That crazy New Jersey couple, who got mad when a ShopRite supermarket wouldn't personalize a birthday cake for their son, Adolf Hitler, had their kids taken away from them.

[A Maria Bonita Extra dress is modeled at a fashion show in Rio de Janeiro yesterday. Where are the model's legs? Image via AP]

Obama attended a private memorial service for the grandmother who helped raise him, Madelyn Dunham, in Hawaii. He and family members scattered her ashes in the Pacific. They weren't alone: the trusty paparazzi came along, too!

The Associated Press's list of the Top 10 Quotes of 2008 featured two from Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman. But Krugman, it turns out, was not actually quotable enough to merit credit for either.

That's the headline on Associated Press' review of the Scientology bigwig's new "let's kill Hitler!" film. Everyone (well, lotsa people) want to slam this film, and the AP's early dig is hard to top.

Have you guys been able to enjoy the news at all with this big AP byline strike? Been going on since Sunday? Anybody? Hello?

We're hearing from a good source that Tom Curley, the head of the Associated Press, just held a town hall meeting to tell employees that the AP "will lose 10% of its staff next year." At a current headcount of over 4,000 employees, that would translate to at least 400 jobs lost, which could theoretically come through either layoffs or voluntary buyouts. Several cash-strapped newspapers—including the entire Tribune Co.—have recently announced plans to drop their AP subscriptions. Still, this would be a massive cut for what has always been one of the steadiest possible realms of journalism. AP employees with more details on this, email us. UPDATE: The AP has sent us a statement, which doesn't contain any numbers but acknowledges that cuts may be coming—though mostly through attrition, they hope:

Thousands of Germans wave lanterns today for the ecumenical festival Martini (heh!), which honors the Catholic St. Martin and the Protestanty of the Protestant, Martin Luther. A little odd that it's the anniversary of Kristallnacht. But, um, we just think it's pretty, is all. [via AP]

The new Associated Press guidelines on election coverage have been controversial, due mostly to the role of Washington Bureau Chief Ron Fournier, a probable Republican and admirer of John McCain. Fournier's new rules allow more of a reporter's voice in wire reports, less caging about "fairness", and generally ask that AP writers say it like it is. What that led to earlier this year annoyed liberals to no end. But at some point the race shifted in Obama's favor, and the AP followed suit. Last month they ran a devastating analysis piece on how John McCain lies about everything—that piece was instrumental in changing the McCain media narrative for good. But the selection of Sarah Palin has really sent the wire service right into the famous tank. This weekend they called Palin a big racist! The headline: Analysis: Palin's words carry racial tinge. AP writer Douglass K. Daniel says Palin's new post-debate smear-y stump speech was basically disgusting. The speech (a second draft was just released for use today by the way!) accuses Obama of "palling around with terrorists who would destroy our own country," a veiled reference to former Weatherman Bill Ayers but left vague enough to insinuate, say, Osama bin Laden. In other words, Palin is now a big cute racist email forward disguised as a candidate for Vice President. But because no one takes her seriously at all anymore, all she'll manage to do is hurt McCain's credibility even more, and leave him even more open to charges of acting dishonorably. And he'll get even angrier! By the third debate (if McCain shows up) he won't even shake Obama's hand. Just watch! Previously: The AP wrote the best-lead sentence-ever on Governor Palin: "ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Less than a week after balking at the Alaska Legislature's investigation into her alleged abuse of power, Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday indicated she will cooperate with a separate probe run by people she can fire."

AP science reporter Seth Borentstein has either been spending too much time cooped up in the lab, or he just has a thing for hurricanes. Per his report:

Ron Fournier, the new Associated Press Washington Bureau Chief? Definitely a tool, possibly a Republican. Some of the AP campaign coverage this season? Annoying at best, misleading at worst. But recently liberals (led by the usually serious Talking Points Memo) have all but declared the Associated Press an arm of the John McCain communications office. Well we can seek out and link to only the AP dispatches that fit our preferred spin too, guys! Today the wire sent out a remarkable analysis piece on how the McCain campaign just lies, all the time, about everything. And everyone calls them on their lies, and "fact checks" them, but it doesn't matter, because they don't care. And the AP under Fournier has actually done a better job with this fact-checking than lots of other outlets. The AP has no compunction about explicitly reporting that a statement is deliberately misleading, even if they sometimes shy away from the word "lie." Take a look:

The general reaction to last night's Obama speech has been, uh, effusive. Republicans were left speechless. Even GOP kneecapper Alex Castellanos seemed taken aback. The criticisms? Obama was maybe too focused on a Clintonian laundry list of issues, debased himself by attacking McCain, too meat-and-potatoes and not enough soaring rhetoric. So it only makes sense that the Associated Press headline is "Analysis: Obama spares details, keeps up attacks." Wait, what? That is the opposite of everyone else's interpretation! It gets better, in a "written hours before the speech was delivered" way!

The US Army has freed Ahmed Nouri Raziak, a cameraman for the AP, who had been held without charges for the past three months. Not to be confused with AP photographer Bilal Hussein, recently released after two years in US custody. [Reuters]

Robert Scoble did in fact capture some footage of John Edwards's mistress, Rielle Hunter, back in 2006 when flying with the campaign's blogger party plane. The problem: All of the tapes are property of PodTech, the videoblogger's former employer, so all he can release are the still images, like this one of Hunter seated with Edwards.The accidentally historical shot is among those circulating on the AP wire, he told Valleywag this morning: "I never in a thousand years thought I'd be witnessing a scandal. But I don't really care about the sex part of it." Except he does. Scoble says he and others on the blogger plane, like Andrew Baron of Rocketboom, are glad the affair is out in the open now — and not just so they can flog their photos: "We're all disappointed that he took such a risk with the presidency in the balance." Despite his past support of Edwards, said Scoble, "I'm really happy he wasn't nominated. If he was the nominee right now, it'd have handed the election to McCain." We're not normally fans of tech bloggers turning into political pundits, but Scoble's analysis is spot-on. (Photo by Robert Scoble)

This will please Politico. (And our commenters!) Ron Fournier, who got in trouble recently for being too friendly to Karl Rove a couple years ago and also for turning down a job offer a couple years ago is now the official Washington bureau chief for the Associated Press. He was just acting chief before. Now he'll maliciously add pro-McCain bias to AP stories for real. [FishbowlNY]

Political journalist Ron Fournier took his lumps recently for an ill-advisedly friendly email he sent to Bush brain Karl Rove back in 2004. Today, the Politico reveals that Fournier was this close to getting a "senior advisory role" in the McCain campaign, probably as some sort of fancy flack. He turned it down and went back to the AP instead, but now this has been reported and it's fueling the anti-AP fire. They're in bed with McCain! It's like there are these two gigantic beds in DC and everyone in the press is lying down on them with a candidate. Or it's like bullshit. This story, and the last one, are pointless except as part of some weird campaign to embarrass Ron Fournier. Fournier quit the Associated Press a couple years back to start something terrible called HotSoup.com, a sort of message board social networking political blog thing that was supposed to revolutionize everything ever. A couple weeks later (at least it felt like a couple weeks) he was back at the AP as their online political editor. (He's now the Washington bureau chief.) He's actually done a little bit of good work at the AP, stripping away some of the obtuse house style and inserting some liveliness into wire reports, but now all the liberals will decide the AP is a den of McCainiacs and boycott them or something. We ask you: why is a job offer from two years ago news? That's all this is. A declined job offer. Politico even twists the knife further:

Nonpartisan journalist Bill O'Reilly is a man who calls em how he sees em, and that means that he's not afraid to give credit to the liberal lie-mongering site HuffPo when credit is due. When former Bush flack Tony Snow died last weekend, the AP ran an obit that was not 100% positive. Even worse, "The LA Times website allowed loons to post vile things about Tony Snow." O'Reilly condemns these examples of factual reporting and free speech, respectively; but he actually praises foreign-born socialist Arianna Huffington for scrubbing her site of all Snow smears. Truly a bipartisan lovefest! Watch the clip of what happens when you look up "Fairness" in the dictionary, below:

Journo-nerds rejoice: the AP Stylebook has been updated! It's the Bible of all that is considered acceptable in middle American newsrooms, and, like middle America itself, is consistently several years behind the times. So what changes can you look forward to in tomorrow's edition of the Mattoon Journal Gazette? More text messaging, less malarkey, and no more retarded people!

Saul Hansell quoted Digg CEO Jay Adelson defending the Associated Press (of which Hansell's publication the Times is a member). TechCrunch's Michael Arrington freaked out, natch. Adelson then attempted to further explain his complicated position, trying to be diplomatic. Yawn. As we've said before, and will say again, exercise your fair use rights under the law and shut up, because giving the AP attention just feeds its argument and therefore reinforces its position. Moving on:

Recently, we met the Media Bloggers Association, supposedly a group that provides legal aid to bloggers and one that is currently negotiating with the Associated Press to establish guidlines for reposting tiny snippets of their copy. Our night editor asked who died and made them Internet Kings, and they responded with a bitchy email that said we didn't even email them or anything. Then a couple enterprising commenters did some more research (and not the "email them for comment" kind either-what is up with the internet?). And now we have reason to be suspicious of everything the MBA and their head troll Roger Cox have to say. They might just be a money-making scam!