Despite protests from Hamid Karzai and his camp until as late as yesterday, the disputed leader of Afghanistan has agreed to an election runoff—and pressure from U.S. heavyweights may be why he did it. CNN reports that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wooed Karzai by arguing a second election would only strengthen him; she pointed to predictions she made in televised interviews that he would win the runoff anyway. Clinton also orchestrated operations by phone with Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who played a crucial role in strategic talks with Karzai. Kerry—who told The Wall Street Journal "He and I are friends"—spent the weekend in Kabul, even forgoing his scheduled return trip to Washington to spend time with both Karzai and his challenger, Abdullah Abdullah. Sources say that Karzai's main objection stemmed from his concern for his large body of Pashtun supporters, who he feared would feel disenfranchised if the results of the previous election were nullified.

President Obama took a few digs at Wall Street even as he raked in as much as $3 million at a Manhattan fundraiser for the Democratic Party on Tuesday night. There was tension in the room as Obama spoke, because many of the guests—who paid $30,400 per couple to attend the event—work on Wall Street. Nonetheless, the president did not hold back criticism of the financial industry, saying the country should not have to face calamity because of “reckless speculation and deceptive practices and short sightedness and self-interestedness from a few.” He continued, amid audience chuckles: “So if there are members of the financial industry in the audience today, I would ask that you join us in passing what are necessary reforms. Don’t fight them.” Obama also urged Congress to pass health-care reform, and for Democrats to not let “intramural battles” get in the way of pushing through the legislation.

It will have been over a year since her disastrous interview with Katie Couric—has Sarah Palin gotten her act together? Palin, former Alaskan governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee, will appear as a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show on November 16 to promote her forthcoming book, Going Rogue. Winfrey campaigned for Palin’s opponent, Barack Obama, during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Scientists and patients around the globe may have had their hopes falsely raised last month when researchers testing an AIDS vaccine announced that its subjects were 31 percent less likely to become infected. Though that number isn't high enough to justify licensing a vaccine, attention was paid because no trial in the past 20 years had been able to boast any protection against the virus. However, further stages of the trial, which took place over three years with 16,400 Thai men and women, soon revealed that the benefits of the vaccine were statistically insignificant. Varying analyses of the results all produced statistically insignificant numbers, and Raphael Dolin of Harvard Medical School said the vaccine was "unlikely to be a public health control measure." But not all hope is lost; researchers assert that the final analysis, though disappointing, can point them in the right direction down the albeit rocky road.

Madoff may have burned his bridges in the free world, but behind bars he's got friends. A lawsuit filed by Bernie Madoff's victims has offered a surprising snapshot from the fallen Ponzi schemer's jailhouse life, including his social life. Court documents say Madoff bunks with a drug offender (Bernie sleeps on the bottom) and eats pizza cooked by a child molester. His closest friends are a pair of white-collar fast-talkers: Mob boss Carmine Persico and convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, whose late-'80s imprisonment for Israeli espionage ignited a media storm over what Pollard’s wife called Jewish-Americans’ “moral obligation” to Israel.

This was supposed to be Barbie’s year. After celebrating her 50th birthday this spring, Mattel heavily marketed its new line of “Fashionista” Barbies, in a play to reestablish doll-aisle dominance. Though Barbie remains the bestselling doll in the world, her sales peaked in 2002, a year after the Bratz dolls first challenged her hegemony. The new Fashionista Barbies have 12 movable joints, meant for runway-esque posing in their high-fashion clothes, but the toy’s debut was beat by two sassier rivals. Spin Master Ltd. is offering Liv Dolls, which have bendable ankles and changeable wigs. And MGA Entertainment, which was pummeling Barbie with pouty Bratz until Mattel wrested the rights away, unveiled its huge-eyed Moxie Girlz, whose hairstyles can be changed by swapping out heads (an unsettling image for those who’ve seen Return to Oz). The stakes are high for Mattel, which sees one-fifth of its sales via Barbie, though competitors have little sympathy. "Barbie has been so many different things," a Spin Master co-founder says. "Liv is now."

Is the Roman Catholic Church trying to poach members from the Anglican Communion? The Vatican announced Tuesday that it would welcome with open arms disillusioned Anglicans, or former Anglicans, to the Catholic Church, without the need to sacrifice some of their distinct beliefs, such as allowing priests to marry. Anglicans number 77 million worldwide, and church members have lately been fractured by incompatible views about women bishops, an openly gay bishop, and same-sex unions. The Catholic Church, clocking in at 1.1 billion members, has already set up what they call "personal ordinariates" to receive converts and help them make the transition. The new policy is a boon for Anglo-Catholics who have been reluctant to embrace the progressive slant of the Anglican Communion.

The fameball stops here. Citing the scandal surrounding Richard and Mayumi Heene's alleged balloon boy hoax, Lifetime has opted to remove a rerun of the Heene family's Wife Swap episode from Thursday's afternoon lineup. A spokesperson for Lifetime explained that, "Once we found out" about the alleged attempt to turn Falcon Heene into a publicity prop, "we decided to pull it off the air. At this time, we don't have any plans to air it in the near future." The episode in question depicted the Heene boys running wild and dive-bombing over the living room banister, while Richard Heene berated his substitute wife.

Will they still smell just as sweet? A Japanese company announced Tuesday that they've engineered the first blue roses in the world, and will begin selling them on November 3 in limited Japanese markets. Named "Applause," the blue rose is the product of 20 years of research culminating in the insertion of a blue color gene from pansies into the rose's DNA. A single pastel-blue flower will set you back between $22 and $33.

Tony Blair was verbally attacked by a Palestinian man in a mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron Tuesday. “You are terrorism,” the man said. “He is not welcome in the land of Palestine.” The former prime minister remained unruffled following the incident, “Frankly it’s not protests that will [bring peace],” he said. “It’s patient negotiation.” Blair is the Middle East envoy for the European Union, the United States, Russia, and the United Nations, but his role is clearly not appreciated by all.

Forty years ago, the Food and Drug Administration put out its first smackdown on artificial sweetener. At that time it was an ingredient known as cyclamate, the precursor to aspartame. First appearing on the market in 1951, cyclamate was enthusiastically embraced by food and beverage companies as a more palatable, less metallic alternative to saccharine. Americans, amid their love affair with junk food, ate up the guilt- and calorie-free option. Studies since have linked artificial sweeteners to a variety of malignancies, from deformities to cancer. But are they getting a bad rap? "The fear-mongering and misinformation plaguing the faux-sweetener market seems to be rooted in a common misconception," writes Claire Suddath of Time magazine. "The general consensus in the scientific community is that saccharin, aspartame, and sucralose are harmless when consumed in moderation." Maybe that message will make it to the public in the next 40 years.

In a new Vanity Fair exposé, Nancy Jo Sales outlines the wattage of Jon and Kate Gosselin. The now-separated parents of eight have appeared on 50 celebrity tabloid covers since March—more than any other celebrity in Hollywood, including the real ones like Brad and Angelina. In addition to the TLC reality-TV show charting their rise and fall, the unusually fertile French-manicured mother has a burgeoning media empire of books, DVDs, product endorsements, speaking engagements, a talk show, and a children’s clothing line. “I’m running a business—hello?” Kate said in her own defense. “You can’t just watch Jon & Kate on television and understand it anymore,” a Times critic said. “ Jon & Kate became unintentionally brilliant because it demanded so much other consumption to find out what was ‘real.’” Added Janice Min, who put the Gosselins on the cover of Us Weekly a record seven times in a row: “Part of the sick appeal is, I think, every single person who’s married can admit there’s a little bit of Kate Gosselin lurking in them.”

The Supreme Court let stand a ruling that police cannot pull over a suspected drunk driver based solely on a caller’s tip. The Virginia Supreme Court had ruled that a police officer can follow but not stop a driver’s car until he sees the driver do something suspicious, and the high court upheld that ruling over a strong dissent by Chief Justice John Roberts. Roberts wrote that rule would “grant drunk drivers 'one free swerve' before they can be pulled over by the police.” He added that it would be tough to tell the family of someone killed by a drunk driver that the police had a tip but couldn’t stop him, “even for a quick check.” The court’s decision is not a formal ruling, and it does not require other states to follow it.

Is the Secret Service stretched thin? According to The Boston Globe, the Secret Service is overwhelmed by a record number of death threats against President Obama, a rise in hate groups, and a new wave of antigovernment fervor. The Secret Service is trying to juggle its duties protecting what it calls an “unprecedented” number of individuals—32 in total, including presidents, vice presidents, their immediate families, former presidents ands vice presidents, visiting dignitaries, and presidential candidates—and investigating financial crimes like counterfeiting, which was its original purpose when it was created in 1865.

With friends like these, Richard Heene doesn’t need too many enemies. Former associates and acquaintances of Heene, who allegedly staged the Balloon Boy hoax featuring his own son, are speaking out, saying that he could at times be “terrifying” and that he has “trouble staying focused and balanced.” Heene and his wife are set to be charged for falsely reporting their son as missing in a balloon, supposedly a stunt to drum up publicity for a new reality show they had concocted. Barbara Slusser, who appeared with Heene when he was on Wife Swap stint, described time with him as “a three-ring circus,” and another friend spoke of the frequent risks faced by his three children. A stormchaser, Heene has been known to bring his young children into the eye of hurricanes--perhaps explaining son Falcon’s decision to hide in the attic.

On his way to a $15,200-a-plate Democratic fundraiser at New York's Mandarin Oriental Hotel, President Obama dropped by the FBI-NYPD Joint Terrorism Task Force for a tour and quick speech. The president thanked the force for saving "countless" lives with "the strong intelligence you've gathered and the hard-nosed investigations you've pursued." The president concluded the short speech by noting, "I know all of you are extraordinarily busy and I do not want to draw you away from the work you do." The New York Daily News notes that the same could be said for several high-profile New York dignitaries—both Mayor Bloomberg and New York Governor Paterson are skipping Obama's visit. Like Obama, Bloomberg's got his eye on upcoming elections: "I thought about going, but I think it just, I've got a campaign and I don't want to politicize this." Paterson, whose reelection campaign has made him persona non grata in the Obama administration (which asked him to step aside), said he was busy in Albany. The Joint Terrorism Task Force helmed last month's arrest of alleged terrorist Najibullah Zazi, who they say was planning a terrorist attack on the New York subway system.

Madonna has often been heralded as a superstar with a big heart—she’s worked on behalf of a committee to help orphans in poverty-stricken Malawi, where she has adopted two children—but could she be doing more? That’s the question being raised by the tax filing for her Ray of Light Foundation, which reveals the singer gave away $459,000 last year despite the fact that Forbes recently reported in June that she makes $110 million annually. And don’t forget to tack on the additional $280 million she grossed from her Sticky & Sweet tour. According to the filing, much of the money went to organizations associated with Kabbalah—$150,000 to Kabbalah’s Spirituality for Kids, for example. She also donated smaller chunks of change to the Jewish Big Brothers/Sisters of Los Angeles ($10,000) and a cancer research institution ($15,000). As Showbiz 411 notes, Madonna’s foundation put more money toward “investment fees”—$37,000—than toward some of the philanthropies she supports.

Not exactly New York's finest these days. Bernard Kerik, the former NYPD commissioner, was jailed Tuesday after a judge revoked his bail. The judge said that Kerik, facing trial for trading services for personal favors, passed on confidential documents to a "sham" lawyer, who then compromised jury selection by giving the documents to newspapers and blogs. "I have a serious concern and believe there is a probable cause to believe that Mr. Kerik, given his own devices, will deliberately obstruct justice in this matter," the judge said, adding, "My fear, however, is that he has a toxic combination of self-minded focus and arrogance. And I fear that that confidence leads him to believe that the ends justify the means, that the rules that apply to all don't necessarily apply to him in the same way."

Google and a variety of space agencies are fighting global warming by measuring forests around the world from space. Google will use its Google Earth to track deforestation, which is responsible for approximately one-fifth of all greenhouse gases that come from human activities. “The only way to measure forests efficiently is from space,” said the director of the initiative. NASA, the European Space Agency, and space agencies in Japan, Germany, Italy, India, and Brazil will all contribute to mapping forests from space.

A squadron of 3,500 Iowa Army National Guard soldiers has received orders to report for duty in Afghanistan next year, the Department of Defense announced Tuesday. This effort is the largest mobilization for the Iowa National Guard since World War II. The troops will deploy in fall 2010 to support ongoing operations and training of the Afghan National Security Forces. In addition to the Iowa troops, two Army brigade combat teams—a total of 7,000 soldiers—have received Afghanistan assignments for next year. A group of MV-22 Osprey aircraft has also been designated for deployment along with the troops.

The Supreme Court announced on Tuesday that it will hear a challenge from Uighurs who are still being held at Guantanamo Bay even though the Pentagon has said that they’re not a threat to the United States. The Court held last year that federal judges could order some detainees to be released, but the issue is before it again after a federal appeals court overturned an order to do that in the case of the Uighurs. The Obama administration has noted that efforts are ongoing to find a place for the Uighurs. Four have been sent, so far, to Bermuda, while six have gone to Palau. Palau has offered to take six of the seven remaining Uighurs, and the administration has indicated that some departures for Palau are imminent.

The fertility doctor responsible for the Octomom’s brood has been expelled from the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, the biggest U.S. organization for fertility doctors. Dr. Michael Kamrava reportedly broke with the organization’s guidelines by implanting six embryos in “Octomom” Nadya Suleman, two of which split into twins. The group recommends transferring only one or two embryos to women younger than 35 specifically to avoid Octomom-esque results. Dr. Kamrava typically implanted around four embryos in his patients. Though the ASRM does not have the power to actually revoke a medical license, a spokesman for the organization said, "I think it's our responsibility to set standards of care."

Where’s the pay czar when you need him? According to The Washington Post, the biggest financial firms in the United States increased perks and benefits for their chief executives by an average of 4 percent in 2008. As a group, these same firms received $350 billion in federal funds. Executives Kenneth D. Lewis of Bank of America and Jeffrey M. Peek of CIT Group each received $100,000 extra in 2008 for corporate jets. Ralph W. Babb Jr. got a $200,000 country-club membership on Comerica’s dime. GMAC Financial Services spent $2.5 million to help Alvaro de Molina pay his personal tax bill. Chaffeured services, parking, and personal security were other common perks in 2008.

Who would have thought a soda can could be so cute? Coca-Cola’s tiny new can contains a measly 90 calories—compared to the regular can’s bulking 140. While the Guardian reports that American fast-food restaurants are competing to win a recession-era competition for who can offer the biggest burger at the lowest cost, Coke is taking the road less traveled by opting for moderation in a quest to increase health and decrease obesity. The flip side? Some skeptics wonder if a smaller can just means the drinker will consume more Cokes.

Howard Unruh, one of America’s most horrendous mass murderers, died on Monday at the age of 88. In 1949, after eating a breakfast of fried eggs prepared by his mother in their East Camden, New Jersey apartment, Unruh walked out of their home wearing a tropical suit and a bowtie and killed 10 adults and three children in a 20-minute mass shooting. Unruh, who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and never went to trial, was confined in an institution for the criminally insane for a total of 60 years. Using a 9-millimeter German Luger pistol, the WWII vet and pharmacy school drop-out—known for attending church with his mother and reading the bible—killed a shoemaker, a tailor and his wife, a barber, a television repairman, drugstore owner, insurance agent, and several strangers. The most atrocious killing was that of a 6-year-old boy sitting on a hobby horse next to his mother in the barber shop. A psychiatric report claimed that Unruh’s thought his neighbors “were thinking of him as a homosexual.” Unruh spent his time in confinement sleeping, watching television, and collecting stamps.

Roman Polanski has a lot of legal catching up to do. The 76-year-old Rosemary’s Baby director, found guilty in 1977 of having illegal sex with a minor, lost his appeal on Tuesday to be released from a Swiss jail in spite of offers to post bail, enter into house arrest, and use his extravagant Swiss chalet as collateral, which lawyers say represents more than half of his wealth, which Polanski needs to send his two children to school. The Swiss federal court say none of these offers are enough and that that it will keep Polanski incarcerated due to his high risk of flight based on his ability to obtain a fake passport or escape by private plane or helicopter. Polanski has ten days to appeal again, and the U.S. must file for extradition by Nov. 25--almost two months from the day he was arrested in Switzerland.

The former Miss California USA is back in the headlines, this time for the unusual demand of repayment for her breast augmentation. The production company that runs the pageant is requesting $5,200, the amount fronted to the erstwhile beauty queen for her surgical enhancement. The action is a cross complaint to Prejean's own lawsuit, which accuses the company of religious discrimination, defamation, and public disclosure of private facts. Those private facts refer to her not-so-secret breast augmentation, which became public fodder after her anti-gay-marriage Q&A session with celebrity blogger and pageant judge Perez Hilton. That debacle eventually led to Prejean's dethroning.

On Sunday, former Texas Governor Mark White—once a strong supporter of the death penalty—said he thought the state should reconsider capital punishment because the risk of executing an innocent is too great. “There is a very strong case to be made for a review of our death penalty statutes and even look at the possibility of having life without parole so we don’t look up one day and determine that we as the State of Texas have executed someone who is in fact innocent,” said White, who governed as a Democrat from 1983 to 1987. White’s remarks came as Texas Governor Rick Perry finds himself under fire for executing Cameron T. Willingham in 2004, even after an arson expert who testified in Willingham’s case concluded after the conviction that his evidence was seriously flawed. Three weeks ago, Perry replaced the chairman and two other members of a board that was supposed to review Willingham’s case. The new chairman, a close ally of Perry, canceled the hearings.

Though Monday night’s game didn't start out well for the Angels, with the Yankees hammering out three home runs in the first half of Monday night's game, the underdogs from Los Angeles finally pulled out a win in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series. The Yankees started out strong, leading 3-0, but the Angels managed to hold them off after the fourth inning. The final score was 5-4, with all of the Yankees' four hits racked up from home runs. The game total of six home runs tied a previous American League Championship Series record. After two straight wins by the Yankees, the Angels renewed hope at the bottom of the 11th inning when Jeff Mathis hit a walk-off double off the Yankees' Alfredo Aceves. "These type of series, they change in a heartbeat," said Angels manager Mike Scioscia.

It might have made a good episode of The Sopranos, but we’ll settle for a Law & Order: Mafia hitman Robert Mormando stunned a Brooklyn judge on Monday by renouncing the mob and announcing that he is gay. "That's the first time I've heard this in court," the judge said of Mormando’s renunciation of his blood oath. Mormando was being sentenced for his role in the shooting of a Queens bagel-store owner who Vincento Gotti suspected of fooling around with his wife—after which, Mormando became a federal informant. Mormando has been open about his sexuality since leaving the mob, and his partner has refused witness protection. In 1982, Former DeCavalcante crime boss John D'Amato was whacked for being gay.

In an op-ed denouncing the U.N.’s condemnation of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, Sir Harold Evans argues that Israel is not an “occupational power,” but rather a state protecting its people from terrorists. Evans criticizes the U.N. Human Rights Council for ignoring Hamas war crimes and the testimony of British commander Colonel Richard Kemp, who explained to the Council that, "The Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare." The "collateral damage" was less than the NATO allies inflicted on the Bosnians in the conflict with Yugoslavia. While the op-ed says some countries’ votes were expected, it criticizes Britain for its failure to stand up for Israel and specifically calls out South African Judge Richard Goldstone for “lending his name to a half-baked report” that ignores Hamas war crimes and unjustly deems Israel the aggressor.

Drones may be integral to Vice President Joe Biden's preferred strategy in Pakistan, but they may not be as safe as previously thought. A new report from the New America Foundation estimates that some 31 to 33 percent of all casualties from the CIA's Taliban-targeting drone strikes in Pakistani tribal areas are civilians. The paper, authored by Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedmann, reports that somewhere between 750 and 1,000 have been killed by the strikes, including between 250 and 320 noncombatants and only 20 "leaders of al Qaeda, the Taliban and allied groups"; those figures were derived by compiling the available data from a variety of news sources, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the BBC, and major English-language papers in Pakistan. Though the report claims that some 66 to 68 percent of casualties were "militants," Spencer Ackerman, writing at the Washington Independent, points out that defining a "militant" can be difficult: "There's a spectrum here, running from insurgent to civilian effectively held hostage." Meanwhile Jane Mayer, whose report on civilian deaths in Pakistan in the New Yorker dropped today, points out that "the embrace of the Predator program has occurred with remarkably little public discussion."

Nuclear talks between Russia, France, the U.S., and Iran have hit a snag. A state-owned Iranian TV channel reported that Iran wants to import enriched uranium for its research reactor in Tehran. In principle, Iran had agreed to send its low-enriched uranium to Russia and France, which would treat the fuel, turn it into rods, and send it back to Iran. Under that deal, Iran would get the fuel it needs and evade new sanctions while the West would get a guarantee that Iran's as not being diverted into nuclear bombs. If the TV report is true, Iran's desire to buy highly-enriched uranium from the US, France, or Russia could scuttle the West's hopes of a new dialogue. A meeting hosted by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna on Monday will test the diplomatic process under way.

Was there an MIT-educated mole in the Department of Defense? Stewart David Nozette, a DoD scientist from Chevy Chase, Maryland, was arrested Monday on charges of transmitting classified information to an undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer. Prosecutors say that, after meeting with the undercover agent, Nozette agreed to provide information and access to U.S. security information in exchange for cash payments “under ten thousand” to avoid tax issues. Nozette’s position as a government scientist granted him top-security clearance to atomic and nuclear-related material. When agents requested confidential information from Nozette about U.S. satellites and defense strategy, they say he delivered top-secret, classified papers. Since 1989, Nozette has worked in varying capacities for the Energy Department, NASA, and the National Space Council, among other government science agencies.

Apple's numbers are in, and industry analysts are abuzz with the untouchable company's higher-than-expected profits. The Cupertino, California-based firm surged ahead of other technology heavyweights, such as Google, posting a 47 percent increase in profits. The numbers are mostly owing to sales of iPhones and Macintosh computers, which rose 7 and 17 percent, respectively. In the past, Apple has had a hard time keeping up with demand for these products. The company's overall profit hit a record $1.67 billion, which caused its share price to jump 6 percent in after-hours trading. Just in time for the holiday season, Apple is also expected to announce updates to its product line in the upcoming weeks.

We suppose it’s better than accusations of stealing money like a Jew. Still, your daily dose of prejudice: Two South Carolina Republican Party country chairman wrote a letter to a state newspaper praising Senator Jim DeMint for “watching our nation’s pennies” like “the Jews who are wealthy.” "There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves," Edwin O. Merwin and James S. Ulmer, chairs of the Bamberg County Republican Party and the Orangeburg County Republican Party, wrote. "By not using earmarks to fund projects for South Carolina and instead using actual bills, DeMint is watching our nation's pennies and trying to preserve our country's wealth and our economy's viability to give all an opportunity to succeed.”

In the same weekend that his movie Where the Wild Things Are banked more than $30 million at the box office, director Spike Jonze had another, unintended, release: an 11-minute short film he collaborated on with Kanye West. Shot over two days in L.A. back in January, the film was supposed to debut on iTunes last month and mysteriously found its way to West’s Web site on Sunday evening before it was pulled down, with the rapper noting: “Sorry I had to take it down :(” Titled We Were Once a Fairy Tale, the mysterious video shows a highly inebriated West stumbling around a nightclub, hitting on girls and vomiting in a bathroom, where he proceeds to stab himself and pull a Wild Things-esque creature out of his stomach. West metaphorically slaughtering his ego? In lieu of West’s interrupting of the cherubic Taylor Swift at the Video Music Awards this fall, the film could serve as an effective PR stunt.

Will it stay or will it go? Washington Democrats are resuscitating the public option and refashioning it with more flexibility, including allowing states to opt out of the program. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus—the moderate Blue Dog Dem whose public-option reticence has repeatedly driven health-care reform to a grinding halt—confirms that “the issue is alive, and we're looking at it." Three weeks ago, the Senate Finance Committee rejected two versions of the public option in favor of nonprofit cooperatives. Since then, the Congressional Budget Office has expressed doubt about the cooperatives' ability to "establish a significant market presence," and private insurers’ demands began to irk some. The Washington Post breaks down the shift in public support for a government-run health-care plan, citing that 57 percent of Americans now favor a public option, while 40 percent oppose it. That's an increase in support from August, when a bare majority supported the plan.

In the wake of the discovery of fraud that brought President Hamid Karzai’s margin of victory below 50 percent in the Aug. 20 elections, Afghanistan’s election commission has announced that runoff elections will take place Nov. 7, a decision Karzai publicly supports. One third of Karzai’s votes were thrown out on Monday after a UN-supported panel deemed them illegitimate. On Tuesday, runner-up Abdullah Abdullah advocated for an interim government in the case that runoffs prove too dangerous. The only other solution that has been seriously shopped around is a “power-sharing deal,” the stipulations of which have not been articulated. The commission does not want to "leave the people of Afghanistan in uncertainty" any longer, said Independent Election Commission Chairman Azizullah Lodin of the run-off announcement. Concerns over the second round of voting include repeated fraud, violence, bad winter weather, and overall ethnic divisions and conflict in Afghanistan. The ultimate goal of the Aug elections and now the Nov. 7 runoffs is to establish a legitimate Afghan government to join the US in fighting the Taliban. The timing of the runoff may present a challenge for the Obama administration if it wants to wait until after the election before announcing a decision on troop levels.

Barack Obama will hold a huge Democratic fund-raiser on Tuesday night at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York City, but not all invitees—at $30,400 a pop—will be attending, reports the New York Times. In the wake of the news that many of the country’s big financial firms increased chief executive benefits and perks in 2008 at the same time that they received millions in government bailout funding, such a fundraiser would have controversial implications for certain attendees. While the finance industry will be amply represented at the event (approximately one-third of the 200 attendees work in finance) only six of the large bailout recipients like Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Citigroup will attend, specifically to avoid any accusations that they profited from federal bailout money and are now funneling funds back into the White House to say “thank you.”