Stories Worth Talking About by 9 a.m.

WAG OF THE FINGER Baker

• Team player: Former secretary of state and new Iraq Study Group member James Baker may not have a "magic bullet," but he has friends in high places: "Everybody knows how close I am to the Bush family. But if our report is going to be worth anything, it has to be independent and it has to be our telling it like it is. And I'm here to tell you that's the way it's going to be," he told PBS's Newshour. Like how he told Florida voters in the 2000 election how it was going to be.

• Talking points: Yohane Banda, baby-daddy of Madonna's adopted Malawian child, is defending the pop star against critics who think she's (take your pick), a) a baby poacher; b) a publicity whore; c) a wannabe Angelina Jolie; or d) all of the above. "Where were these people when David was struggling in the orphanage?... Orphanage life is no good. We leave kids there because we can't look after them properly ourselves. Now my son has been taken by a kind-hearted woman, these people want to bring him back to the orphanage," he told reporters.

• Weighty concerns: Lawyers for Jeffrey Lundgren, a cult leader sentenced to death in Ohio for shooting a family of five, claim their client's obesity and diabetes make him too unhealthy to kill by lethal injection. His attorneys argue that the former Community of Christ leader's medical conditions raise the risk of pain and discomfort during execution.

• Almost 10 million served: The Sony battery recall continues apace, resulting in 9.6 million faulty lithium-ion batteries from Dells, Apples, and other computers being replaced worldwide. The company projects a 38 percent profit loss.

• Somehow Apple is fine: Profits are up for Apple, which boasted of selling 1.6 million Macs in the last quarter.

• 700 served pink slips: As expected, NBC is cutting 700 jobs—five percent of its workforce—and is consolidating operations in Rockefeller Center and hacking away at MSNBC, headquartered in Secaucus, N.J. Meanwhile, NBC/Universal TV chief Jeff Zucker says he'll address a 10 percent profit loss over three quarters by focusing on cheaper programming. Read a book, kids.

• Perv net: A 22-state hard-core child-pornography sting has nabbed a Boy Scout Leader, a Bible camp counselor, and 125 others (none of whom, oddly, were congressmen). "When I say 'hard-core' pornography, I am talking about child pornography that includes images of children as young as six months involved in bondage and sodomy," U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie said. Does the U.S. Attorney keep these images around ... you know, for, like, bait?

• Murder, suicide, voodoo: A woman's charred head was found on the stove and her dismembered body parts were in the oven of an apartment above a voodoo shop in New Orleans' French Quarter. The woman's boyfriend, who jumped to his death off of a nearby hotel, left a suicide note leading police to the body.

• Plucking Party at NBC News
• Let it Be