• Give it away: Rudy returns $9.11 checks in order to mute criticism about his capitalizing on the terrorist attacks. Too bad, too: He's also reporting his campaign burned through $13.3 million this summer, $1.7 million more than he raised.

• Staying the course: The death Sunday afternoon of Salih Saif Aldin, a WaPo reporter killed in Iraq, will not affect the paper's coverage of the war, says the executive editor.

• Erase your head: Cine-weirdo David Lynch visits Israel to promote transcendental meditation as a new means to eliminating violence. But can his 197-minute digital video project Inland Empire truly help dissolve what he says is people's "black cloud of negativity"?

• Price of admission: A college coach commands up to $40K per student, and claims 95 percent of her clients gain admission to their first-choice school. Mere pennies compared to the $200K Mom and Dad will shell out when the kids actually get there.

• Hassel-baby: Some dude manages not to be completely annoyed by America's favorite arch-conservative sprite, The View's Elisabeth Hasselbeck, long enough to knock her up.