scheme, moved out last week after living for several years with alleged blackmailer and CBS producer Joe Halderman, 57, who one neighbor described as "devastated" by the breakup. According to the Post's sources, Birkitt's affair with Letterman ended in 2004 after his longtime girlfriend gave birth to their son, Harry. Before that, however, the two allegedly engaged in a longtime relationship as Birkitt moved up the ranks on the show from intern to Letterman's personal assistant to on-air personality. "Aside from being incredibly funny and personable, he is generous, kind, and is great fun to play catch with," Birkitt told her college alumni magazine in 2003.

A last-minute meeting between President Obama and General Stanley McChrystal, who is asking for as many as 40,000 additional troops in Afghanistan, took place aboard Air Force One in Copenhagen on Friday morning, while Obama was in town boosting Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics. The unscheduled meeting came on the heels of two weeks of aggressive public campaigning during which McChrystal warned that not agreeing to his request would be ill-advised. "You have to navigate from where you are, not from where you wish to be," McChrystal said in response to those who support a minimized U.S. presence. A decision has yet to be announced, but Obama’s camp made it clear that the talk was not to scold McChrystal’s campaigning, but rather another step in the review process: "The president said that McChrystal understands that he put together an assessment, and he expects and wants people to ask him questions about that assessment so that we can get the right strategy,” said press secretary Robert Gibbs.

It turns out that Lil’ Wayne plays a crucial role in the United States legal system. How? By keeping state senators awake. Important bills involving millions of dollars are often put on the table at night. This means that lawmakers need to be awake to deal with them and they have a variety of creative ways to do it, especially in California, which has had six all-nighters so far this year, thanks in part to rules that require a two-thirds majority to pass its budget. Methods for staying awake at crucial moments include sleeping-bag slumber parties; Lil’ Wayne-heavy playlists to keep lawmakers pumped, and best of all, ‘70s singalongs (think bipartisan James Taylor songs in the members lounge). "I think by the end of 'American Pie,' we had a dozen or more folks singing," California Assemblyman Jared Huffman told The Wall Street Journal.

Perhaps now Erin Andrews can rest easy. A 48-year-old Illinois man named Michael Barrett was arrested Friday night at O’Hare Airport for allegedly stalking and filming nude videos of the 31-year-old ESPN reporter. Barrett is scheduled to appear in federal court Saturday to confront charges of “interstate stalking” and faces up to five years in federal prison, reports USA Today. The charges encompass a far more creepy series of acts, which include allegedly following Andrews to Nashville hotels, rigging the peepholes to her rooms, taking eight shoddy cellphone videos of her naked, posting the videos online, and trying to sell the videos to TMZ, which alerted police. The former University of Florida dance team member, named Playboy’s “Sexiest Sportscaster” of 2008 and 2009, told Oprah Winfrey she was worried that the online footage would damage her career, but successfully returned to the sidelines on September 3.

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.

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.

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.

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.