The Federal Reserve and United States Treasury unveiled on Thursday a new set of regulations for executive compensation at the nation’s banks and proposals to regulate the payment practices in the private sector more aggressively. Though the Fed is not suggesting maximum caps on salaries nor a ban on any particular payment procedures, it will be reviewing compensation policies at 28 large banks as well as those of a few smaller bank organizations in an effort to ensure there are no excessive risks being taken. The proposal, however, rejects a “one size fits all” approach. The announcement comes as the country awaits an announcement from the "pay czar," Kenneth Feinberg, who will give his final orders for 175 employees at firms receiving considerable government aid. It is expected that Feinberg will cut the average total compensation—including salaries and bonuses—in half.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is gambling that Democrats will vote for the public option—if it includes a mechanism for states to opt out—in the health-care bill he'll soon bring to the Senate floor. Late Thursday, Senate Democratic leaders were hastily called to a meeting with the president, where Reid was to ask for help securing votes. Democrats, who largely favor a government-run health insurance plan, have urged Reid to take an aggressive stance on the issue. As word of Reid's intentions spread on the Hill, an informal, bipartisan group of moderates emerged to resist the creation of a uniform nationwide public insurance program. Key moderate Sen. Olympia Snow, who crossed party lines to vote for the public-option-free Baucus version of the bill two weeks ago, could again have a huge amount of power, if only to give the legislation a patina of bipartisanship. The Maine Republican has already stated that she opposes the public option, and cautions that the bill not be rushed through. 

Congress has approved Thursday an expansion of the civil era-rights law defining hate crimes. Attacks against people based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability will now be covered under the list of federal hate crimes. The Matthew Sheppard Hate Crimes Prevention Act is named for a gay Wyoming student who was attacked and killed 11 years ago. The measure was tacked on to a crucial defense policy bill, a tactic Democrats used to ensure that the act, which had lingered on the congressional agenda for a decade, would finally go through. Though nearly all states have their own laws governing hate crimes, the act's passage widens the federal government's ability to step in and follow through on an alleged hate crime. Conservatives expressed concern about the act's potential to curb freedom of religion and speech, though the legislation is clear that it targets acts, not speech or thought.

On the heels of the Dodgers missing out on their shot at the World Series, the team is getting even more bad news. Owner Frank McCourt has fired Jamie McCourt, his estranged wife and the Los Angeles team's chief executive. Jamie held the second-highest position in the team's organization, reporting to Frank. The team announced the couple's split last week, but made no indication about the impending rift in the team's ownership. Jamie, who is co-owner of the Dodgers, is rumored to be lining up investors to buy out her husband's stake in the team.

Michael Crichton’s legacy lives on. A new survey by the Pew Research Center shows a precipitous decline in the number of Americans who believe in global warming. In 2007, 77 percent of Americans thought that global warming was backed by scientific evidence. Today, it's only 57 percent, with the sharpest drop occurring in independent voters and Republicans. The numbers were released just a week before the Senate begins debating climate-change legislation. In anticipation of that, a handful of scientific organizations have written Congress to confirm that, indeed, global warning is a real phenomenon. How did this happen? An associate director at Pew posits that bigger issues, such as the economy and health-care reform, have taken the spotlight off climate change as of late.

In what would be the largest habitat zone in the U.S., the Interior Department proposed designating more than 200,000 square miles of the northern Alaska coast as a critical habitat for polar bears. Officials said the designation would not conflict with the oil and gas industries there, nor would it affect the biggest threat to polar bears: sea ice disappearing because of global warming. The proposal follows warnings that the bears could be wiped out in America by the end of the century. As ice floes have melted, the bears have been pushed inland, where residents of Alaskan North Slope native villages are allowed to hunt them for food.

Do music copyrights cover use during enhanced interrogation? Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine are upset that the government purportedly blasted their music in Guantanamo for hours to "create futility" in uncooperative detainees. The two have been joined by a number of other musicians, whose music was not used, including R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Rosanne Cash, and the Roots in filing a Freedom of Information Act request asking that all government records pertaining to the use of music during interrogations be declassified. The move is part of a larger effort, led by retired generals, progressive groups, and a former member of Congress to close Guantanamo. As Morello put it, "The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me." The rest of the purported Gitmo playlist reads like a college student's iPod and includes Metallica, Britney Spears, the Drowning Pool, Eminem, Bruce Springsteen, and the Bee Gees, although not all of these musicians signed on to the FOIA.

A study conducted on the eve of Barack Obama’s election reveals that Republican-voting males nationwide may have experienced a dip in testosterone levels, which is often linked to an increased risk of premature death. The small-scale research published in PLOS One, was performed via saliva test on 183 young men and women on election night. It found that men who voted for John McCain or Bob Barr experienced a sharp drop in testosterone 40 minutes after Obama was announced as the 44th president of the United States. Conversely, the study revealed, hormones stayed steady for those men who voted for Obama. Similar studies have previously shown that men who lose in other types of showdowns, like sports or physical altercations, also experience a drop in testosterone levels. “I just kind of turned the TV off,” McCain supporter Doug Johnson said, making the sports connection. “It’s almost like the NFL guy goes and slams the football down and I just don’t want to see it.”

While in the throes of passion, and on the brink of orgasm, a couple's toddler falls out an open window to a grisly death in the opening of Lars von Trier's Antichrist. The film has been making the rounds on the film-festival circuit and concerns female sexuality and its relationship to death. The mother, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, falls into a debilitating grief, and her husband, played by Willem Dafoe, takes over her treatment. Gainsbourg, writes A.O. Scott in the New York Times, “allows herself to be pushed and provoked toward brave and extraordinary feats of acting in a dubious cause.” Genitals are mutilated, but on the upside, von Trier’s “depictions of bodily harm inflicted by homely instruments (pliers, scissors, a fireplace log) are avant-garde enough to startle devotees of the Saw franchise.” The director, who said making this movie helped him overcome a major depression, is known for his avant-garde projects such as Dancer in the Dark and Dogville, which both explore women's limits. But here, writes The New York Times, "The scandal of Antichrist is not that it is grisly or upsetting but that it is so ponderous, so conceptually thin and so dull."

The arrest of over 300 people in a series of drug raids across Mexico has been deemed the largest single strike at a Mexican drug cartel operating in the United States, according to Attorney General Eric Holder. Over the past two days, more than 3,000 federal agents and police officers made the arrests in more than a dozen states, says Holder, aiming specifically at the La Familia cartel. According to the attorney general, La Familia is the newest and most violent of Mexico’s five drug cartels. The raids are the latest effort in a long-running anti-drug operation, which has lead to nearly 1,200 arrests over nearly the past four years. Among those arrested was alleged cartel leader Servando Gomez-Martinez, who was indicted by a New York grand jury.

As Afghanistan deteriorates and the Pakistani Taliban’s influence spreads in its country, many NATO powers—including the U.S.—are eyeing an early exit strategy. Nothing could be worse for the stability of the region, writes Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, who says that “a complete American departure would seal the region’s fate.” Although the Afghan war is endlessly discussed in Washington, this fact is troublingly silent: It is the Taliban, not al Qaeda, who could capture Kabul and send the entire region spiraling downward. The past eight years of American occupation of Afghanistan have been “disastrous,” marked by a lack of firm political goals, inter-agency cooperation, and regional diplomatic support, Rashid writes, President Obama must not only make a firm, clear commitment to fix past mistakes in Afghanistan, but also cajole and bribe Pakistan, which is “far less resilient than it was four years ago,” to avoid extremism. “There is still hope,” he says, but it requires “time and patience,” something Obama hasn’t yet been able to prevail upon the American people.

"Thin Mint" takes on a whole new meaning with the rising success of "the Cookie Diet," a rising fad that combines beloved baked goods with portion control. The diet—which Dr. Sanford Siegal invented in the 1970s but has recently become popular thanks to its availability on the Internet—provides followers with six pre-packaged cookies a day, plus one meal. Siegal estimates that as many as a half-million people have lost weight on his diet. He'll pocket around $18 million this year alone, thanks in part to celebrity disciples like Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Hudson. The diet's success relies on its ability to limit a person's daily intake to around 1,000 calories, but critics say that the diet is misleading and unlikely to really change behavior.

Sarah Palin certainly endured her fair share of mockery thanks to Tina Fey, but for the editors of The Nation, the fun has only just begun. The liberal magazine is pulling together a book to be released on the same day as Palin’s memoir Going Rogue: An American Life to be titled Going Rouge: Sarah Palin an American Nightmare. With a nearly identical cover—Palin stands cheerily in front of a storm clouds, while for her memoir she’s backed by sunny skies—23 of the magazine’s editors and contributors are pulling together a “serious” manuscript, despite the satirical book jacket. “It is not at all intended to be a joke,” says Richard Kim, a senior editor at the magazine. Nevertheless, the publisher’s Web site teases the book as “the most honest, revealing account of the Palin story to appear this fall? You betcha!”

Nokia filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple today, claiming the iPhone maker is unfairly earning millions off technology Nokia developed. The patents, ten in all, cover 2G and 3G wireless connections and WiFi. "The basic principle in the mobile industry is that those companies who contribute in technology development to establish standards create intellectual property, which others then need to compensate for," a Nokia executive said. Apple is already paying royalties to Nokia, but one analyst says the suit appears be an attempt to squeeze Apple for even higher payments. Since the iPhone hit the market, Nokia's market share has dropped 25 percentage points.

The 2008 South Ossetian conflict between Russian and Georgia is being translated for the silver screen, with an anti-war message. Andy Garcia will take on the role of maverick Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Saakashvili launched an assault on the embroiled region of South Ossetia last year, which caused the Russians to retaliate with air strikes and military tanks. About 850 people died and more than 100,000 others were displaced. Director Renny Harlin says the film will be impartial.

It's been said that "like the Bible's Samson," NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd's power "is vested entirely within his goatee." But it looks like that goatee may be coming off over a bet. Todd bet his ABC counterpart, Jake Tapper, that if the Los Angeles Dodgers won the National League Championship Series, Tapper would grow a goatee, but if the Philadelphia Phillies won, as they did Wednesday night, Todd would shave his goatee. Although the trash-talking began on Tapper's Twitter last night, New York magazine thinks it's unlikely that Todd will whip out the Bic: The bet has a clause allowing the loser to opt-out of facial-hair action by donating $1,000 to the winner's favorite charity.

Feel like the country's going to hell in a handbasket, but don't know what to do? Activist and documentarian Michael Moore has published an "action plan" on his Web site with 15 steps progressives can take to "fight back and try and fix this very broken system." Moore says the "No. 1 question" he's asked after screenings of Capitalism: A Love Story is, "Now what can I do?" Moore says liberals can start by demanding five things from Congress and the president: a "moratorium on home evictions"; a nonprofit, government-run, universal health-care plan; public funds for elections and stricter lobbying laws; state-owned banks in each of the 50 states; and public ownership of natural-energy resources. The Flint, Michigan, native also provides five ways "to make Congress and and the president listen to us" (from calling and emailing elected officials every day to running for office) and five means of protecting "ourselves and our families"—including taking all money out of banks that received bailout funds and unionizing workplaces. Moore ends his plan with encouragement to "BE SUBVERSIVE," asking his readers to post their own ideas in the comments of his article.

The Travolta blackmail case has ended in a mistrial after a member of the Bahamas parliament announced publicly that one of the defendants had been cleared while the jury was still deliberating. The judge reluctantly ordered a new trial in "the interest of justice" over concerns that there had been possible "communication" from the jury room, raising the possibility of jury misconduct. Defendants Pleasant Bridgewater and Tarino Lightbourne were on trial for attempting to extort $25 million from John Travolta after his 16-year-old son Jett's death last January. Bridgewater, a former member of the Bahamian Senate, was accused of trying to negotiate the payment for Lightbourne, a paramedic who purportedly threatened to sell stories suggesting that Travolta was to blame for his son's death.

How safe is flying these days? To the list of nightmare scenarios to race through your mind the minute you board—a plane landing in the Hudson River, an Air France flight lost at sea on the way to Rio de Janeiro—you can add pilots falling asleep at the wheel. A Northwest Airlines flight bound for Minneapolis overshot its destination by 150 miles Wednesday night. Both the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the incident, and preliminary analyses suggest that the pilots might have fallen asleep. Luckily, they woke up in time to circle back and land safely at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. It's not yet clear how long the pilots had been on duty, but the incident highlights recent FAA concerns about safety and pilot fatigue.

The Root, the online magazine edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., has selected a group of 100 "African-American leaders who are making extraordinary contributions," recognizing their "leadership, creativity, service, and, above all, excellence." The list, which is unranked, runs the gamut from instantly recognizable names like Jay-Z and Tyra Banks to less well-known figures like AIDS expert and doctor Adaora Adimora and economics professor Roland Fryer and incorporates individuals from a variety of fields, including publishing (Spiegel & Grau editor Christopher Jackson and author Edwidge Danticat), politics (Newark Mayor Cory Booker and DLC Chair Harold Ford, Jr.) and even blogging (Jezebel.com editor Anna Holmes). Readers can filter the list by age, gender, and last name, and read short biographies and quotes from each of the honorees.

Why did Nelson Mandela call Denis Sassou-Nguesso "one of our great African leaders" in the foreword to the president of Congo-Brazzaville's new biography? Turns out he didn't. "We condemn this brazen abuse of Mr. Mandela's name," said an official at the Nelson Mandela Foundation. While Mandela was South Africa's first democratically elected president, Sassou-Nguesso seized power in his country through a coup. Recently Amnesty International gave Congo-Brazzaville low scores for its human-rights record. "Mr. Mandela is still overwhelmed by requests to write book forewords," his foundation told The Guardian. "A year ago he indicated he will no longer be agreeing to such requests."

This week's U.S.-Iraq Business and Investment Conference was evidently a little like the Iraqi version of The Apprentice, as engineers, hotel architects, and database managers competed for attention from the governors of all 18 Iraqi provinces in the basement of a Washington hotel. As American troops trickle out of the country, Monocle reports that business ventures—including the construction of several five-star hotels and 500,000 new housing units nationwide—are drifting in. Investment opportunities are also making a comeback: the IMF is nearing a loan deal with Baghdad and the U.S. Export-Import Bank is expected to adjust a pessimistic risk rating, which will allow financing for American companies in Iraq.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney accused President Barack Obama of "dithering" in failing to make a decision about escalating troops in Afghanistan. "Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries. Waffling while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy endangers them and hurts our cause," Cheney said in a speech Wednesday night. Unlike former President George W. Bush, Cheney has been a vocal critic of the current administration.

The World Series may be the Yankees' birthright, but Philadelphia is on track to begin building a dynasty of its own. The defending champion Phillies are returning to the World Series, the first repeat appearance since the 2001 Yankees, after eliminating the Los Angeles Dodgers 10-4 in Game 5 of the National League Champion Series. Jayson Werth was the standout in the high-scoring game, hitting two home runs, while Ryan Howard took the Most Valuable Player award for the series on the strength of his 8 RBIs in five games.  It's the franchise's seventh pennant and gives them the chance to try for their third World Series victory. They will face either the Yankees or the Anaheim Angels, who New York is leading 3-1 in the American League Championship Series.

After mixed reviews and declining grosses, producers for Shrek the Musical announced Wednesday that the show will close on January 3 after 441 performances. Despite strong opening sales, the production quickly sunk, selling fewer seats than needed to cover costs. The producers, including Hollywood director Sam Mendes, are not expected to recoup their investment. The show was rumored to be one of the most expensive productions ever on Broadway.

"Pay Czar" Kenneth R. Feinberg is not going to be a popular man on Wall Street, especially now that it's clear that he is solely responsible for the cuts to executive pay he's expected to announce on Thursday. Administration officials say although Feinberg briefed the White House on the "shape and general direction" of his plan, the "decisions were his," and Obama didn't have much to do with it. The five major financial companies and two automakers under Feinberg's purview received exceptional amounts of bailout money. The top 25 most highly paid executives at each firm will take an average cut of 50 percent to overall compensation, and an average 90 percent cut to cash salaries. Corporate perks, such as the personal use of corporate jets, chauffeured drivers, and country club fee reimbursement will be curtailed, and executives with additional salary in stock will have to wait several years before redeeming their shares. Feinberg's ruling will affect Bank of America, Citigroup, American International Group, General Motors, Chrysler, Chrysler Financial, and GMAC.

Was Wife Swap the gateway drug for Balloon Boy father Richard Heene? Jake Halpern, author of Fame Junkies, says that Heene may be a fame junkie, someone clinically addicted to the spotlight in a way that becomes destructive to a person's work, family, and friends. Like the high one gets from drugs, eating, or gambling, attention from others can also release dopamine and other opiates to the brain, flooding one with feelings of superiority. Then, in a biological feedback loop, we begin to crave the activities that elicit such chemical releases. In other words, fame can be like crack. Halpern suggests that Heene probably liked his taste of fame during his brief television stint, and was in search for it again when he allegedly plotted to trick an entire nation.

The victim of a high-profile, racially charged assault case in West Virginia in 2007 is now coming clean and admitting that her story was fabricated. Megan Williams, who has since moved to Columbus, Ohio, told police that she had been stabbed, beaten, and sexually assaulted in a trailer. She claimed her six white assailants had forced her to eat feces while hailing racial slurs at her. At the time, Rev. Al Sharpton called for the case to be investigated as a hate crime. After guilty pleas from all six defenders, they were sentenced to 40 years in prison. Williams' attorney said that his client was coming forward out of remorse, and that she was not being pressured to recant her story.

Just when you thought Lady Gaga couldn’t go even further over the top, she’s revealed some outlandish details of her upcoming solo tour, called The Monster Ball, which will be a “beautiful, expensive-looking, delicious show.” In an interview with Rolling Stone, Gaga described the tour as a “pop-electro opera”: “Imagine if you could take the sets of an opera, which are very grand and very beautiful, and put them through a pop-electro lens.” The sets and costumes of the tour will be inspired by the demons the singer says she has battled through the years. Earlier this month, Gaga and Kanye West announced that they had decided to nix their joint Fame Kills tour as West opted to take some time off. (On her Twitter account, Gaga choreographer Lori Ann Gibson blamed “creative differences” for the cancellation.) Gaga’s solo adventure—which she says won’t contain anything she co-designed with West—kicks off in Montreal on November 27 and will make pit stops in 16 North American cities.

Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea—these are the countries that the Obama administration expects to be giving it a headache these days, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Tokyo Wednesday, greeting a nation that is trying to redefine its relationship with the United States and China. An official told The Washington Post that Japan is no longer dependable in its policies and that in Asia, "the hardest thing right now is not China, it's Japan." In the past week, Japanese officials have announced that they will renegotiate a variety of military agreements with the U.S., a move that has American officials on edge. Gates was quoted the Post saying that a Japanese pullout on its military agreement would be "immensely complicated and counterproductive."

Predictions of doom regarding world food supplies are a centuries-old tradition, but experts are worried that scientists around the world will fail to meet goals of increasing world food production by 50 percent over the next twenty years in order to match population growth. In 2009, the number of hungry people in the world passed 1 billion, a number which was increased by the global recession. Experts gathered in Rome last week to discuss strategies. “The way we manage the global agriculture and food security system doesn’t work,” said a United Nations economist. “There is this paradox of increasing global food production, even in developing countries, yet there is hunger.”

On the heels of the Shriver Report, President Barack Obama sat down with NBC to discuss the state of women in American life as part of a series called "A Woman's Nation." The prez cops to slacking on his parental duties while juggling his role in the Senate. '“The truth is,” Obama said, that Michelle “still had to make sacrifices... of the sort that I didn’t have to make,”' sacrifices such as taking time off work if a child was sick. Obama calls men clueless and says they “need to be knocked across the head every once in a while." But when called out for his recent participation in an all-male basketball game with male congressional leaders at the White House, Obama cried foul. “I think this is bunk,” he said.

Giant hedge fund Galleon Group is closing its doors amid a huge insider-trading scandal whose seed was planted with a 2005 job inquiry by a California fund manager with financial troubles. Galleon co-founder Raj Rajaratnam is free on $100 million bail as investigators dig into information gathered from an informant referred to as “Tipper A,” and said to be Roomy Khan, who had worked for Galleon in the '90s. Allegedly, when Khan applied to the hedge fund, Rajaratnam asked her if she had inside information on any public companies. Khan said she could get info on Polycom, a maker of data-conferencing products. The SEC complaint says that Rajaratnam ordered a Polycom trade that earned Galleon $735,000. The government says the informant also gave Rajaratnam tips on Hilton Hotels, with resulting trades making Galleon $4 million, and Google, which brought in $9.3 million for the hedge fund.

Sad news out of Georgia: The body of Somer Thompson, a 7-year-old girl reported missing on Monday, was been found in a landfill near the Florida state line Wednesday. Somer was last seen during her mile-walk home from school after squabbling with another child; after her sister told her to stop, Somer walked ahead of the group and wasn't seen again. Police found the body after following garbage trucks from Somer's Orange Park neighborhood to the landfill, where they sorted through 100 tons of garbage. An autopsy is planned for Thursday.

Despite some signs of recovery, the U.S. housing market isn't out of the woods yet. According to a Wall Street Journal survey of housing-market data in 28 major metro areas, the number of homes for sale has dropped sharply, probably because of the government's efforts to save borrowers from losing their houses. It's likely that government efforts have only temporarily slowed the flow of foreclosed homes to the market, leaving markets in Las Vegas, Atlanta, Detroit, Phoenix, Miami and other parts of Florida, and Sacramento vulnerable over the next few years. The chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association recently testified to the Senate that "recovery will begin when unemployment stops rising," while the president of a New Jersey appraisal firm suggested that if the job market continues declining and mortgage rates rise steeply, the market could reach a "tipping point" and crash again.

A pill that makes patients lose weight is a pharmaceutical company's dream—and it's one step closer for Vivus, Arena Pharmaceuticals, and Orexigen. These companies each have a weight-loss drug in the final stages of development, and the race is on to get their drug applications into the FDA for review. Combined with cutting calories and exercising, obese people—those 30 pounds or more over a healthy weight—who took one of the medications lost about 15 percent of their starting weight in a year. Obesity researchers say the drugs, which will not be available to the public for at least a year, could help curb weight-related diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and some cancers.

The new head of MySpace told the Financial Times that his company is no longer interested in chasing Facebook in the social network world. Owen Van Natta, who used to work for Facebook, said, “Facebook is not our competition. We’re very focused on a different space.” MySpace has 100 million users to Facebook's 300 million. Van Natta said the company intends to focus on its status as an online music destination. The company has inked a deal with Apple to allow users to buy music through iTunes without leaving MySpace's site.

As Congress inches closer to a final health-care bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is finding himself caught between the demands of liberal "netroots" groups and the electoral realities of his purple state. Progressive groups, hoping to force Reid leftward in health-care deliberations, are threatening to challenge the senator with a liberal primary opponent next year; one organization, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, has even bought time in Las Vegas for a spot called "Is Harry Reid Strong Enough?" But aggressive campaigns and strong words from influential blogs like DailyKos have some in-state liberal bodies worried about the possible effects. The challenges may be a moot point anyway: Not only is Reid looking weak against relatively unknown Republicans, according to a Mason-Dixon poll, but health-care issues may take a backseat to the state of the economy come November 2011.