Kate Middleton's Painful Pregnancy, Obama to Jump Off Fiscal Cliff?

Biography.com's "Week in Review" highlights interesting people who've made the news this past week—thanks to their endeavors, big ideas, triumphs, importance in history, or magnanimous gaffes. While there were many people to choose from this week, here are our top picks that made us either raise an eyebrow, roll our eyes, shed a tear, or just gave us a good chuckle.

Kate Middleton: The Royal Pains of Pregnancy

For those of you who are dead and may not have heard the news, Kate Middleton is pregnant—and thankfully, isn't "retching" at the moment. The Duchess of Cambridge's recent diagnosis of hyperemesis gravidarum, the severest form of morning sickness, which had her bedridden in a London hospital for days, has given women who are skittish about pregnancy a reason to be thankful for birth control. (But in all honesty, the condition only affects two percent of the preggars population.)

On Thursday, Prince William escorted both a smiling Kate and the world's most famous embryo back to their home but not without some embarrassing media interloping mishaps—which ultimately ended up turning tragic.

Earlier in the week, two Australian radio disc jockeys, masking themselves with ridiculously laughable British accents, got through to the hospital nurses monitoring Kate and were able to get some details about her condition over the phone. Needless to say, it was a huge embarrassment for the hospital.

Although we don't have full details, the nurse who initially took the prank call (not the one who divulged information) was found dead on Friday of an apparent suicide.

Source: CBS News, NY Times

Lord Fisher Credited to Have Been the First to Use 'O.M.G.'

Technophiles around the world celebrated the 20th anniversary of texting this week.

But before you older folks roll your eyeballs at the thought of gum-chewing tween girls ruining the English language with their countless, ever-evolving acronyms like "LOLz" and "YOLO," you might want to blame this old dude—British admiral John Arbuthnot "Jacky" Fisher (a.k.a. Lord Fisher)—for being the first to start the trend of saying one of the most popular abbreviated words ever.

In September 1917, the admiral wrote a letter to Winston Churchill, apparently upset about a newspaper headline. He wrote: "I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis—O.M.G (Oh! My! God!)—Shower it on the Admiralty!!"

Do you think he may have spoken with a Valley Girl accent when he said that?

Source: Free Republic

Obama Might Go 'Dukes of Hazzard' Over the Fiscal Cliff?

With less than a month before the Bush-era tax cuts expire, there seems to be chatter that President Barack Obama may be open to going over the fiscal cliff to incriminate Republicans' fierce protection of the richest Americans.

Given that polls show that most Americans favor Obama's plan to increase taxes on the wealthy and would blame Republicans if the country falls into economic oblivion if no deal is passed, it seems that the GOP has a lot more to lose if they don't start making concessions.

Many political opinionators are urging Republicans to acquiesce, for by doing so, they might still have leverage of getting the president to agree on making cuts to entitlement programs.

With the future of their party on the line, a small but growing number of influential Republicans like South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and New York Representative Peter King are starting to rethink their no-tax-on-the-wealthy pledge they made to lobbyist Grover Norquist.

Could the day soon come that we hear the Republican call out, "Mr. Grover, Mr. Grover, we're letting taxes come over!"? It may not be a pipe dream, folks.

Source: Yahoo News, CNN

Anna Wintour: Ambassador of Fashion to Ambassador of the U.K.?

It's always a breath of fresh air when we're able to discuss women in the news outside the context of frivolous Mean Girl gossip or simply getting pregnant (oops, you didn't really read that Kate Middleton blurb above, did you?).

And so it comes with great pleasure that we present to you this prominent political possibility: There's talk that the Obama administration is considering Anna Wintour as its next U.S. ambassador to the U.K. (The fact that the Vogue editor in chief conjures images of Prada, blackout sunglasses, and Jimmy Choos may take away from the gravitas of the announcement, but let's not go there.)

The British born Wintour, who is now an American citizen, was a huge financial backer in Obama's re-election campaign—a prerequisite for being considered for the swanky post. One source tells the Los Angeles Times that the poker-faced fashionista raised more than $1 million for the president.