The outrage shaking Muslim countries may have quieted Saturday, but the United States isn’t taking any chances. White House officials say the Obama administration is preparing for a period of ongoing turmoil as demonstrations at American embassies from Asia to Africa turn violent. “The reality is the Middle East is going to be turbulent for the foreseeable future and beyond that. It’s going to present the United States with any number of difficult choices,” said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “It’s also going to be frustrating because in most instances our interests are likely to be greater than our influence.” In Egypt, riots have quieted Saturday after Cairo police made hundreds of arrests in the morning.

Let the finger pointing begin. Mitt Romney accused President Obama of “passively allowing us to go over a fiscal cliff,” in his weekly podcast Saturday. The White House recently released a report detailing the $109 billion in cuts that will automatically be made Jan. 2 if a bipartisan agreement isn’t reached. The proposed trigger cuts were agreed upon by both Democrats and Republicans, including Paul Ryan. But that isn’t stopping the GOP presidential campaign from attacking the proposed budget slashing. “What kind of commander-in-chief forces Americans to choose between massive tax hikes that will undermine the economy and massive cuts to our military that will undermine national security?” Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said.

Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen is seeking permission to continue enforcing a state law that successfully ended collective bargaining for teacher and public employees while his office appeals the decision to overturn it. Dane County Judge Juan Colas’s ruling Friday struck down the controversial  law as a violation of state and federal constitutions calling it “null and void.” A spokesman for Van Hollen’s office said the law is constitutional and should “continue in effect as it has for more than a year while the appellate courts address the legal issues.” A spokesman for Governor Scott Walker also said he is confident the decision will be overturned on appeal.

In a showdown of Internet v. Government, Google defiantly told the White House Saturday it won’t take down the anti-Islam video that sparked demonstrations across the Muslim world, saying the Innocence of Muslims clip falls “clearly within our guidelines.” But the company is restricting the YouTube clip in some ways: Google blocked access to the video in Libya, Egypt, India, and Indonesia, citing “very sensitive situations.” Those countries have deemed the video illegal, but otherwise the clip would not violate terms of use, YouTube said in a statement. “We work hard to create a community everyone can enjoy and which also enables people to express different opinions. This can be a challenge because what’s OK in one country can be offensive elsewhere.”

From racist to … kinky? As if the mystery surrounding the controversial film couldn’t get any weirder, actors from Innocence of Muslims have confirmed to Gawker that the director of the film is actually a softcore-porn director named Alan Roberts. Roberts’s film résumé includes titles like The Happy Hooker Goes to Hollywood. Cast and crew in the controversial film told Gawker that Roberts might not have known about the dubbing and editing changes that turned the film into the anti-Islam spark that would light the fire under the Muslim world. “My gut tells me he was just a has-been director who was trying to prove he could still be Hollywood,” an actress involved with the anti-Muslim film told Gawker. Earlier Saturday, federal authorities interviewed and released Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, who claims to have been the film’s logistics manager but not its director.

The streets of Cairo were quiet Saturday after riot police clashed with protesters at the U.S. Embassy and near Tahrir Square earlier that morning. Protests started Tuesday in Cairo over an amateur film made in the U.S. that mocked the Prophet Muhammad and riots spread all over the world, including a violent demonstration in Benghazi that resulted in the death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya. By Saturday afternoon in Cairo, the traffic started getting back to normal and cleanup crews were working to clear the streets. Scores have been arrested in the protests and at least eight members of the peacekeeping force in Sinai suffered minor injuries. 

Negotiators for the Chicago Teachers Union and Chicago Public Schools met on Saturday to continue hammering out the details of an agreement that will allow schools to start again while teachers marched downtown. Around 350,000 students are currently out of classes because of the dispute between the school district and its key employees. Details of the agreement have not been made public, but it is expected to be finalized in time for an official vote to end the teachers’ strike sometime Saturday afternoon. Hundreds of teachers are expected to join in a “Solidarity Rally” on Saturday at Union Park, including several hundred from Wisconsin.

Japanese government announced a dramatic change to its energy policy on Friday, promising to end nuclear power in the country by the 2030s. The move was in response to last year's forced evacuation of 160,000 people after the Fukushima nuclear power complex came close to meltdown. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda noted that a large majority of Japanese citizens support the elimination of nuclear power from their country. The new proposal calls for investing $500 billion dollars in renewable energy sources, like solar and wind power, over the next 20 years.

Rick Santorum told the conservative faithful at the Values Voter Summit on Saturday that Republicans "will never have the elite, smart people on our side." Instead, Santorum argued to a crowd that gave him a standing ovation, the church and family hold up the conservative movement. Though once ardently anti-Romney, the former senator stumped for his old primary opponent, calling this the “most important election in the history of our country.”

Amanda Bynes’s problems might run deeper than drunk driving and smoking pot, according to TMZ. The former child star might have serious mental issues, according to sources interviewed by the site. One neighbor said the former child star has long conversations with inanimate objects and a member of her gym says she often talks to herself and answers back. The actress was recently charged with drunk driving and a hit-and-run, and her presence on the road reportedly scares Los Angeles cops, after pictures surfaced of her allegedly smoking pot behind the wheel.

From Cairo, to Sudan, to Yemen, to Bangladesh, anti-American demonstrations across the Middle East show no sign of stopping. Protesters filled the streets and attempted to overtake U.S. embassies Friday in anger over an amateur film that depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a pedophile and womanizer. Protests in Egypt continued for the third straight day, and angry Tunisians and Yemenis overran American embassies. In Sudan, three people were killed during protests; and in Tunisia at least two are dead as hundreds of injuries were reported in protests throughout the region. A U.S. military base was also breached in Afghanistan Friday, killing two soldiers in an attack that may have been connected to the protests. At a memorial service for the returning U.S. victims in Libya, President Obama vowed to “stand fast” and promised  “The United States will never retreat from the world.”

After a meeting of European finance ministers in Cyprus, Greek President Yannis Stournaras says that the possibility of extra time for Greece to meet its austerity goals is "on the table." Christine Lagarde, director of the International Monetary Fund, agreed, saying that there are several possible ways for Greece to adjust to its budget goals, and more time is among them. However, the country won't be getting an extension right away. Leaders are waiting to make a decision until October, after seeing whether the European Central Bank's bond buying program has any effect on Greece's troubled finances.

A California man widely believed to be Nakoula Basseley Nakoula was taken in by police shortly after midnight Saturday to be interviewed about his involvement in an anti-Muslim film, Innocence of Muslims, that has sparked widespread violence throughout the Middle East. He was not arrested or detained, but taken in voluntarily to speak with police. Nakoula, who claims to have been the film's logistics manager but not its director, has in the past been convicted on bank fraud charges and may have violated his probation in uploading the controversial movie to YouTube.

According to a new White House report, billions will be shaved off important programs from military to Medicare if Congress fails to reach a deal by the end of the year. Automatic budget cuts would shave off $11 billion from Navy and Army operations, $2.3 billion from educational achievement and special-ed programs, and $5.6 billion in Medicare payments to hospitals. A 394-page report from the White House was given to Congress outlining the $100 billion in military and domestic spending cuts that will go into effect Jan. 2, 2013. The threat of dramatic cuts was supposed to push the two parties into a bipartisan deal on the economic deficit, but the Democrats and Republicans have yet to compromise.

Australia is the latest addition to the list of countries home to frenzied protests against the amateur American-made anti-Muslim film Innocence of Muslims. Hundreds of protestors clashed with police outside the U.S. consulate in Sydney on Saturday. Protestors gathered on the steps were carrying signs accusing President Obama of "liking Osama" and advocating the deaths of those who insult the Prophet Mohammed. The demonstration turned violent as police pushed protestors away from the building using tear gas and police dogs, which protestors countered with thrown bottles and shoes. Four people were injured.

Apparently the president's word and his actual birth certificate aren't enough to stop some conspiracy theorists—though general consensus seems to have done the trick. On Friday a Kansas man withdrew a petition asking that President Obama be removed from the state's election ballot for not meeting presidential citizenship requirements. The man, Joe Montgomery, cited public backlash as his reason for backing down, although the Kansas secretary of state had been willing to review the petition. Although Obama will remain on the ballot in Kansas, the protester did win a small victory: the state plans to continue efforts to obtain a certified copy of the president's birth certificate.

Another day, another poll. The latest one, conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, reveals that voters are more confident in Obama's ability to fix the economy and make jobs, taking away Romney's longstanding lead on economic issues. The president is also ahead in issues relating to foreign policy, Medicare, and the middle class. In fact, the only category in which voters say he falls decidedly short of Romney is handling the federal deficit. But don’t get too excited, Dems: The poll also puts Obama ahead of Romney in a vote, though his three-point lead still falls within the poll's margin of error.

In a show of solidarity on Saturday, the Indigenous Social Justice Association, an Australian activist group, held a ceremony in Sydney offering Australian Julian Assange an Aboriginal passport. The WikiLeaks founder's father, who says his son has been "abandoned" by Australian authorities, was on hand to accept the passport, which will be sent to Assange in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. The group that issued the passport is an activist association pushing for the recognition of Aboriginal sovereignty, a cause Assange backs. But the passport is merely symbolic: the current Australian government has still made no moves.

A Taliban commander said on Saturday that Prince Harry was the target of a Friday night attack on a military compound in Afghanistan. The attack killed two U.S. marines, though British officials say the attackers "were nowhere near Captain Wales" (the prince's official name in the military). Other Taliban spokesmen, however, said the attack had nothing to do with Prince Harry and was intended as revenge for the anti-Islamic film The Innocence of Muslims, which has sparked violence throughout the Middle East.

The Magic Kingdom in Orlando's Disney world is entering a whole new world: the park's new French-themed Be Our Guest restaurant will be offering wine and beer for guests to order with dinner. This will be the first time in the park's 41-year history that alcohol will be served. The president of food and beverage at Walt Disney Parks says the move is just a matter of common sense: "You cannot walk into a French restaurant and not get a glass of wine or beer. It made more sense to do it than not to do it." Cheers to that.

That escalated quickly. Despite legal action the royal family has taken against a French magazine that printed topless photos of Kate Middleton, an Italian glossy has taken up the reins—and the magazine said Saturday it will publish 26 pages of the photos. The tabloid, Chi, is part of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlsconi’s publshhing house Mondadori, which also owns Closer, the French magazine that first published the photos. The photos are not posed: they were taken by a paparazzo, probably with a telephoto lens looking onto a private home where Middleton and Prince William were staying. Nonetheless, Chi’s editor stands staunchly by his decision, claiming that the images are tasteful and will not “hurt Kate’s image.”

The Libyan government has identified at least 50 people involved in Tuesday’s attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, though authorities say there very well could be more, while al Qaeda said the attack was motivated by revenge. The attack killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens. The government suspects several of the attackers have escaped on flights out of the country, but four suspects have been arrested and are being questioned about a move that al Qaeda claims was revenge for the killing of the organization’s second-in-command. Members of the crowd surrounding the embassy were also protesting Innocence of Muslims, a film they say insulted the Prophet Muhammed.

After an undercover federal investigation, U.S. citizen Adel Daoud was arrested Friday night after trying to detonate what he thought was a car bomb in front of a downtown Chicago bar. He was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and could face 20 years behind bars. His interception was the work of undercover agents who learned about Daoud’s plans online and provided him with the fake explosive. Daoud was arrested after an FBI undercover agent contacted him and found he “expressed an interest in engaging in violent jihad, either in the United States or overseas,” according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office.