The Dow Jones Industrial average hit its highest point since December, 2007 Tuesday, closing up at slightly more than 69 points. The stock market was buoyed by widespread expectations that the Federal Reserve will announce another round of bond buying at the conclusion of the meeting of the Federal Open Markets Committee on Thursday and that the German Constitutional Court will reject a challenge to the legality of the European Stability Mechanism. Moody’s announcement that the U.S. might see another downgrade had little apparent effect on the market.

It was reported Tuesday afternoon that the President Obama refused to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over a disagreement over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program, but now the White House is reporting that the president spoke with the prime minister on the phone for an hour on Tuesday night. “The two leaders discussed the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program, and our close cooperation on Iran and other security issues,” the White House said. The statement clarified there was never a request from Netanyahu to meet with Obama in Washington, and no request was ever denied. Earlier in the day, Netanyahu had harsh words for Obama, who he said “had no moral right” to deny Israel the right to set a clear “red line” on Iran’s nuclear program.

Protesters stormed the U.S. consulate and set the building ablaze in Libya Tuesday, killing one American and injuring another. In Cairo, demonstrators took to the U.S. Embassy, tearing down the American flag and replacing it with a black flag emblazoned with Islamic symbols. The demonstrations are thought to be in response to a movie produced in the U.S. that protesters say insults the Prophet Muhammad, though it's not clear yet exactly which film sparked the outrage. American director Sam Bacile has claimed credit, telling reporters, "I am the first one to put on the screen someone who is [portraying] Muhammad. It makes them mad."

President Obama visited the Pentagon to mark the anniversary of 9/11 Tuesday, saying, "This is never an easy day." Thousands gathered to mourn in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, construction will resume at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum after the museum and the Port Authority came to an agreement Monday. All work at the memorial was halted last year over disagreements about funding, financing, and oversight. The federal government also announced it will add cancer to the list of illnesses linked to 9/11—making many former  Ground Zero workers eligible for financial compensation.

Michael Lewis’s new profile of Barack Obama in the October  issue of Vanity Fair provides a rare insider look at how the president makes his decisions. The main focus of the profile are the days leading up to his secure of a U.N. resolution to take “all necessary measures” to protect Libyan civilians, and then “use American airpower to destroy Qadaffi’s army.” A source who was in the Situation Room when the decision was being made tells Lewis that Obama “went off the road map,” summarily shooting the two options given to him by the Pentagon: Establish a no-fly zone, which advisers admitted would not end the massacre, or do nothing at all. On why he balked at the idea of not intervening: “That’s not who we are.”

It's a good thing Mitt Romney's not running for office in Europe. Only roughly five percent of British, French, and German citizens have a favorable view of the GOP nominee, according to a YouGov poll released Tuesday. The poll surveyed more than 12,000 people in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan, and China. Romney was on slightly better footing in Pakistan, where 13 percent of respondents said his election would make them more favorable towards the U.S. The poll was released just a few months after Romney's gaffe-filled trip abroad where he publicly questioned London's readiness for the Olympics.

The Zuck speaks. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the TechCrunch Disrupt conference Tuesday, and spoke about the social network’s recent business woes. He says the sharp drop in the company’s stock—which has lost roughly half its value since going public—“has obviously been disappointing.” He attributes some of the drop to his mobile strategy, which he says is still new and largely “misunderstood.” Zuckerberg plans to ramp up Facebook’s mobile division over the next three to five years and focus on apps that are more user-friendly. Still, he says, everyone should take it easy. “It’s not like this is the first up-and-down we’ve had.”

Yemen’s defense minister narrowly escaped a deadly car bombing on his motorcade on Tuesday. A dozen people were killed in the blast and another dozen were wounded. Maj. Gen. Muhammad Nasir Ahmad had just left the prime minister’s office in Sanaa, when his motorcade passed a booby-trapped car and the explosion occurred. Ahmad was unhurt, but seven security guards and five civilians were killed in the blast, and 12 other people were injured. It is the fourth assassination attempt against the defense minister since a new government was formed in December, and it came a day after the government announced the killing of Said al-Sheri, the deputy head of al Qaeda in Yemen.

Nicki Minaj doesn't want there to be any doubt who she's supporting this November after a few of her lyrics caused some confusion. "Ha! Thank you for understanding my creative humor & sarcasm Mr. President, the smart ones always do," she tweeted on Tuesday. Minaj had rapped that she's a Republican voting for Mitt Romney in a song on Lil Wayne's latest album. But even President Obama didn't think too much of it, telling an interviewer that Minaj likes to take on different personas when she's performing.

It’s almost the definition of poor taste. Chris Brown shocked gossip bloggers Tuesday when he unveiled a new neck tattoo that bears an eerie resemblance to his former—and possibly rekindled—flame, Rihanna. As if that wasn’t enough to make jaws drop, half of the face on the tattoo is bruised and scarred—a disturbing reminder of the night he physically assaulted Rihanna in 2009, causing her to be hospitalized. Brown’s camp, however, says the tattoo is not of the “Umbrella” singer, but of a sugar skull associated with the Mexican Day of the Dead mixed with a MAC cosmetics design. “It is not Rihanna or an abused woman as erroneously reported.”

You have to give him points for consistency at least. Missouri Republican Rep. Todd Akin said on Monday that he’s “totally in” the Senate race despite the national firestorm over his “legitimate rape” comments last month. Republicans have until Sept. 25 to force Akin to drop out—although Akin said he believes money will pour into the race after the deadline passes, despite that the national GOP has abandoned him. “I’m not getting out,” Akin insisted, saying that he has heard widespread support to fight incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill.

GoDaddy was an absent father on Monday. The web-hosting juggernaut was the victim of a possible hacking attack, resulting in outages for its millions of clients. A message on the GoDaddy.com website Monday read, “Status Alert: Hey, all. We’re aware of the trouble people are having with our site. We’re working on it.” Many of GoDaddy’s clients are small businesses. The outage began around 1 p.m. EST. Though the hacking collective Anonymous was initially blamed for the attack, someone named “Anonymous Own3r” tweeted, “The attack is not coming from Anonymous coletive, the attack is coming only from me.’

Anderson Cooper said on the season premiere of his talk show on Monday that he came out publicly this summer after he realized that his silence could be misconstrued as being ashamed of being gay. “I told my friends, I told my family, I’ve always been out with coworkers and stuff,” he said. “It’s just not something I talked about publicly because, as a reporter, I didn’t think it was appropriate. It didn’t seem part of my job.” Cooper said he had been “torn for a long time,” but ultimately decided “visibility is important.” “I am the same person I always was, I do the job the same way,” Cooper told guest Kristin Chenoweth.

The doctor who helped the CIA track down Osama bin Laden in Pakistan told Fox News on Monday that Pakistan’s claim that it is helping the U.S. is a sham to get billions of dollars in American aid—and Pakistan’s spy agency regards the U.S. as its “worst enemy.” In an interview with Fox News, Shakil Afridi said Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence helped fund the Haqqani network, a terrorist group funded by the Taliban, and that the agency works against the CIA. Afridi said he is being tortured while at the hands of the ISI. Afridi is serving out a 33-year sentence for treason—a charge he says was created by the ISI out of revenge for his involvement in the bin Laden raid.

This puts that canceled meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton into perspective. Xi Jinping, the man favored to be the next president of China, canceled a meeting Monday with the Danish prime minister—fueling speculation that the country’s well-organized leadership has been disrupted. Chinese government officials offered no reasons for the canceled meetings or why Xi has not appeared in public since last week, although it is rumored that he hurt his back. Chinese Communist officials had been expected to meet later this year to pick a new president, and Xi, the current vice president, has long been favored for the position—but no date has been set for that meeting, making Xi’s absence even more prominent.

At least 23 people burned to death when a Pakistani show factory caught fire in Lahore on Tuesday. The bodies of 23 workers have been recovered, and 18 workers with severe burns have been brought to hospitals. But health officials expect the death toll to rise since there is almost no enforcement of building codes. The cause of the fire is not yet known, but many Pakistani buildings have faulty wiring.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Tuesday hinted the former Navy SEAL who wrote a book criticizing the raid that killed Osama bin Laden could be punished. On CBS This Morning, Panetta said, “We have to take steps to make clear to him and to the American people that we’re not going to accept this kind of behavior.” Panetta said that if the Defense Department doesn’t take any action against Matt Bissonette, the man believed to be writing under the pseudonym Mark Owen, “then everybody who pledges to ensure this doesn’t happen is gonna get the wrong signal that somehow they can do it without any penalty to be paid.” Panetta said the Pentagon is reviewing the book to determine “what is classified and what isn’t, and where those lines are.”

Billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili—a pro-Russian candidate in Georgia—has recruited three powerful Americans to join the advisory board for Georgian live news channel TV9, owned by his wife, reports Buzzfeed. The three recruits, former CNN host Larry King, Council of Foreign Relations president Leslie Gelb, and former congressman Lee Hamilton, will be paid “nominally” for a year of service on the board. Former U.S. ambassador to Morocco Marc Ginsberg says the goal of the advisory board is to foster “media freedom in Georgia” using TV9. In spite of its close ties to Ivanishvili, the station claims it will not side with either candidate in the upcoming October election.

It’s Tuesday, but this week has already packed some punches for Mitt Romney. A new poll out Tuesday found that Southern whites—long considered one of the linchpins of the Republicans’ so-called Southern strategy—are bothered by the GOP candidate’s wealth and religion. According to the Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted over several months in 11 states from Virginia to Texas, 38 percent of Bible Belt voters said they are less likely to vote for a candidate who is “very wealthy” than one who isn’t—and many viewed Mormonism as a cult. Meanwhile, an ABC News/Washington Post poll released Tuesday showed that a majority favored having dinner with the president over Romney by a 13-point margin. In a CNN/ORC International poll released Monday, Obama led Romney by 6 points, buoyed by a 4-point bump from the Democratic National Convention.

Old media vs. new media war is getting ugly. Facebook temporarily took down the New Yorker’s cartoons page on Monday after it featured a bare-breasted woman in a cartoon. According to a blog post by cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, the cartoon page was temporarily disabled after violating Facebook’s community standards on “Nudity and Sex” when it posted a cartoon by Mick Stevens featuring a bare-breasted Eve. Stevens even redrew the cartoon, but Mankoff said the “gain in clothes caused too great a loss in humor.” The page was reinstated by Monday night.

The brother of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has proposed mediating a peace plan between radical Islamists and the West. In an interview with CNN, Mohamed al-Zawahiri said he has written a six-page proposal for a 10-year truce if certain conditions are met on both sides. Among the demands, the U.S. must stop intervening in Muslim lands and release all Islamist prisoners, while Islamists must stop attacks on Western interests and protect legitimate Western interests in Muslim countries. He says: “I don’t represent a certain group. My role is mediator between the West and them.” He adds that his relationship with his brother puts him in a unique position, but admits they have not spoken in more than a decade.

In an op-ed published Tuesday in The New York Times, author Kurt Eichenwald writes that the Bush administration received more warnings about terrorist plots before 9/11 than the now-infamous memo “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.” Eichenwald writes that particular memo did not include a specific warning—but several others did. In May 2001, there was a warning of a terrorist operation planned by a “group presently in the United States,” and in June, a brief that called an attack “imminent.” Eichenwald writes the information “Mr. Bush was told in the weeks before that infamous briefing reflected significantly more negligence than has been disclosed."

It took eight years and five near-misses, but Andy Murray finally won his first Grand Slam title, defeating world No. 1 Novak Djokovic in a marathon U.S. Open final, 7–6, 7–5, 2–6, 3–6, 6–2. Murray took a commanding lead in the first set as Djokovic struggled with the high winds on the court. But it ended in a grueling tiebreak that lasted 25 minutes before Murray won 12–10. Murray remained in charge, winning a tiebreak for the second set, until a break by Djokovic in the third put the Serb back on track. Djokovic took command for the next two sets, sending the match into its fifth hour and fifth set. Murray broke Djokovic’s serve three times in the final set to win the thriller. His victory was the first Grand Slam win for a British player in 76 years, and followed his home-turf triumph at the London Olympics in July.

GoDaddy insisted on Tuesday that a hack was not the reason their system crashed yesterday, causing thousands of sites to go down for much of the day. Someone claiming to be a member of the hacking group Anonyous claimed that they had orchestrated an attack. But GoDaddy said it was “a series of internal network events that corrupted router data tables.”  The company also says there are now systems in place to prevent this from happening again.

It looks like a good year for debut novelists. The six books that made the 2012 Man Booker Prize shortlist were announced on Tuesday, and two are by first-time novelists. A panel of judges chose to include The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng, Swimming Home by Deborah Levy, Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, The Lighthouse by Alison Moore, Umbrella by Will Self, and Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil. Hilary Mantel is being considered an early favorite after Wolf Hall  won the Booker in 2009, although no British writer has won the prestigious award twice. Peter Stothard, who chaired the judging committee, said each book stood out for its "pure power of prose." The winner will be announced Oct. 16

Chicago teachers today are striking for the second day. Around 350,000 Chicago schoolchildren were locked out of the classroom as 29,000 teachers began striking yesterday. Chicago’s school board and teachers’ union failed to come to an agreement yesterday, with two sides deadlocked over several key points of contention, including the hot-button national issues of teacher evaluations and recall policy. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he didn’t give “two hoots” about Mitt Romney’s opinion after the Republican presidential campaign accused President Obama of putting the interests of organized labor above the students.

Britney Spears is tired of being called a “naked menace.” TMZ reports that the pop star, who makes her splashy X Factor debut Wednesday night, struck a settlement Tuesday with a former bodyguard who accused of her repeatedly flashing him her genitals during the time they worked together. Fernando Flores filed the sexual harassment two years ago. Though Spears denies his allegations, according to TMZ, she agreed to a “modest financial settlement” in order to make the unflattering reports disappear.

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comes to the U.S. later this month to visit the United Nations, he won’t be meeting with President Obama. For the first time since Obama was elected, the White House has refused a meeting with Netanyahu (according to an Israeli official) over a disagreement over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program. While it’s not known exactly where the disagreement lies, Israel has threatened more aggressive military action against Iran than the U.S. The White House denied Tuesday that they are refusing a meeting, saying the request was denied because of scheduling conflicts.

After last week's disappointing jobs report, Tuesday brought more bad news. The Labor Department reported that the number of American job openings fell in July to 3.67 million, down from June's 3.72 million. The number of new hires also fell in the past month, from 4.23 million to 4.3 million. In a lagging labor market, marked by scores of workforce dropouts, the figures show that it's still difficult to get an American job—and getting harder. The data implies that an average of 3.5 people are gunning for every open position. Many blame employers' reluctance to hire on uncertainty, from the euro-zone wobbles to the impending fiscal cliff.