Penn State’s worst year was one of Joe Paterno’s best—at least financially. Over the course of 2011, Jerry Sandusky faced pedophilia scrutiny and his boss, Paterno, testified before the grand jury. But at the same time, he and Penn State’s president were discussing a major payout. Eventually, he agreed to pay Paterno $3 million upon retirement, forgive $350,000 in interest-free loans, and fork over even more generous benefits. The coach was guaranteed use of the university’s private plane and a luxury box at its football stadium; his wife got free use of special massage equipment. Some Penn State board members opposed the payments, but were “quickly shut down,” according to The New York Times.

Mississippi has only one abortion clinic—and, for now, it's going to stay that way. A judge ruled Friday that the clinic could remain open after its existence was challenged by a new law that requires abortion doctors to have local-hospital admitting privileges. Since neither of the clinic's two doctors had those privileges, the clinic stood to close. Pro-choice advocates say the law is a barely concealed attempt to ban abortions entirely in the state. Republican Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, a supporter of the law, claimed the ruling "defend[s] this important measure," despite the fact that the clinic won't close. The battle will likely continue. Mississippi has the highest teen-pregnancy rate in the United States.

According to a cache of previously unreleased documents, the Food and Drug Administration spied on its own scientists’ emails to create an enemies list, The New York Times reports. The FDA secretly captured thousands of emails sent privately by disgruntled scientists to Congress, lawyers, labor officials, journalists, and even President Obama in what started as a narrow leak investigation but soon mushroomed into a campaign to find out who the agency’s critics were—even if they were inside the agency. Using spy software designed to help companies monitor their employees, the FDA captured screen shots from government-issued laptops of five scientists who worked at home—and monitored keystrokes and personal emails and then copied the documents onto a thumb drive.

The federal government agreed Saturday to allow Florida to use a Homeland Security database to check whether people are legally allowed to vote if they are suspected of not being naturalized U.S. citizens. Florida Gov. Rick Scott has challenged the current voting-rights law, saying that noncitizens have tried to vote (legal immigrants can vote only if they become naturalized U.S. citizens). The Obama administration had denied Florida’s request for months—voting-rights groups have maintained that the agreement uses the database not for the use it is intended—and Republicans count it as a victory in their fight to combat voter fraud. But Democrats have accused Republicans of attempting to suppress voting by people in lower socioeconomic groups who tend to vote Democratic—and with the new law coming just four months before Election Day, it could leave insufficient time to correct any errors in the system.

An Afghan suicide bomber struck a wedding on Saturday, killing 23, including a prominent ethnic Uzbek M.P. Under the guise of being a guest, the attacker embraced M.P. Ahmad Khan Samangani, before setting off the explosives. The wedding was for Samangani’s daughter, and there were about 100 people in the hall for the party. Samangani was a supporter of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and a rival of Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, one of the Uzbek region’s most powerful politicians. A Taliban spokesman denied being responsible for the attack, and Karzai has appointed a team to investigate the attack.

Mary Richardson Kennedy’s grave was moved 700 feet away earlier this month, the superintendent of the St. Francis Xavier Cemetery near Hyannisport confirmed to the Associated Press on Saturday. Kennedy, who died in May after hanging herself, was first buried on May 19 in a part of the cemetery near Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Sargent Shriver. But Frank Maki, the cemetery’s superintendent, said Kennedy’s body has been exhumed and reburied about 700 feet away. Sources told the Associated Press that Kennedy’s estranged husband, Robert Kennedy Jr., wanted her to be buried on a hilltop surrounded by empty plots he plans on buying.

An artist removed the halo on a mural of late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno at State College after a report came out Friday that alleged Paterno and others in the university’s administration knew about reports of child abuse by former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. Michael Pilato had put a halo over Paterno’s image after Paterno’s death, but Pilato said Saturday that he felt he had to remove it. Pilato also removed Sandusky from the mural last year, but said he hasn’t decided yet what to do about former university president Graham Spanier.

The contracting firm responsible for providing security for the 2012 Olympics in London said on Saturday that the Games could cost it $77 million after failing to recruit as much staff as promised in the contract. The British government said earlier this week that it will have to deploy an additional 3,500 troops to provide security at the games—especially due to heightened fears of a terrorist attack by al Qaeda, the Irish Republican Army, or other extremist groups—bringing the total number of troops deployed for the games up to 17,000. G4S had originally been planning to bring in a staff of 10,400, but some problems arose in the training and vetting, and only 4,000 are ready at this time. This likely will cost the company between $54 million and $77 million.

Some may call it the cruelest spot of the circuit so far. The Obama campaign just released an ad that features Romney awkwardly crooning "America the Beautiful," while images of his alleged offshore tax havens scroll onscreen. The ad for the president—who has little trouble carrying a tune in public—also states that the former governor shipped jobs overseas while head of Bain Capital, a claim  Romney loathes. "Barack Obama has resorted to the tactics of a typical politician," Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg told the New York Times. "Dishonest and totally unsubstantiated attacks." The campaign said the ad will run in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

A shark killed a surfer in western Australia early Saturday—and a jet-ski rider who tried to help the surfer was also attacked by the shark but survived. “I reached to grab the body and the shark came at me on the jet-ski and tried to knock me off,” the unnamed man told ABC. He said when he reached the scene “there was just blood everywhere and a massive, massive white shark circling the body.” More than 30 shark attacks have been reported in western Australia the last 40 years, 12 of them fatal—and five of these deaths have occurred in the past year.

Sage Stallone, the son of actor Sylvester Stallone, may have been dead for up to a week, sources told TMZ on Saturday. Sources said Stallone’s mother asked the housekeeper to check up on him on Friday after she hadn’t heard from him in a week, and that’s when she discovered his body. Sources told TMZ that Stallone “lived like Howard Hughes” and his bedroom was “littered with junk”—with one law-enforcement official describing it as “disgusting.” There also reportedly were two drawers filled with pill bottles, some of which were described as being “huge.” But Sage Stallone's lawyer, George Braunstein, denied the report and said that Stallone posted photos to Facebook just 17 hours before his body was found. Further, Braunstein said, Stallone didn't even drink, and said, "There has been no indication that there was anything wrong in his life."

"Reach for the stars everyone. dogspeed cadre. c out," actor Charlie Sheen tweeted early Friday. And that was it. He has since deactivated his account, leaving only a final TwitPic of a bottle of Tabasco sauce, sitting on the dashboard of a plane. The digital signoff comes in the wake of some surprising introspection on the part of the star. "I mean, how does a guy who's obviously quicksanded, how does he consider any of it a victory?" he told Rolling Stone in a recent interview. "I was in total denial." Sheen originally joined Twitter at the height of the controversy surrounding his departure from Two and a Half Men. As of last count, he had more than 8 million followers.

A bill now moving through the California legislature would remove the legal, two-parent limit, and allow children to be recognized as having three, four, or even more legal guardians. While courts in other states have recognized three legal parents in the past, this measure would enshrine it in legislation for the first time. “This is about putting the welfare of the child above all else,” Mark Leno, the state senator who sponsored the bill, told the Times. But conservative groups saw a different motive. “This bill is a Trojan horse for the same-sex marriage agenda,” said a fellow at the Family Research council. 

Religious groups breathed a sigh of relief on Friday as Germany's government promised to protect the ritual circumcision of young boys. The controversy was sparked this summer by a court in Cologne, which ruled against parents seeking to perform the ancient ritual on their babies. A child's "fundamental right to physical integrity" was more important, the court said. The president of the Conference of European Rabbis called the decision the "worst attack on Jewish life since the Holocaust." By pledging to protect the practice, Angela Merkel's government is sending a message: "We want Jewish and Muslim religious life in Germany," said her spokesman.

Play nice, boys. Earlier today Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney accused President Obama of undignified campaign tactics, when Obama claimed that Romney gave false information to skew perceptions of his record as chief executive of Bain, a private equity firm in Boston. The candidate spoke out during interviews with several major news stations. “Is this the level that the Obama campaign is willing to stoop to?” Romney asked on CNN. Romney’s aggressive approach came after the president’s deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, made a statement Thursday, claiming Romney might have broken a law by telling the Securities and Exchange Commission that he was Bain’s sole owner. He also stated that he was the board chairman, chief executive, and president at a time when he now says he no longer held any position with the firm.

For years, auditors have been trying to follow the money in Iraq, and trace just how much of America’s $51 billion in reconstruction funds have been well spent. In its final audit report Friday, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Funds said that “billions” had likely been squandered, although “the precise amount lost to fraud and waste can never be known.” The audits themselves cost $200 million. But the office still isn’t sure of the exact figures—“a complete accounting of all reconstruction expenditures is impossible to achieve,” due to budget shortfalls, the report explained.

Johannesburg is famous for its whizzing trucks filled with laborers and its lax traffic codes. On Friday morning, the two combined tragically as a truck crammed with 45 workers crossed over a railway, and was sliced in half by an oncoming train. 26 fruit pickers died. "It was a gruesome scene," an official told Reuters. The driver of the truck, who apparently ignored clear signage, has been charged with murder.

File this one in gross–and terrifying. A recently suspended Colorado dentist recycled needles and syringes, potentially spreading the HIV virus and other ailments to thousands of patients. Stephen Stein had not one, but two Denver-area clinics, which he owned from September 1999 to June 2011. Authorities have sent a letter to his former patients advising they get tested for HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C. Any patient who received an injection from the dentist or his staff could be at risk, authorities say.

Ibrahim al-Qosi worked as Osama Bin-Laden's bookkeeper, driver, and, cook. In 2002, at the height of the war on terror, he was imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. But this week, the 52-year-old left for Sudan. His release is part of President Obama's longstanding but quiet effort to release prisoners from the controversial site. The president promised to close the base entirely by the end of his first year in office. But Al-Qosi was one of Gitmo's longest-serving inmates. His release brings the total detainee population at the base down to 168.

In the town of Tremseh, just northwest of Damascus, up to 200 people were killed as violence continues to splinter Syria. Now the United Nations want to find out why and how. A team arrived on Saturday to investigate the killings in the town, where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already suggested Bashar al-Assad's force "deliberately murdered civilians." The government said it killed no civilians. But the United Nations is convinced that Syrian government forces contravened the Annan six-point peace plan, and deployed tanks, artillery, and helicopters to massacre civilians. "We have sent a large integrated patrol today to seek verification of the facts," a U.N. representative said.

A young campaign aide, Alex Okrent, 29, collapsed and died at the Obama campaign's Chicago headquarters this Friday. Okrent, a graduate of Wesleyan University, had been working for Obama since 2004, and was now staffing the advertising side of the campaign. The president called Okrent's family to send his condolences, sent out a personal tweet commemorating "a beloved member of our campaign family," and Mitt Romney also tweeted, "Ann & I were deeply saddened to learn of the death of Alex Okrent. Prayers are with Alex's loved ones and the entire Obama campaign team." In a break from the Bain bickering, David Axelrod thanked the governor for the message.

The Obama administration will break the ice with Egypt's newly-elected government for the first time this week. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in the country Saturday on a mission to highlight U.S. "support for Egypt's democratic transition," said her deputy William J. Burns. New president Mohammed Morsi needs all the help he can get, as he attempts to secure control over a nation with several well-resourced, well-armed stakeholders: from the military to his own Muslim Brotherhood. Clinton also plans to raise the issue of womens' rights in the new Egypt. In coming months, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will also make the trip, and a potential presidential meeting may be in the works.

According to the Philippines, a Chinese warship is getting a little too close for comfort. The nation claims that a frigate from the mainland nation is sitting 70 miles off their country’s western coast. According to China, the ship experienced an accident this week and is currently stuck. Six other Chinese ships have surrounded the vessel, presumably to mount a rescue. This isn't the first maritime spat: The two countries locked horns earlier this year after the Philippines accused Chinese fishermen of poaching in its territory.