Is the third time a charm? Obama conducts his third private meeting with his national security team on Wednesday to discuss whether to grant General Stanley McChrystal’s request for up to 40,000 additional troops in Afghanistan. If authorized, the troops would be joining the 108,000 already approved by the U.S. and NATO since the war in Afghanistan began eight years ago. While most Republicans support sending more troops, Obama and the Democrats have taken a judicious approach toward making the decision, and two additional security sessions are slated to follow Wednesday’s meeting. U.S. public support for the war has decreased to 40 percent from 44 percent in July, according to a recent poll from the Associated Press.

Will fiscal conservatives rejoice? The Congressional Budget Office has completed a preliminary analysis of the Senate health-care reform package and says the bill could cut federal deficits by $81 billion over the decade and would cover 94 percent of eligible people. The cost over 10 years would be $829 billion. Blue Dog Dem Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and the man who steered this moderate-yet-controversial version of the bill, celebrated the analysis: “This legislation, I believe, is a smart investment on our federal balance sheet. It’s an even smarter investment for American families, businesses, and our economy.” His committee could vote as early as Friday on the legislation.

NATO is investing heavily in Afghanistan's police force, which as of now is "widely corrupt and largely ineffective," reports The Wall Street Journal. Military commanders see a strong, capable police force as vital to making the country more secure for its civilians, a key part of counterinsurgency doctrine. Allies have spent millions of dollars to create the 12,000-strong Afghan Border Police, with plans to increase the force by 50 percent. But the corruption problem remains: The newspaper reports on a pincer movement meant to halt insurgents crossing the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in which American troops would narrow mountain passes while Pakistani troops would attack insurgents on their side of the border. The insurgents slipped away because the border police tipped them off. Afghanistan has 80,000 police total, and they're recruited to work in the communities they come from. A Kabul professor explains police are often unsure of who will eventually triumph in places contested by the Americans and the Taliban, so they keep ties with both sides.

French Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand's memoir La Mauvaise Vie (The Bad Life) has been out for years—but Mitterrand's recent advocacy for Roman Polanski's freedom has suddenly thrown admissions about sexual tourism with underage boys back into play. The 62-year-old Sarkozy appointee wrote rapturously in 2005 about sexual tourism in Bangkok: "I got into the habit of paying for boys...The profusion of young, very attractive and immediately available boys put me in a state of desire that I no longer needed to restrain or hide." France's far-right National Front party is circulating a petition demanding Mitterrand's resignation, and the Socialist Party—a major left-wing player—has joined the attack. The openly gay and formerly apolitical nephew of France's former President Francois Mitterrand, Frédéric's appointment is thought to be a sign of Carla Bruni's influence over President Sarkozy—and of France's powerful tradition for keeping leaders' private and public lives separate.

Barack Obama will play host to 140 middle schoolers tonight for an evening of star-gazing on the White House South Lawn—celestial stars as well as astronaut star Sally Ride, who will be a featured guest. The students (from nearby Washington, DC and Virginia schools) will enjoy 20 telescopes and the "Inflatable Dome," a virtual universe that shows galaxies. A Hubble scientist participating this evening said the main event will be Jupiter and its four brightest moons. The festivities are designed to remind kids at a crucial age that science can be cool—with the hopes that they'll hold onto that interest when they head to high school and college.

In 1850, the master of a South Carolina estate sold a 6-year-old slave girl named Melvinia for $475 and shipped her to a three-slave estate in Georgia. When she was a teenager, she had a child with a white man—an unremarkable event in the sad history of slavery, except that Melvinia and her child’s father are the great-great-great-grandparents of Michelle Obama. The New York Times has uncovered this unknown portion of Michelle’s family history. Melvinia’s son, Dolphus, migrated to Birmingham, Alabama, in 1888 and co-founded the Trinity Baptist Church, which helped lead the civil-rights movement and still exists today. He died at the age of 91 in 1950, and his obituary appeared in the same issue of The Birmingham World as an article with the historic headline, “U.S. Court Bans Segregation in Diners and Higher Education.”

Guy Ritchie says he still loves Madonna—but he’s got a funny way of showing it. In a revealing interview in the November issue of Esquire, Madge’s movie-director ex calls her “retarded” in between rambling descriptions of the queen of pop’s staying power: “She’s a manifester, if there ever was one. First-rate manifester. Put Madonna up against any 23-year-old, she’ll outwork them, outdance them, outperform them. The woman is broad.” The foul-mouthed Ritchie, who has two children with Madonna, goes on to sing the praises of Brazilian jujitsu, his son’s Xbox skills, and Richoux marmalade. His movie Sherlock Holmes comes out in December.

Italy’s constitutional court has overturned the law granting Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi immunity from prosecution while in office. The country’s highest court annulled the law, passed soon after Berlusconi came to power, that allowed the prime minister to withdraw from several legal cases, including one involving corruption charges. When Berlusconi became Italy’s prime minister last year, he had been accused of bribing British lawyer David Mills to give false evidence. Mills pleaded not guilty, but was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for corruption in February. Prosecutors from that case, as well as two others, appealed to the Constitutional Court, claiming that granting Berlusconi immunity is a breach of the idea that all citizens are equal before the law. Though Berlusconi argued that immunity allowed him to govern without distraction, the court ruled in favor of the prosecutors.

"Whatever" is officially the most annoying saying, according to a nationwide poll by Marist. Nearly half of Americans (47 percent) object to the saying, and even more Midwesterners (55 percent) dislike it. Only 19 percent of them feel the same way about "you know," which is the phrase that gets under 32 percent of Northeasterners' skin.

A new ring of tiny dust particles has been discovered 8 million miles from Saturn's surface. The halo is approximately 50 times farther from Saturn than the other rings, and scientists believe it's the product of debris from small impacts on Saturn's moon Phoebe. Experts suggest the dust from the impacts then migrated toward the planet and was picked up by another of Saturn's moons, Iapetus. "The particles smack Iapetus like bugs on a windshield," explained a University of Virginia professor, adding that the discovery explains Iapetus' two-tone nature. The newly found disc is distinct not only in its size and distance, but also its angle: It is tilted 27 degrees to the plane encompassing Saturn's other rings, which is likely due to Phoebe's inclined path around the planet.

Perhaps Tom Cruise is studying up for a new role. The Hollywood Reporter writes that Cruise attended a class taught by his longtime attorney Bert Fields at Harvard Law School on Monday. Fields was a guest of entertainment-law professor Bruce Hay, but it was Cruise's presence that made discreet waves. Evidently Cruise paid strict attention, but shared a few quiet jokes with the student sitting next to him, who courteously kept her eyes on her computer otherwise. During the discussion, Fields referred questions back to Cruise, who interjected his own experiences with tabloid magazines, propriety of celebrity images, and the business of how movie ratings get set in Europe versus the U.S. By the end of class, he'd drawn a crowd. As the Harvard paper put it, "Cruise probably gave more time to HLS students than many professors are able to after class." Could Tom Cruise, Harvard professor be far behind?

Irving Penn, the fashion photographer famous worldwide for his elegant and minimalist pictures, died Wednesday morning at his home in Manhattan. The 92-year-old had worked for Vogue since 1943, and since then his pictures have been exhibited in museums and hunted by collectors. Penn photographed supermodels and Hell's Angels with the same cool stillness, and his images sometimes subverted standards of beauty and perfection, as in his series of color essays of flowers just past their prime, which was published in seven consecutive Christmas issues of Vogue. Penn was married to model Lisa Fonssagrives for 42 years, until her death in 1992, and Fonssagrives was featured in some of her husband's most famous work, such as Rochas 'Mermaid Dress,' Paris and Woman With Roses, Paris, from 1950, the year they wed.

Levi Johnston is taking his latest venture seriously. In preparing for his upcoming Playgirl shoot, the teen father of Sarah Palin’s first grandson is visiting the gym six days a week for the next three weeks. According to TMZ, the 19-year-old was uncertain about exactly what he wants to reveal to the magazine’s audience—the front or the back. Johnston’s lawyer predicts the spread will be out before year’s end.

The King lives again in the form of his 17-year-old grandson, who has scored a $5 million record deal to make up to five albums with Universal, the world's biggest record company. The Daily Mail reports that Benjamin Presley, son of Lisa Marie and musician Danny Keough, won't take a page from the grandfather who died 15 years before he was born. As Benjamin put it, "the music will be nothing like Elvis, nothing like him at all." Ben, who is taking a break from making the first album, hopefully set to release next year, bears a striking resemblance to his gramps, but according to his spokesman, "is a typical 17-year-old" who "doesn't get up before midday and then grunts at you."

Now that he’s finished dancing with the stars, it appears Tom DeLay is back to his old tricks: In a post- Dancing interview with Newsweek, DeLay said, “I have no idea” as to whether or not Barack Obama is a citizen of the United States. “You have to show a birth certificate to play Little League baseball,” DeLay says. “It's a question that should be answered. It's in the Constitution that you have to be a natural-born citizen of the United States to be president.”

Don't be fooled: The Democrats are winning on health care. With centrists and progressives divided over whether to get behind a piece of legislation that includes a public option, it’s noteworthy that the 60 Democrats are now on the same page when it comes to breaking a Republican filibuster. Whereas some Democrats, like Kent Conrad, appeared for awhile as though they might vote against it, that's no longer the case. This alignment could mean more reform than any other development over the last three months. “It’s just quietly turned into a fait accompli,” Jonathan Chait wrote on The New Republic’s Web site Tuesday.

Congress has no intention of debating same-sex marriage at the national level, but that doesn’t mean the issue won’t find its way onto the House and Senate floor: The District of Columbia City Council is hoping to approve same-sex marriage within the District before Christmas and, as part of D.C.’s unique governing arrangement, Congress will have 30 days to review the Council’s actions before they become law. While it appears as though Congress will quietly avoid the issue, some Republicans are trying to gin up an opposition. “I hate to say this, but I think this is going to be rough sledding," said Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.). "I don't think [conservatives] are going to give us a pass...I don't think we can always escape this issue coming to the floor." Moran predicted that, should the issue come up on the House floor, 80 Democrats will bail on it, which would be enough to defeat it.

For David Letterman, history repeats itself. A piece in the New York Observer points out that Letterman's affair with staffer Stephanie Birkitt was just one in a string of inter-office infidelities. When he moved to Los Angeles with wife Michelle decades earlier, his involvement with beach girls from San Diego State tore apart his marriage. For a decade ending in the ‘80s, he dated the head writer on his show, Merill Markoe, before settling down earlier this year with longtime partner and former staffer Regina Lasko. But no one has the moral high ground when it comes to Birkitt, the Observer charges, because Joe Halderman—who allegedly tried to blackmail the host—and Letterman are the same kind of man. Like Letterman, Halderman rose from obscurity to the top of his field, collected a CBS paycheck, spent weekends in Connecticut, and bedded co-workers, colleagues and subordinates. Halderman's first and second wives were co-workers and his CBS colleagues knew him as a flirt. And, of course, like Letterman, he had a relationship with co-worker Birkitt.

Move over, handbag dogs, you've got competition for the hearts of celebrities. Pigs the size of teacups are being snapped up by the likes of Harry Potter actor Rupert Grint and other celebrities, the Daily Mail reports. Micro pigs weigh about 9 oz. at birth but grow to be 40-65 lbs. They are about 12-16 inches tall after two years of growth. The pigs can live up to 18 years; they are clean, quiet, and apparently easy to toilet train. However, due to their popularity, the tiny porkers carry a hefty price tag: about $1,100.

“When you can't get a party in Miami, it's the ultimate sign you've stepped on toes,” said Daily Beast investigative correspondent Gerald Posner, whose new book, Miami Babylon, chronicles the dirty laundry of the sun-drenched jet set and has ruffled more than a few feathers. Publicist Tara Solomon and condo developer Jorge Perez are two friends who have cast out Posner after reading what he had to say about their friends and clients. According to the New York Post, a quote in the book from Perez’s friend Thomas Kramer that the two “did a lot of party and p----,” for example, might explain why Perez canceled Posner’s launch party. The book also delves into the illegal affairs of Wine and Food Festival promoter Lee Schrager and Ocean Drive magazine co-founder Jerry Powers, meaning that this may be just the beginning of Posner’s ostracization. "If they didn't like the way they're portrayed, they should see the stuff I left out," Posner told the Post.

Everyone sure hopes he's joking. During a televised cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez quipped to his mining minister, "How's the uranium for Iran? For the atomic bomb?" The Guardian reports that cabinet ministers sniggered and grinned in response. Last month, it became known that Iran was helping Venezuela detect uranium deposits, leaving the U.S. State Department worried about possible nuclear transfers between the two countries despite Chávez's repeated statements that all countries should end their nuclear-weapons programs and his insistence that Iran and Venezuela have a "sovereign right" to pursue peaceful nuclear goals. "They are going to start saying that we are going to make an atomic bomb," Chávez said.

The Detroit Tigers' protracted downward spiral didn't wind up until the bottom of the 12th inning on Tuesday night, when the Minnesota Twins' Alexi Casilla hit a one-out single, allowing Carlos Gomez to score from second base. The tiebreaker sends the Tigers into baseball's hall of shame—they're the first team in baseball history to blow a three-game lead with four games left—and the Twins to Yankee Stadium, where they'll play Game 1 of the American League playoffs on Wednesday.

The Obama administration has clipped the wings of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the immigration hardliner who has used his local authority to arrest over 30,000 undocumented immigrants in just two years, has faced accusations of racial profiling, and, perhaps most famously, forces his inmates to wear pink underwear. According to the Obama administration's decision, local authorities will no longer have the power to arrest suspected undocumented immigrants in the streets, though pro-immigration activists are upset that the Obama administration is maintaining some elements of the program that gave Arpaio his authority. "They took away my authority on the streets,” Arpaio said. “That doesn't matter because I will still pursue illegals on the streets of Maricopa utilizing the authority I have as the elected official."

Are Americans finally getting smarter about debt? The Washington Post reports that the recession has consumers paying with debit cards instead of credit cards. This spring, Visa announced that spending on debit cards increased 4.1 percent while spending on credit cards sank 14.8 percent, and the Federal Reserve announced that revolving credit, primarily credit cards, plummeted $6.1 billion or 8 percent annually in July. It's not just a recession trend either. A financial-services-research firm, TowerGroup, found that in less than 15 years, debit-card transactions in the U.S. grew from 1 percent of non-cash transactions to more than 50 percent. According to the president of consumer site CardRatings.com, part of the switch is a "kind of consumer backlash" against industry practices of increasing credit rates in anticipation of a law passed in May that will limit industry ability to raise rates and fees.

Smartphones are the phones of the future...or, at least, this holiday season. Google, Microsoft, and Palm are making moves to challenge Apple's iPhone. On Tuesday, Google announced that it is teaming with Verizon Wireless to co-develop phones based on its Android operating system, while Microsoft unveiled Windows Mobile 6.5, a new version of its smartphone software. Smartphones running Microsoft software account for 11 percent of the worldwide market for the first half of 2009, while Apple accounts for 11.7 percent, Blackberry for 19.9 percent, and Nokia for 46.4 percent. Even though Apple takes up a modest market share, experts say the iPhone is the one to beat due to its multi-touch screen innovation, and the wide variety of applications available for it.

How is Broadway’s new production of Hamlet, which stars Jude Law and opens on Wednesday? “Mr. Law approaches his role with the focus, determination and adrenaline level of an Olympic track competitor staring down an endless line of hurdles,” Ben Brantley writes in The New York Times. That's not a compliment. Brantley writes, “People who ask for a little introspection from the man whose name is a byword for that activity may find it perplexing that this Hamlet never seems to look inward, which means that he never grows up—or grows, period.” The rest of the actors appear to have taken their m.o. from Law, resulting in a production “generate little psychological tension.” He ends, however, with a compliment for the production’s Barneys-esque wardrobe: “the sleeves on which Hamlet wears his feelings are seriously chic.”

The Cheney clan has had a busy year: As the former veep's first daughter, Elizabeth, works on her new political career, second daughter Mary is expecting her second child, reports blog True/Slant. Mary confirmed that she and long-term partner Heather Poe will welcome a second child to their family in mid- to late-November. Their first child, son Samuel David Cheney, drew political controversy from both the left and right: While Democrats like John Edwards have long questioned how Dick Cheney could oppose gay marriage in light of his daughter's longstanding gay relationship and family, conservative Focus of the Family founder James Dobson marked Mary's first pregnancy with an opinion column for Time magazine entitled "Two Mommies Is One Too Many." True/Slant columnist Kate Klonick notes that Liz Cheney's defense last summer of the "birther" movement has thrown the Cheney family into the far-right's eye: "It's anyone's guess how Mary's burgeoning alternative family and Liz's burgeoning conservative political career will reconcile themselves in the coming years."

Debate over military tactics in Afghanistan were at a fever-pitch Tuesday, but The New York Times reports that a meeting between President Obama and congressional leaders was civil—though not without its clashes. Obama promised he would not slash the number of troops in Afghanistan, trying to dispel the notion that the only options in Afghanistan are either doubling down or cutting out. Responding to a comment from John McCain that "This should not be a leisurely process," the president reportedly said, "John, I can assure you this won't be leisurely," adding, "No one feels more urgency to get this right than I do." Responding to General Stanley McChrystal's recent rebuke of Vice President Biden's proposal to scale back on Afpak, Obama allegedly voiced interest in Biden's ideas: "I'm the one who hired [Biden]," Obama reportedly said. "I put him there to give me a frank assessment." The 75-minute meeting was conducted in the State Dining Room and included the president, Vice President Biden, and some 30 members of Congress.

A new mortgage crisis may be looming, but look for it in the office park, not the cul-de-sac. In a presentation to banking regulators last month, the Federal Reserve said that U.S. banks “will be slow to recognize the severity of the loss [on commercial mortgages]–just as they were in residential.” In a speech on Monday, New York Fed President Bill Dudley said, “More pain likely lies ahead for this sector and for those banks with heavy commercial real estate exposures.” The Wall Street Journal backs up these assertions with some data: Banks with heavy exposure to such loans set aside just 38 cents in reserves during the second quarter for every $1 in bad loans. In the beginning of 2007, they set aside $1.58 in reserves for every $1 in bad loans.

At least it's not Obama: The United States Olympic Committee's acting CEO Stephanie Streeter revealed Wednesday that she'll leave her post within the next five months. Her announcement comes less than a week after Chicago was ousted from the running as the site for the 2016 Olympics, an elimination for which Streeter and the rest of the USOC leadership received blame. Streeter, however, said she made her decision to not to be considered for the CEO position prior to the bid. In order to find her replacement, the USOC is forming a search committee and plans to hire a national recruiting firm. If the search does not produce a successor soon, however, Streeter could remain with the USOC through March, which is when the Vancouver Paralympics come to a close.

The e-reader trend is about to get larger. Amazon.com has announced that it will begin selling an international version of the Kindle that will work in more than 100 countries beginning October 19, the Financial Times reports. The company will also slash the e-reader's price in the U.S. by $40 to $259, which will likely increase sales before the holiday rush. The international version will cost $279 and use AT&T's global network instead of Sprint, which the domestic reader uses. The market for e-readers is becoming increasingly competitive now that Sony has a competing line and Apple is rumored to be launching a tablet computer.