In spite of U.N. and U.S. attempts to weaken Iran’s nuclear capabilities, the rogue nation is working to maintain its access to uranium and to keep its nuclear options open. After talks between the U.N., Iran, Russia, and the U.S., a deal was drawn up by the U.N.-based International Atomic Energy that would allow Iran to continue running its research reactor while limiting access to uranium enough to render it incapable of building nuclear weapons. Rather than purchasing uranium independently, the plan proposed exporting uranium from Iran to Russia and then France for treatment, then back to Iran for research—but on Friday Iranian television reports that the nation would prefer to buy its own, and diplomats involved in the deal are skeptical. Though Iranian officials maintain that their nuclear research is intended for only peaceful purposes, the deal was in part an attempt to appease fears over Tehran’s nuclear program. "matters are not very positive," said French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.

While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is reportedly close to convincing 60 senators to support a public option with a clause allowing states to opt out, new reports indicate the White House is pushing back against the idea. Talking Points Memo reports the White House fears an opt-out clause could cost them the support of Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME). One source close to the negotiations says the administration is “skeptical of opt-out and are generally deferential to the Snowe strategy that involves the trigger.” (A “trigger” clause would mean the public option would only go into effect if private insurance companies don’t lower costs and cover more people within a certain timeframe.) High-level White House officials have reportedly continued to press the trigger proposal on numerous occasions, worrying senators who support the public option.

General Stanley McChrystal, top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has been criticized for his request for tens of thousands more U.S. troops to battle in Afghanistan, but it's looking like his proposed strategy will pass. NATO’s 28 defense ministers endorsed McChrystal’s approach Friday, as has British Prime Minister Gordon Brown—actions that will likely lay the groundwork for President Obama’s eventual decision. The Obama administration is moving toward adopting a hybrid strategy in the Afghan war, one that would combine elements of the counterinsurgency approach—including thousands more troops—as well as aspects of the counterterrorism plan that relies on drone attacks to kill al Qaeda leaders. This month, the White House rejected the strict counterterror approach favored by Vice President Joe Biden. The emerging U.S. strategy would move key assets (helicopters, surveillance equipment) from Iraq to Afghanistan, and shift tactics of conventional forces on the ground. But embracing the hybrid model wouldn’t guarantee the general all of the 40,000 troops he wants, and the president’s final decision is still weeks away.

Oh for the heady days of August, when health-care reform was foundering and Republican leaders were talking of big victories in 2010. A new CNN/Opinion Research poll shows only 36 percent respondents view the GOP favorably, versus 54 percent who view it negatively; 53 percent had a positive opinion of Democrats, with 41 percent disapproving. Approval for the party hasn't been that low since summer of 2007, near the end of President Bush's second term. Public Policy Polling sees even more danger for Republicans, as 35 percent of its base voters think the party is too liberal, even as 46 percent of independent voters label it too conservative. The base's complaints have fueled a series of primary and third-party challenges against moderate Republicans like Dede Scozzafava in New York and Charlie Crist in Florida, making a tack to the center even more difficult. Just 20 percent of American voters identify as Republican, according to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll, which also found Democrats leading in a generic congressional ballot 51-39.

House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi called an emergency meeting of the Democratic caucus on Friday morning and forced wavering senators to state in front of their colleagues whether they support a "robust" public option in the health-care bill. ("Robust" has become shorthand for a public option tied to Medicare rates.) After an earlier report showed Democrats a few votes short of the 218 needed to push legislation with a robust public option through, rumors indicated that Pelosi would be admitting defeat; instead, the congresswoman met with the Progressive Caucus—who support a robust public option—that night to reiterate her support and repeated that message at Friday morning's emergency meeting. An attendee of the meeting said there was "overwhelming support" for the "Medicare plus 5 percent" public option, but at least fifty caucus members who didn't attend the meeting were still not committed. Assuming a unanimous Republican vote of no, Pelosi can afford to lose only 38 votes from her own caucus.

President Obama will likely not attend the Copenhagen climate-change summit in December, opting instead to give an acceptance speech for his Nobel Peace Prize that will outline his environmental goals. Though the White House has yet to give a definitive response on Obama’s attendance, officials have privately said “Oslo is plenty close”—the Nobel ceremony takes place two days into the Copenhagen convention. Administration officials have, however, confirmed that Obama will be in Oslo to accept the prize and sources revealed it was “hard to see the benefit” of his attending the summit if there was no climate deal for him to close or sign. Obama will disappoint the foreign leaders who urged him to attend; they had hoped his presence would bring them closer to a comprehensive treaty. But a United Nations official said last week that the treaty is now an “unrealistic” prospect.

Has America heard the last Biden gaffe? The vice president began to hit back hard on Dick Cheney’s recent criticism of the Obama administration’s handling of Afghanistan, before catching himself and forming a more diplomatic response. When first asked about Cheney’s harsh words, Biden said “Who cares what-” before stopping himself. “Yeah, yeah, I can see the headline now," he told reporters. "I’m getting better, guys. I’m getting a little better, you know what I mean?” Biden said Cheney's opinion is "irrelevant," and said Obama is on track for making a decision about Afghanistan. Biden did concede a mistake in last month’s hurried announcement of a change in missile-defense strategy, which upset allies including the Czech Republic. “Could it have been done better? Yeah,” said Biden, “Obviously it could have been done better.”

Mayumi Heene, the mother of 6-year-old Falcon—better known as “balloon boy”—told authorities that last week’s helium-filled incident was in fact a hoax intended to draw media attention. On October 17, two days after the media madness, Heene told Larimer County investigators that she and her husband Richard knew their son was hiding in their home, but told authorities they thought he’d floated away in the balloon, leading to an intensive police and military search. Mayumi explained that the couple devised the plan two weeks prior to the incident and “instructed their three children to lie to authorities as well as the media,” according to documents. According to her, their intention was to “make the Heene family more marketable for future media interests.” Each of the boy’s parents, who met in a Hollywood acting school, are facing numerous charges, including conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and attempting to influence a public servant. The Heenes had reportedly approached TLC, the producers of the show formerly known as Jon & Kate Plus 8, months ago, but the network passed.

The "Smart Choices" program, a food-labeling effort funded by the industry, was ended Friday after the FDA warned it was investigating whether the nutrition claims made by the labels were misleading. Critics of the program said the Smart Choices logo—placed on products from General Mills, Kellogg's, Kraft, and others—falsely promoted foods with high sugar and sodium content as healthy and nutritious. A spokesperson for Smart Choices said in a statement that the group would "voluntarily postpone active operations and not encourage wider use of the logo at this time by either new or currently enrolled companies." The FDA said it was developing regulations for front-of-package nutrition claims.

Father Edward Hinds alarmed his congregants when he did not show up for 8 a.m. Mass Friday morning at St. Patrick’s Church. Much to the surprise of the quiet commuter community of Chatham, New Jersey, a deacon and a maintenance worker found the priest dead, right before Mass. Hinds’ body was reportedly found in the kitchen, off a hallway that connects the church and the rectory, according to another priest. He was fully outfitted in formal black garb and had suffered multiple injuries. Prosecutors would not comment explicitly about the specific nature of Hinds’ wounds, but did say they were “consistent with a homicide.” The 61-year-old priest had experienced “excessive trauma,” according to the county prosecutor, suggesting that great force was used in ending Hinds’ life. No suspects have been identified and authorities would not comment on whether or not there were signs of forced entry. The sleepy town’s last homicide, a case of aggravated manslaughter, occurred in 1990. Some parents removed their children from the parish school Friday, The New York Times reports. “This is almost unbelievable,” Chatham Mayor V. Nelson Vaughan said. “I’ve lived here since 1950, and this is the second homicide in town I know of. It’s a peaceful, quiet, friendly town.”

Fox News fought its way into a press event with "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg after the White House attempted to block access for the right-leaning cable network. The bureau chiefs of the five networks invited to the series of interviews refused to participate if Fox News was excluded from the interview. The move was a change of pace for the networks, which tend to give Fox News the cold shoulder. “I’m really cheered by the other members saying ‘No, if Fox can’t be part of it, we won’t be part of it,” said David Zurawik, a typically anti-Fox TV critic. "What it's really about to me is the Executive Branch of the government trying to tell the press how it should behave. I mean, this democracy—we know this—only works with a free and unfettered press to provide information.”

After a Northwest Airlines flight went 78 minutes without responding to radio contact on Thursday, the North American Aerospace Defense Command had F-16s ready and waiting to shoot down the flight in the case of hijacking. Concerns mounted when the pilots on board failed to respond to commands from the ground for over an hour, leading to the involvement of the National Counterterrorism Center, which started digging for information on the flight’s passengers. No last-minute heroics were necessary, though, and the pilots were reportedly in the middle of a “heated discussion,” or what they termed a “cockpit distraction,” when they failed to change radio frequencies after crossing over Minneapolis.

Since the ban on media coverage of the arrival of fallen soldiers at Dover Air Force Base was lifted, some 60 percent of families have chosen to allow press at the occasion. An additional 15 percent have chosen to allow only military camera crews to document the ceremony. The highly controversial ban, enacted during the Persian Gulf War, was intended to protect the privacy of dead solders' families, but came under intense criticism as the Iraq wars intensified, when it was seen by many as an attempt to hide the rising number of casualties. In April, the Obama administration allowed families to decide if press could attend. The military, anxious that families who allowed media coverage would be disappointed by low turnouts, introduced the option of a military camera crew in August. Those turnout expectations have largely borne out; while some arrivals have been heavily covered, many are attended by only a singe photographer from the Associated Press, which says "somewhere there is a hometown, a family, a newspaper for whom the homecoming of the soldier is very important news."

The unprecedented collaboration between the U.S. military and Pakistani army may be a game changer for relations between the two countries. For the first time, Islamabad is accepting U.S. assistance during a major military operation, in this case its week-old offensive against militants in Southern Waziristan. The U.S. military is providing Pakistan with information and surveillance video captured by umanned aircraft, filling gaps in the Islamabad government's spying arsenal. Although the U.S. and Pakistan have been sharing information about the volatile border regions for months, the Pakistani government declined previous offers of U.S. surveillance support of its military operations, a fact which the recent spate of militant attacks in Pakistan in anticipation of the Waziristan offensive may have changed.

NBC executive Jeff Gaspin is laying out a new strategy for the network centered on bigger-budget shows designed to garner huge ratings. "The goal is not to manage for margins. It is to put the best possible programs we can on the air," Gaspin said in an interview with The Wrap. Could Jay Leno be the odd man out as a result? According to the Washington Post's Lisa de Moraes, Leno's show is the definition of "programming to margins," a show that garners weak ratings but stays profitable thanks to its cheap productions costs.

A trained ice-skating bear killed a circus director in Kyrgyzstan and mauled the animal trainer who was attempting to rescue him. Officials say Dmitri Potapov, 25, was visiting a rehearsal of a Russian State Circus performance of “Bears on Ice” when the bear—still wearing skates—dragged him across the ice and killed him. The animal handler, Yevgeny Popov, suffered bruising to the brain and scalp lacerations when he tried in vain to save Potapov. The bear, whose motive is still unknown, was later shot by the police. Trained bears are common in Russian circuses, where they are often taught to ride motorcycles, ice skate, and play hockey, but deadly attacks are rare.

One of the perks of being president is having Annie Leibovitz take your family picture. On Friday morning the White House released the first official portrait of the first family, shot at the beginning of September, on its Flickr photostream. In the photo, a relaxed-looking Barack sits as daughter Sasha, 8, puts her arm around his shoulders while nearby, Malia, 11, embraces her seated mother while perched on the chair's arm.

Looks like the pilots who overshot Minneapolis won't be the most-criticized aviators this weekend: Mira Nair's new movie about aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart is already under heavy fire from critics for what Variety's Justin Chang calls "timidity and lack of imagination." Joe Morgenstern, writing in the Wall Street Journal, says Amelia, starring Hillary Swank, elicits "the age-old question of why bad movies happen to good people," while The New York Times' Manohla Dargis calls the production "exasperatingly dull," saying that Nair never gives her subject "much of a personality." Rolling Stone's Peter Travers isn't much kinder when comparing the movie to the mysterious disappearance of the real Earhart: "The only mystery about this waxwork of a movie is why it was ever made."

Sarah Palin is breaking with the Republican establishment to weigh in on the race to fill the seat in New York's 23rd district that was vacated by former Rep. John McHugh (R-NY) when he took a position as Secretary of the Army. The former VP nominee is backing Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, whose run has become a cause célèbre on the right thanks to Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava's moderate stance on labor issues and gay marriage. The move puts Palin at odds with potential 2012 competitor Newt Gingrich, who has backed Scozzafava and accused her conservative opponents of undermining the party. The split could end up putting Democrat Bill Owens in office, giving his party control of the normally Republican seat.

It's not easy being French President Nicolas Sarkozy's son. When Jean Sarkozy, 23, announced a week ago that he was hoping to become the head of $163 million public agency that manages Paris' business district, replacing one of his father's closest political associates, critics went crazy. Opponents claimed Sarkozy was reneging on a promise to make France a meritocracy. One centrist politician called Jean's candidacy an "enormous abuse of power." On Thursday, demonstrators gathered in the business district and waved bananas to protest France's transformation into a "banana republic." Jean bought the kerfuffle, which risked causing his father significant political damage, to a close, announcing that he was dropping out of the race because any "victory" might be "stained with the suspicion" of nepotism.

Jon Gosselin's lawyer says the reality-TV dad is in "complete compliance" with the court order requiring him to return money he took from a joint bank account—but that Kate Gosselin, Jon's estranged wife, still hasn't accounted for the $55,000 she withdrew for "household expenses." After both Jon and Kate, stars of the now-canceled Jon & Kate Plus Eight, filed contempt motions against each other for improperly splitting the money they had in a bank account, Jon was ordered to return $180,000 by a Pennsylvania judge; his lawyer wouldn't confirm that he had returned exactly that sum, but that he had "done what [he] needed to do" to avoid contempt charges.

The claws are out in the world of retired NBA stars, thanks to a new book by Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, which paints a pretty unflattering portrait of fellow hoop star Isiah Thomas. In the book, Johnson gives himself credit for some of Thomas’ success, and slams his former friend for spreading gay rumors after Johnson was diagnosed with HIV in 1991. Thomas calls the claims “bullshit,” and has accusations of his own which he aired to Sports Illustrated: "You're talking about being two-faced? Magic says he put me up for the [Knicks] job, that he was showing up in hard times and telling me everything was OK. And I come to find out he's been the one stabbing me in the back.” Thomas also said that Johnson once hated co-author Bird and tried to turn others against him, which may make for one uncomfortable book tour.

Chuck Todd's goatee is safe from shaving. Todd's distinct facial hair was in mortal peril after the NBC White House correspondent lost a bet with ABC's Jake Tapper over the baseball's National League Championship Series. Even White House press secretary Robert Gibbs joked Friday morning on the Today show about the predicament: "Chuck applied last night for a presidential pardon...it has been denied." But Tapper offered Todd an escape clause--a $1,000 donation to charity--and Todd has elected to take it. "Here's hoping our insular nat'l goatee nightmare is over," Todd wrote on Twitter.

Roman Polanski is one step closer to facing the Los Angeles justice system. On Friday the U.S. filed papers formally asking the Swiss authorities to hand over the director. According to an e-mail exchange between Los Angeles prosecutors, the Swiss were apparently very anxious for the U.S. to start extradition procedures. Zurich authorities will hold a hearing on an unspecified date to determine whether the prize-winning director will be returned to Los Angeles. In theory, Polanski could appeal the decision to Switzerland's top court, and possibly even to the U.S. Supreme Court. Polanski has been wanted by Los Angeles authorities since he skipped town in 1978 after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl.

Soupy Sales, the comedian with a signature pie-throwing gag, died in the Bronx on Thursday at 83. Sales, who was born Milton Supman in Franklinton, North Carolina, rose to fame in the 1960s thanks to his eponymous show and its trademark gag: the pie to the face. Sales' show was originally intended for children, but it gained a cult following, and receiving a pie in the face on the program was a badge of honor for celebrities, including Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Tony Curtis. Pie-throwing was not all that went on, however: besides puppet gags, parodies and character sketches, Sales would feature jazz musicians like Miles Davis on his evening program. Sales stopped producing the program in 1966, a year after his most infamous joke, when he exhorted children watching the show to "get all the green pieces of paper" from their parents' wallets and send them to him. Though Sales believe the pie gag had pigeonholed him, he had a long and varied career after the show, with stints as a radio host and Broadway star (and, once, an expert witness in a court case that involved pie-throwing). The comedian is survived by his wife, two sons, and four grandchildren.

A partnership run by Goldman Sachs is receiving about $1 million a month from New Jersey taxpayers as part of an agreement to protect the state from rising interest costs on bonds that it redeemed a year ago. In 2003, under the watch of Governor James McGreevey, the Transportation Trust Fund Authority (which funds transportation projects) sold $345 million in auction-rate bonds, which have yields that are subject to the variation of short-term interest costs. Even though the state replaced the debt with fixed-rate securities last year—a result of the frozen auction-rate bond market—the interest-rate swap it has with Goldman won't expire till 2019. Meanwhile, the TTFA is reaching its borrowing limit, and current Governor Jon Corzine—former chairman of Goldman Sachs—is looking to reduce the budget by some $400 million as he seeks reelection. The NJ Treasury Department is preparing a response, while Corzine's spokesman, Steve Sigmund, said in a statement, "we believe treasury should continue to aggressively manage the termination, conversion, and management of swaps that this administration inherited." Local governments and universities all over the country have paid out hundreds of millions of dollars to terminate swaps after interest costs plummeted last year.

As FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski put it, "There is no question that the openness of the Internet is the secret sauce to its success." To protect that openness, the FCC is set to begin drafting regulations to prevent Internet providers from deciding which services and content are delivered to their customers. The FCC's first attempt to regulate the web would codify current guidelines, prevent discrimination of content by Internet providers, and force carriers to disclose how they manage network traffic. The announcement worried Internet providers, who are nervous that the new rules could force them to carry bandwidth-hogging services at the expense of other priorities and other unintended consequences.

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."

It was a wild ride for the Anaheim Angels, but they managed to stave off elimination on Thursday in holding off a late Yankees rally. The Angels jumped off to a four run lead in the very first inning, making quick work of New York pitcher A.J. Burnett. But the Yankees bounced back in the seventh inning, scoring six runs to gain the lead after Angels' starting pitcher John Lackey was replaced by Darren Oliver. The Yankees' comeback was short-lived as the Angels scored three runs in the bottom of the inning and then staved off a ninth inning rally by the Yankees to hold on for the 7-6  win. The series will head back to New York for Game 6.

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.

International pressure may have convinced Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, to hold a runoff vote in his country's disputed election, but it wasn't enough to convince him the initial vote was flawed. After widespread claims of fraud in the first race, Karzai told CNN that he almost believed the allegations—but shortly before his decision to call a runoff he became "convinced that all that was said was mostly wrong" and that despite "some instances of fraud...the nation as a whole was clean and the result was clear." Nonetheless, he said that avoiding a runoff "would be insulting democracy." He blamed irregularities in the first vote, which initially showed a 54% victory for Karzai before being called into question by international election monitors, on Afghanistan's weak federal institutions. "We have to understand that, and we have to accept the Afghan elections in the context of the Afghan situation and the poverty and lack of means in this country," Karzai said.

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.

As if proper nutrition wasn't already hard enough to keep track of: the Swedish National Food Administration has released guidelines that make recommendations to consumers based on both climate change and health. The guidelines recommend carrots over cucumbers which must be grown in energy-guzzling greenhouses in Sweden; beans and chicken over high-emission red meat; and advise against fish, because Eurpoean stocks are depleted. Small changes could make a big difference—food-related emissions are responsible for about a quarter of an industrialized nation's emissions. Some experts say that following the guidelines could cut Sweden's food-related emissions by 20 to 50 percent.

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.

Travolta lawyer Michael Ossi is attempting to shift the extortion trial to Jacksonville, Florida from the Bahamas on the basis that some of the alleged extortion phone calls were made to his office there. Bahamian politician Pleasant Bridgewater and ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne are accused of attempting to extort $25 million from John Travolta after his 16-year-old son Jett's death last January. The two purportedly threatened to sell stories to the media suggesting that Travolta was responsible for his son's death because he initially wanted to fly Jett to Florida for treatment. On Thursday, the initial suit ended in a mistrial over concerns of possible jury misconduct.

Congress was busy Thursday night: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) counted votes overnight but ultimately decided she doesn't have the votes to pass a "robust public option," the most aggressive of three possible bills that include a government-run insurance plan, Politico’s Mike Allen reports. That doesn't mean the public option is dead yet. Evidently, during a Thursday night meeting with Democratic Senate leaders, President Obama indicated that he favors the trigger option suggested by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME). Under that plan, a public option wouldn't kick in immediately, but could be triggered by insurers' performance. The trigger option has legs in the Senate, because it could attract moderate Democrats.