The Disclose Act, a bill that would force corporations, unions, and other groups to reveal the donors behind their political advertisements, was not to be. On Tuesday, Senate Democrats were three votes short of the 60 needed to stop a filibuster, thus ending any chance, for now, that there could be new disclosure requirements for the 2010 elections. The vote, which represents a significant setback for President Obama and the Democratic Party, is a big win for Senate Republicans and business groups. The legislation would impose stricter financial-disclosure requirements and would restrict political activity for companies with federal contracts of more than $10 million or TARP funds. The act was introduced after the Supreme Court ruled in January in favor of unlimited corporate spending for elections.

Finally, some good news out of the Gulf of Mexico: The oil slick appears to be dissolving at a far faster pace than expected. Although there are still sightings of tar balls and oil patches, the immense swaths of surface oil that covered thousands of miles of the Gulf are mostly gone. The dissolution of the slick can help reduce the deaths of Gulf species and the amount hitting the shorelines, but there are still many problems left, including determining what the effects to sea life below the surface will be and the consequences to the shorelines that have been hit. Scientists said they believed the Gulf’s natural capacity to break up oil has helped with the rapid dissolution of the oil slick, and the capping of the well on July 15th has also prevented oil from gushing for the past two weeks.

Even as WikiLeaks’ massive document dump is firing up opposition to U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan, on Tuesday Congress gave final approval to a bill that will issue $60 billion to continue funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Support was tepid, with many Democrats—including the bill’s main architect, David Obey of Wisconsin—voting against the measure on grounds that the administration’s war strategy isn’t working. “I cannot look my constituents in the eye and say that this operation will hurt our enemies more than us,” Obey said. The Senate has already passed the bill, meaning it’s ready for President Obama’s signature, but only after attempts to append unrelated stimulus spending to the bill were abandoned because of Republican opposition. The bill allocates $33 billion to fund the surge of 33,000 troops announced by Obama last year, as well as $13 billion to expand assistance to veterans exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam.

If he thinks his treatment here is bad, he better hope he doesn’t screw up as badly at his new gig in Russia: Outgoing BP CEO Tony Hayward says he’s been “demonized,” and that he might be “too busy” to attend congressional hearings about the Gulf oil spill. He’s standing by the company that jettisoned him, too, saying that BP has been a “model of corporate social responsibility.” He said he left BP because, “I believe for it to move on in the United States it needs new leadership and it is for that reason I have stood down as the CEO." Incoming CEO Robert Dudley, meanwhile, said the “very complex” accident was the fault of “a number of companies.”

The allegations of sexual assault against Al Gore aren’t going away: The police in Portland, Oregon questioned Gore last Thursday in relation to his alleged sexual assault of a massage therapist, says CNN. The massage therapist claims that Gore assaulted her in a hotel room in 2006, and police reopened the investigation into the matter on July 1. Last week, the National Enquirer published the accounts of two more massage therapists who say that Gore abused them.

The hits keep coming for Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY), whose chances of cutting a deal for his alleged ethics violations became slimmer Tuesday amid allegations that he met privately with Ethics Committee Chairwoman Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) without any Republican members of the bipartisan panel present. Lofgren and sources close to Rangel deny a meeting took place, but sources close to the investigation claim that Rangel’s attorneys met with Ethics Committee staff on Monday without top GOP committee member Rep. Jo Bonner (R-AL) present. The committee is set to begin investigating Rangel for a number of ethics violations on Thursday. Top House leaders are keeping mum on the situation, with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) saying she doesn’t “know how that happened,” while House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) called it a “sad day” when Congress has to try one of its own members. Two Democratic representatives have called for Rangel’s resignation, and public probes may be troublesome for vulnerable Democrats in the House with midterm elections looming.

Looks like the Utah Supreme Court needs to get its act together: On Tuesday, the court reversed the conviction of the polygamous sect leader Warren S. Jeffs—who's being tried for two counts of rape as an accomplice—and sent back the case for a new trial. The reason: "Serious errors" in instructions given to the jury, which would have deprived Jeffs of a fair hearing. Justices ruled that Fifth District Judge James Shumate had made a mistake when he rejected a request from the defense team to instruct jurors that, in order to convict Jeffs, they must confirm he knew unwanted sex would take place in performing a marriage and that he intended for a rape to occur.

Judges for the Man Booker Prize have revealed their front-runners for the 2010 award, complete with the requisite surprises and snubs. Many decorated literary icons, such as Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, and Salman Rushdie, were shut out of the running for the prize, awarded yearly to the best English-language novelist, though Australian Peter Carey, one of only two people to have won the prize twice, was nominated once again. Although no one has ever scored a Man Booker hat trick, Carey's novel Parrot and Olivier in America immediately became the 3-1 favorite to win. The list of 13 names has no debut novels, and according to judge panel chairman Andrew Motion very few books about sex. The Man Booker Prize is considered one of the world's most prestigious literary prizes, judging entries from the Commonwealth and Ireland. The pared-down shortlist will be announced September 7 and the winner on October 12.

In 1974, Edith Vogelhut spent a night with film director Roman Polanski—and he handcuffed, drugged, and raped her, she alleges, in an exclusive video released by RadarOnline.com on Tuesday. Vogelhut, then 21, had been at a dinner party hosted by The Godfather producer Robert Evans. After the party—and, of course, dancing and booze—Vogelhut and Polanski went to Jack Nicholson's house. This is where, she claims, Polanski gave her MDMA, or ecstasy, and raped her. "I kind of knew that we were going to have sex, but I didn't expect anything out of the ordinary," she said. "I did not expect to be sodomized." Three years later, in 1977, Polanski was famously arrested and charged with the rape of 13-year-old Samantha Geimer. As to why Vogelhut held out until now to tell her story, she said, "I was humiliated. I had absolutely no one to tell." Vogelhut said she plans to release a tell-all book, which will include one chapter about the alleged encounter with Polanski. The director was recently freed by Swiss authorities after they denied his extradition to the U.S. to face sentencing for the 1977 charges.

Caviar fans can celebrate: There will be wild catch from the Caspian Sea for the first time in two years, after the international convention that regulates trade in endangered species issued a quota for wild Caspian caviar. (Without an issued quota, caviar cannot be exported internationally.) The quota has been set for five countries on the Caspian—Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan—at 81 tons total, including three tons of beluga. Environmentalists, however, said allowing any international trading will only make things worse for the endangered species. But since wild Caspian caviar hasn't been allowed to be traded for two years, it has been in high demand on the black market. Despite progress in the taste of farmed caviar, there are still some who prefer the taste of the wild.

There’s a new oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico after a tug boat crashed into the wellhead on Tuesday. Located near Louisiana marshland, the leak was seen spewing a geyser of oil 20 feet into the air. Officials also fear that natural gas is leaking, since boats reported seeing a gas cloud near the wellhead. “There is a pretty good amount of oil flowing there,” said one Jefferson Parish councilman. It’s unclear currently who owns the well. Emergency crews are currently at the site of the leak, figuring out how to stop it.

Deadline Hollywood was the first to report Tuesday that ABC Entertainment Group President Stephen McPherson will resign. Deadline posted that “something’s going on” with the upper ranks at Disney, and that McPherson had been on vacation for several weeks and had not returned. McPherson was under fire at ABC, despite bringing hits to the network such as Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, and Modern Family. Disney chief Robert Iger has publicly insisted he will not sell ABC, but it's rumored that Iger had lately focused on McPherson’s tenure at the helm of the network. McPherson had famously clashed with Disney-ABC TV Group president, Anne Sweeney, for years. According to New York Magazine’s Vulture blog, one outsider opined, "Anne Sweeney finally got her way."

Will anyone believe him? Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush attempted to put rumors to rest on Tuesday that he’d be the latest Bush to run for the White House, telling a Louisville ABC affiliate, “I am not running for president.” The announcement is a bit surprising, given that Bush had been increasing his national profile and stood to benefit from his weighty political base of Florida. Now, the wide-open field of 2012 GOP presidential picks has narrowed only slightly, with speculation still circulating around favorites such as Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, South Dakota Senator John Thune, and former Senator Rick Santorum. The latter, a socially conservative Pennsylvanian, lost big in his run for reelection in 2008, but he recently met with several of his former Capitol Hill staffers to float the idea of his possible candidacy in 2012.

Maybe they should seek amnesty in Arizona? The state of Utah has identified two state workers who are suspected of distributing a list with the names of 1,300 purported illegal immigrants. The first suspect is Leah Carson, who was fired from the Department of Workforce Services last week. The other, Teresa Bassett, is also a Workforce Services employee who is in the process of being fired. The list that Carson and Bassett are suspected of compiling and distributing to media outlets and law-enforcement officials included Social Security numbers, birth dates, workplaces, address, and phone numbers of the purported illegal immigrants, in addition to the names of children and the due dates of pregnant women.

Residents of Delaware County, Iowa, couldn't have possibly predicted that their cherished Lake Delhi, man-made but almost a century old, would disappear virtually overnight—but that's exactly what happened this weekend. Now, after heavy rain broke the lake's privately owned dam, its community is left to deal with plummeting property values, missing boats, disastrous flooding downstream, and no federal aid to help defray the costs. County residents had repeatedly declined to enroll in the National Flood Insurance Program, even after major floods in 2008, with County Supervisor Shirley Helmrichs citing the "noose" of bureaucratic "strings attached" to the program. Residents' last hope is for President Obama to declare the lake a disaster area, which would possibly qualify for some primary homes to receive aid, though the many vacation homes in the area will still be without help.

Someone’s due for an early retirement: A man who bought two small boxes of photographs for $45 at a garage sale in Southern California 10 years ago has discovered that they contain 65 glass negatives of photographs by Ansel Adams—and saw the value of his purchase shoot up to $200 million. The plates were previously believed to have been destroyed in a 1937 darkroom fire that ruined 5,000 plates. The photos, taken between 1919 and the early 1930s (before Adams rose to fame in the 40s), show Yosemite landscapes and San Francisco landmarks.

As journalists dig through the 92,000 classified documents released by WikiLeaks on Sunday, new stories are quickly coming out: John Cook, a senior national reporter for Yahoo! News, revealed on Tuesday afternoon that the U.S. military in Afghanistan paid local media outlets to run friendly stories. Reports from Army psychological operations units and PRTs—civilian-military teams whose task is to rebuild Afghanistan—make clear that local Afghan radio stations were under contract to run U.S.-produced content. One instance, according to one of the WikiLeaks documents from 2008, occurred when a radio station was paid “$3,900 for Radio Content Programming air time for the month of October.” This practice is nothing new: In 2005, a Pentagon contractor was caught paying Iraqi newspapers to run stories written by American soldiers—a practice that, ultimately, did not violate Department of Defense policy or U.S. law, but has since been discontinued.

God has heard our prayers for a new sexy Russian spy since we lost Anna Chapman and answered them: Texas has placed 24-year-old Anna Fermanova under house arrest for “knowingly and intentionally” exporting weapons-grade night-vision scopes to Moscow. Fermanova, who has a cosmetology license and teaches English in Moscow, insists she’s innocent and that the scopes were for hunters. Gawker has screengrabs of her Facebook profile, which show the star on the beach and dressed up for Halloween.

We hope he’s not running for family court: Jan Schill, the daughter of judicial candidate John Mantooth in Oklahoma, has taken out a full-page ad in a local paper and started a blog urging voters to not vote for her dad. The ad reads, “John Mantooth is NOT a good father, NOT a good grandfather and … HE WOULD NOT BE A GOOD JUDGE.” You can visit her blog at donotvoteformydad.com. "This is a family issue which should have been kept private," Mantooth said Monday. "I'm very sad about this. I'm very disappointed. I'm hurt, but I love my daughter, and I want things to get better, and I hope they will."

Founder and CEO of Oracle Corp., Larry Ellison, was the highest-paid executive of the last decade, bringing home $1.84 billion, The Wall Street Journal reports. Barry Diller, head of IAC/InterActive (which owns The Daily Beast) and Expedia.com (spun off five years ago), comes in second with $1.14 billion. In third place is Ray Irani, chief of Occidental Petroleum Corp., with $857 million; in fourth, Apple's Steve Jobs with $749 million, and rounding out the top five is Richard Fairbank of Capital One Financial Corp. with $569 million. Four of the top 25 best-paid chief executives worked in the financial industry. Four of the top 10 headed companies that lost money for shareholders over the last 10 years.

Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed documents from an arbitration case concerning whether Lance Armstrong used banned performance-enhancing drugs. The sought documents include depositions that Armstrong’s teammates gave when a promotions company was trying to prove that the cyclist was doping. Armstrong has denied all doping charges, which have popped up periodically over his long career. Though doping is generally not illegal in the U.S., prosecutors could say Armstrong defrauded investors if he accepted sponsorships based on an agreement not to use the banned substances. The investigation began this spring after cyclist Floyd Landis claimed publicly that doping was widespread among cyclists, including his former teammate Armstrong, whom Landis says he saw use drugs. Others have testified that Armstrong admitted to using drugs. The seven-time Tour de France winner says they’re all lying.

Could the hullabaloo about WikiLeaks be more hype than substance? NBC News’ Michael Isikoff reports that the Pentagon’s ongoing review has found that, so far, the WikiLeaks’ document dump has not endangered U.S. national security or American troops in the field. “The initial Pentagon assessment is far less dramatic than initial statements from the Obama White House Sunday night,” he writes. A Pentagon spokesman adds that none of the documents reviewed so far are classified above “secret,” the lowest level of sensitivity. Andrew Exum, fellow at the Center for a New American Security, agrees on The New York Times op-ed page. “I’m a researcher who studies Afghanistan and have no regular access to classified information, yet I have seen nothing in the documents that has either surprised me or told me anything of significance,” he writes in a column that takes on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. It should be noted that WikiLeaks has not yet published 15,000 of the documents, which it says it is reviewing because of their sensitive nature.

The biggest revelation from the WikiLeaks document dump so far has been the Pakistan intelligence service’s support of the Taliban. Why do we tolerate Pakistan’s duplicity? “Pakistan is our most important ally because, after all, that is where most of the terrorists are,” former presidential adviser Bruce Riedel tells Middle East Progress. “But Pakistan is also our most difficult ally, because over the last three decades it has nurtured many of these terrorist groups.” In order to stabilize Pakistan, he suggests increasing trade with the country instead of foreign aid. He’s also encouraged by the current government: “Bear in mind that Pakistan has had a history of failed and corrupt civilian governments being replaced by corrupt military dictators. That pattern, we hope, is being broken. The government that Pakistan has now may be on course to be the first ever to actually serve out a full term in office between elections. It has also undergone a very significant change in the last six months; Pakistan has changed its constitution to move most executive power out of the hands of the president’s office and into the hands of the prime minister’s office. And that’s important because the prime minister is elected directly by the people.”

One of the two Navy sailors who went missing last week—the Taliban claimed to have captured them—has been confirmed dead. His body has been recovered, a NATO spokesman said. The military is still looking for the second sailor, Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale. They both disappeared Friday in Logar, in eastern Afghanistan, after an armored SUV was spotted driving into a Taliban-controlled area. The sailor who died was Justin McNeley, a 30-year-old non-commissioned officer and father of two. The Taliban says the captured sailor is in a “safe place” where he won’t be found; NATO has distributed thousands of flyers offering a $20,000 reward for tips that help searchers find Breasseale.

Some more red ink for the loss column in Iraq: The Los Angeles Times reports that the Defense Department cannot account for nearly all of Iraq’s oil revenue from 2004 to 2007—$8.7 billion out of $9.1 billion. For $2.6 billion of the missing money, there is no record at all. The rest was not deposited in special accounts, as the Treasury Department requires, making it near-impossible to trace. The news isn’t likely to sit well with Iraqis, who are still angry over the $8.8 billion in oil revenues the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority spent in 2003 and 2004.

Rhinebeck is getting its own stimulus package, this week: Chelsea Clinton’s wedding on Saturday to Marc Mezvinsky—touted as the “event of the year” with a superstar-studded guest list of 500—will cost between $3 million and $5 million, the New York Daily News reports. At $3 million, the Clinton-Mezvinsky vows will cost $1 million more than the union of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. But Clinton’s is more important than any celebrity wedding, experts say, and could be a major influence on nuptial trends. The air-conditioned tents alone will cost $600,000 to keep guests cool on the private New York estate, and security to keep out gate crashers could run $200,000. One wedding planner estimates that the invitations alone could have cost more than $150 apiece.

Get ready for another pop culture crossover. Universal has announced that singer Rihanna—who’s had seven No. 1 singles in her short five-year career—will be making her big-screen film debut in the upcoming movie Battleship. Directed by Peter Berg (who is also behind The Kingdom and Friday Night Lights), the action-packed film will be based on Hasbro’s naval combat board game and will star Taylor Kitsch as a naval officer and Alexander Skarsgard as his brother. The movie is scheduled to hit theaters on May 25, 2012.

Perhaps he was threatened with having to take a timeout with Mel Gibson? Film director Oliver Stone has apologized for an interview with the Sunday Times in which he said “Jewish domination of the media” forced Americans to focus on the Holocaust, and that “Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people.” He also said that his upcoming documentary would put Hitler and Stalin “in context.” “In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret,” Stone said in a statement released by his publicist—this is the best part—Rubenstein Communications.

Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Matt Garza threw a no-hitter on Monday night—the first in franchise history. Garza faced the minimum 27 batters; the only baserunner for his opponents, the Detroit Tigers, came on a walk in the second inning. (The runner was then retired on a double play.) Garza’s no-hitter was the fifth thrown this season—and the sixth, if you count the perfect game that Armando Gallaraga lost on a blown call on what should have been the final out. That’s still two off from the record. That’s the most since seven were throw in 1991.

The debate among economists and politicians over President Obama’s massive stimulus package passed a year and a half ago—did it boost or cripple the economy?—is having a real impact in Congress. The pro-stimulus side argues the recession would have been far worse without the massive payout. The anti-stimulus crowd says only by cutting the deficit now will we be able to avoid high interest rates and more economic woes in the future. The dispute is having a real impact on Congress, but the sides don’t always line up in a predictable way. Lawmakers battled for weeks over whether to extend unemployment benefits, (Republicans opposed the measure, citing the need to cut the deficit, and lost.) Now the White House wants to allow Bush tax cuts on families making more than $250,000 a year to expire, making a dent in the deficit. (Republicans oppose this plan, too, saying it will hurt the economy.) Whether the stimulus actually helped the economy is impossible to know for sure, as economists can’t observe some kind of alternate-universe America in which the measure never passed. Congress will have to act long before the debate is settled.

The microphone is mightier than the pen? Alan Moore, the comic-book artist famous for graphic novels like Watchmen and V for Vendetta, has turned away from drawing. His latest work, Unearthing, is a spoken-word recording with a musical soundtrack and accompanied by a book of photographs. “After all those years of working within the comics industry and quietly going mad, this is what erupts,” the 56-year-old Moore tells The New York Times. Unearthing began as an essay that he wrote in 2006 when he was asked to memorialized part of London that was vanishing. He chose not a place, but his mentor and friend Steve Moore. The recording recounts the birth of the British comic-book scene in the 1960s.

President Nicolas Sarkozy announced Monday that Michel Germaneau, a 78-year-old French aid worker kidnapped by al Qaeda in April, has been beheaded in the Sahara following a failed rescue attempt. The leader of al Qaeda’s North African branch said that Germaneau was killed in retaliation for the “treacherous operation” that left six militants dead. Al Qaeda had threatened to kill Germaneau by Monday if France didn’t free jailed members in the area. "Convinced he was condemned to a certain death, we had the duty to make this effort to pull him free from his captors," Sarkozy said in a public address in Paris on Monday. The same al Qaeda branch has been holding two Spanish aid workers hostage since November.

Among the many side effects of WikiLeaks’ exhaustive Afghanistan document leak, President Obama’s foreign-policy team is already facing scrutiny over their reaction to the incriminating revelations. Senator John Kerry, a top Democrat and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has already suggested a strategy review: “These policies are at a critical stage, and these documents may very well underscore the stakes and make the calibrations needed to get the policy right more urgent,” he said. The bright side, according to some administration officials, is that the leaks could be used as leverage to increase cooperation with Pakistan, whose role in aiding Afghan insurgents was illustrated to a shocking degree in many of the documents. Foremost, though, the White House must convince the electorate that the seemingly botched war is worth salvaging. “We are in this region of the world because of what happened on 9/11,” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stressed on Monday.

Simon Cowell may not be the only American Idol vet on the outs. According to insiders, Nigel Lythgoe—who has not been secretive about his desire to recast the entire roster of judges—will revive his role as executive producer of American Idol. With Cowell's (voluntary) departure, top management has set its sights on shaking things up even further to resuscitate ratings. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Simon Fuller and Fox may do more than just bring in Lythgoe—they may do away with the entire judges’ panel. According to insiders, Lythgoe will continue to judge and executive produce Fox's So You Think You Can Dance.

Talk about standing by your client: Angry with a judge who'd imposed restrictions on his closing arguments, Rod Blagojevich's lawyer, Sam Adam, Jr., said he'd be "willing to go to jail" for contempt of court if it meant not following the judge's orders. Judge James B. Zagel dismissed the jury for the day after the clash, in which Adam complained that Zagel prohibited him from naming witnesses that prosecutors did not call in the defense's closing arguments—something the prosecution had been able to do. "Your honor, I have a man here that is fighting for his life," he said, to which the judge responded: "You will follow that order because if you don't follow that order, you will be in contempt of court." The judge has given Adam the evening to reconfigure his closing arguments in light of his "profound misunderstanding of legal rules." Adam said he is not sure whether he will issue closing for the defense.

Amending campaign-finance laws, a hot button issue in light of the Supreme Court's landmark Citizens United v. FEC decision this year (one that allowed corporations, unions, and nonprofits to contribute to campaigns under free-speech rights), is stirring up debate yet again. The Senate is scheduled to vote on commencing debate on a new bill introduced by Charles Schumer (D-NY), called the DISCLOSE Act ("Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections"). Democrats contend that corporate spending in campaigns gives corporations and foreign influences a greater stake in the political sphere, while Republicans argue that campaign-finance laws infringe on political free speech. Obama blasted GOP dissenters, saying "We shouldn't be playing these political games," adding that "A vote to oppose these... reforms is nothing more than a vote to allow corporate interests to take over" elections. The legislation would require the disclosure of donor lists by unions, corporations, and nonprofits and force political ads to run disclaimers of ownership. The bill, however, exempts such lobbyist powerhouses as the NRA and the AARP—fine print that makes several Democratic senators, like California's Dianne Feinstein and New Jersey's Frank Lautenberg, unhappy.

Has BP grown too small for its britches? The company plans to sell off $30 billion in exploration and production assets—estimated to be about 10 percent of the company—in a move to shrink the oil giant as it focuses on repairing its image after the massive oil spill in the Gulf. Robert Dudley, who has been in charge of the spill response, will take over for CEO Tony Hayward in September, and the board of directors will be very engaged. The move is intended to show that BP’s main concern is restoring its reputation in the U.S., site of a quarter of its oil and gas production. Dudley is widely viewed as a turnaround specialist. The selloff will take 18 months, and will help pay for the $20 billion the oil giant will have to shell out to victims of the spill. Assets in Pakistan, Vietnam, plus some in Alaska, Argentina and Egypt will be sold.

The disgrace the United States has shown its fallen soldiers gets worse: The number of graves in Arlington National Cemetery that are mislabeled may be in the thousands, according to Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), who chairs the congressional committee looking into the problem. The Army reported that bad management was to blame for 211 people laid to rest in the wrong plots, but the investigation only looked at a small part of the cemetery, meaning there could be many more errors. McCaskill said the findings show waste—and potentially fraud. McCaskill’s subcommittee will hold hearings on the matter Thursday; the former superintendent of the cemetery, John Metzler, and his deputy, Thurman Higginbotham, have been asked to testify. Both were forced to resign last month.