The oft-repeated cliché about the French is that they don't care when celebrities have affairs, and they find the American pearl-clutching over presidential mistresses to be provincial. But in the past few days, it seems that some French people care very much: Rumors have been rampant in the European press that both French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni were both having affairs. According to the Times of London, these rumors began as an offhand joke on the Web site of the French publication Journal du Dimanche about Sarkozy having an affair with a staffer. Gossip sites picked up this jokey item as a serious piece of news, and the notion that the first French couple have an open marriage spread across continents. It's worth noting that the mainstream French media has ignored the entire kerfuffle, but the rumors bothered Carla Bruni so much she gave the following quote to Sky News about her husband: "He would never have affairs."

Maybe the elite French folks who run the newspapers still don't care if their president is having an affair—but the lowly Internet gossip types certainly do.

Tags: Carla Bruni, nicolas sarkozy, political affairs

Many women hope to give birth vaginally after experiencing a cesarean delivery—but VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) rates fell to an all-time low in 2004. Fewer than 10 percent of women had a VBAC, but the medical evidence shows that about 70 percent of women can successfully give birth vaginally even after cesarean delivery—and there are ways, although none absolute, of determining which women are more at risk of complications. (The most frightening possibility is uterine rupture, which generally results in an emergency hysterectomy and can—rarely—be deadly for the baby.)

The NIH hosted a two-day long conference earlier this week, hoping to reach some consensus recommendation for VBACs. They did, but it didn't represent much progress. Their draft statement calls for more research, more hospital policies surrounding VBAC, and policy-making to "mitigate" one of the primary things standing between women and VBACs: fear of lawsuits. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, along with the American Society of Anesthesiologists, were called upon to revisit their current requirements for the level of emergency response available in a hospital supporting VBACs, which some hospitals cite as a barrier. Anyone hoping for major change will be (and was bound to be) disappointed, but it does look like the medical establishment may be inching toward at least offering women an informed choice.

Tags: vbac

A woman without a high school degree in America has very few options in life. Apparently one of them is to “wage violent jihad,” in the words of our next iconic American female outlaw, the ready-made New York Post headline, Jihad Jane. In another era, Jihad Jane—the 4' 11" blond, blue-eyed Colleen Renee LaRose from suburban Philadelphia—would have been a petty grafter. She has a trail of bad checks, DUIs, and failed marriages to her name. But in this age, when immigrants live in every suburb in America and Osama is the new Che, LaRose declared she was “desperate to do something somewhere to help” suffering Muslims. In this case, authorities are implying, she decided to become involved in a plot to attack Lars Vilk, the Swedish artist who drew a cartoon of Muhammed with the body of a dog.

Like Amy Bishop, the Alabama professor arrested for shooting her colleagues, and Holly Graf, the world’s nastiest navy captain, I imagine the story of Jihad Jane will resonate in an age when women can do and be anything—even killers—and their power has become, to many people, frightening.

Tags: Colleen Renee LaRose, Jihad Jane

A middle-aged woman from the Pennsylvania suburbs, self-titled JihadJane, has been linked to an assasination plot against a Swedish cartoonist who depicted the prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog. She allegedly recruited a network of terrorists in Europe and Asia and travelled to Sweden to kills the man and scare "the whole Kufar [nonbeliever] world." [New York Times, Los Angeles Times]

Congressman Eric Massa is being investigated for allegedly groping two aides and propositioning male staffers. He has resigned—effective Monday—but on the talk-show circuit he equivocated about why. Massa told Glenn Beck that he got "too familiar with his staff," and on Larry King claimed it was for health reasons and argued on Sunday that it was a Democrat healthcare-related conspiracy. "This is a very sick person,” said Nancy Pelosi. [The Washington Post, Politico]

Both French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni, are allegedly having extramarital affairs. Rumors link Sarkozy to a right-wing cabinet member, Chantal Jouanno, and Bruni to the musician Benjamin Biolay. [NY Daily News]

The archdiocese of Denver, Colorado, refuses to re-enroll two children in a Boulder Catholic school because they have two moms. He insists it is a central tenet of Catholicism that "sexual intimacy by anyone outside marriage is wrong ... and that marriage can only occur between a man and a woman." [CNN]

According to a new study, the stronger a woman's immune system—measured by a diversity of genes of the major histocompatibility complex—the more sexual partners she has. [New Scientist]

Tags: affair, archdiocese, Benjamin Biolay, Carla Bruni, cartoons, Catholicism, Chantal Jouanno, Eric Massa, Glenn Beck, jihad, JihadJane, larry king, lesbian moms, Nancy Pelosi, nicolas sarkozy