Here is our roster of stories that managed to evade the full-on blog treatment:

• Democratic West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin is suing the Obama administration over its coal policies. (AP)

• House Republicans are planning a $45 million TV ad "blitz" in 62 congressional districts. (Politico)

• The FBI arrested 89 police officers in Puerto Rico in their largest police corruption sting ever. (The New York Times)

• A key witness in the first civilian trial of a Guantanamo detainee will not be allowed to testify. (BBC)

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The arrest of a 67-year-old senior federal judge in Georgia on drug and gun charges has created a "conflict of interest mess," according to the Associated Press.

Federal agents arrested Judge Jack T. Camp last week shortly after he bought $160 worth of prescription pills and cocaine from an undercover agent, authorities said. Owing to Camp's long career as a respected federal jurist, prosecutors and a magistrate had to be shipped in from out of state to handle his arraignment. All of his colleagues in Georgia recused themselves from involvement in the case. Now, defense attorneys in cases that Camp presided over are combing through his rulings to see whether his alleged penchant for hookers, strippers, cocaine and guns might constitute grounds for appeal.

According to the criminal complaint lodged against him, Camp, a Vietnam War veteran who was appointed to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan, began seeing a stripper he met at Atlanta's Goldrush Showbar last spring. The complaint says that Camp began regularly paying her for sex -- and to procure cocaine, roxycodone and marijuana, which they would use during their trysts. Camp offered to help the woman explain a federal drug conviction to a potential employer, followed her to drug deals with a handgun as "protection," and at one point considered inviting a female friend of the stripper's into their relationship, which he said "might have been fun," authorities said.

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Private employers shed 39,000 jobs last month, according to a new report from payroll processor ADP Employer Services. That's not a good number for a recovery -- especially because economists had been expecting an increase of 24,000 private-sector jobs in September. It's the highest monthly job loss ADP has posted since December .

The ADP numbers are just estimates; the official numbers for job gains and losses are due out from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday. But the ADP estimates have generally tracked the official BLS numbers -- according to one economist quoted by the Wall Street Journal, they have captured the direction of job growth or loss in 11 of the last 12 months. So there's a good chance that, on Friday, we'll learn that we were again losing jobs in Month 15 of the ostensible economic recovery.

And New Yorkers are losing income. According to a new report from the state comptroller's office (PDF), Empire State residents suffered a 3.1 percent drop in personal income last year -- the first time the state's aggregate income went down in more than 70 years. It's hard to imagine how New York went through the 1970s -- remember when New York City went bankrupt? -- without an income drop, but that just goes to show you how bad the past year has been. A good portion of that drop comes from a decline in "dividends, interest and rent," however -- meaning that a lot of the lost income was hyper-wealthy New York City residents downgrading to super-wealthy status after their expected financial-sector bonuses didn't come in.

Astonishingly, a chart accompanying the report shows that income in New York grew by more than $200 billion -- or 30 percent -- from 2004 to 2008:

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Rick Sanchez says there are "no hard feelings" with CNN after the news anchor got fired last week for a radio tirade that included calling Jon Stewart a "bigot" and suggesting that Jews run the media and therefore don't face discrimination.

Sanchez, in his first public statement since the controversy erupted five days ago, said that he had spoken with Stewart and had apologized for his "inartful comments." Sanchez added that he would "sincerely extend this apology to anyone else whom I may have offended."

Stewart joked about Sanchez's outburst on Monday's "Daily Show," and played a clip his staff already had in the works that compares the former CNN host to Michael Scott, the un-self-aware boss played by Steve Carell on "The Office."

However, Stewart also said that Sanchez had a "good heart" and acknowledged that Sanchez had spoken out against bigotry on his own CNN show. Sanchez followed up on Stewart's praise by saying he's "very much opposed to hate and intolerance, in any form, and I have frequently spoken out against prejudice."

Suzanne Sanchez, the journalist's wife, wrote on Facebook that her husband was dealing with "exhaustion" after several months of 14-hour days. Sanchez, too, mentioned fatigue as a factor. "Despite what my tired and mangled words may have implied," he said, "they were never intended to suggest any sort of narrow-mindedness  and should never have been made."

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This is not the kind of late-breaking news any candidate wants four weeks out from Election Day: Rep. John Tierney's wife pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal tax charges.

Patrice Tierney, wife of the seven-term Massachusetts Democrat, was charged with four counts of aiding and abetting her brother in filing false tax returns. The congressman is standing by his wife, whom he says "misplaced" trust in her brother, Robert Eremian.

Eremian had his sister manage a bank account allegedly used to deposit millions of dollars in illegal gambling profits. Eremian is now a federal fugitive indicted on gambling charges.

Though Tierney has been favored to win his re-election race, his wife's scandal has provided perfect election fodder for his opponent, Republican attorney Bill Hudak.

"It appears that this is something that has been going on a while -- eight years and $7 million is a lot of money," Hudak told The Upshot. "So, I'm generally calling on him to disclose what he knew and when about his wife's illegal activity because we need our public officials to be accountable."

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Over the summer, the president of the nation's largest teachers union told thousands of members that Obama's education policies were "not the change I hoped for."

"Today our members face the most anti-educator, anti-union, anti-student environment I have ever experienced," National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel said at group's annual convention in New Orleans, according to the New York Times' Sam Dillon.

But all the confrontational rhetoric hasn't meant that the nation's two major teachers unions -- the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers -- are withholding support from the Democratic Party this election cycle.  NEA Political Director Karen White tells The Upshot that the union is spending nearly $40 million to support vulnerable Democrats; what's more, White adds, the union fully supports President Obama's midterm strategy to use education as a "wedge issue" that differentiates Democrats from Republicans.

It turns out that the unions' backing springs from a source beyond all the sniping over the anti-union outlook of many Obama-backed education reformers. As White explains, teachers are still firmly in the Democratic camp because the party's congressional leaders procured $10 billion in aid for cash-strapped states to prevent teacher layoffs -- and did so over the objections of lawmakers who were reluctant to add to the ballooning federal deficit. She calls the funding a "huge motivator" for her members.

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Back in May, when the White House announced that President Obama would appoint an independent commission to investigate the BP oil disaster and the response to it, media reports said the group would "have a broad charter and wide investigative authority."

The breadth and independence of the panel now seem fully confirmed. The commission, headed by former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, a Democrat, and former George H.W. Bush EPA Administrator William K. Reilly, has issued its initial reports blasting the White House's handling of the spill crisis.

In four reports that it published online Wednesday, the commission assails the Obama administration's "over-optimism" in assessing the spill's impact. The documents also attack the White House for reportedly blocking the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from releasing information regarding potential worst-case scenarios.

"While it is not clear that this misplaced optimism affected any individual response effort, it may have affected the scale and speed with which national resources were brought to bear," one of the reports states.

Another report says: "By initially underestimating the amount of oil flow and then, at the end of the summer, appearing to underestimate the amount of oil remaining in the Gulf, the federal government created the impression that it was either not fully competent to handle the spill or not fully candid with the American people about the scope of the problem."

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How far will Meg Whitman go to win California's governor race?

Last month, the former eBay chief became the biggest self-funding candidate in political history, contributing $119 million of her own cash in the race. Now the GOP nominee has broken spending records again. According to a campaign finance report filed Tuesday, Whitman has now spent just over $140 million on her gubernatorial bid since she entered the race last year. That total includes her $119 million in self-funding, together with contributions from outside donors.

Yet Whitman still ended September with less cash on hand than her Democratic rival, Jerry Brown. According to his latest finance report, Brown enters the final stretch of the campaign with nearly $23 million in the bank, compared with Whitman's $9.2 million. All told, Brown has spent roughly $11 million on the race — though that sum doesn't include millions spent on TV ads on his behalf by labor unions in the state.

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Well, Delaware GOP Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell did say she'd be avoiding national press appearances. But the tea-party-endorsed hopeful recently managed to dodge national press coverage in a way that's only gotten her more none-too-complimentary media attention: Her campaign staffers evicted two producers from MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" from O'Donnell's campaign headquarters in Wilmington.

Maddow relayed some of the details to The Upshot on Tuesday afternoon. On Tuesday's night show, Maddow — along with executive producer Bill Wolff and producer Laura Conway — ran through the entire ordeal of trying to speak with an O'Donnell campaign staffer.

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"Project Runway" star Tim Gunn is the latest celebrity to release a powerful video urging gay teens not to take their own lives. He reveals his own suicide attempt as a young man.

"As a 17-year-old youth who was in quite a bit of despair, I attempted to kill myself. And I'm very happy today that attempt was unsuccessful, but at the time it was all I could contemplate," he says. "When I woke up the next morning after taking more than 100 pills, I was in a whole other level of despair. I thought, 'I shouldn't be here, this isn't what was meant to be.' I frankly just wanted to start life all over again."

Gunn says it took "a serious intervention to help me," and he urges teens considering suicide to reach out and get help.

Gunn released the video as part of writer and gay activist Dan Savage's project, called "It Gets Better," which features adults and teens telling bullied kids that their lives will improve. In the video, Gunn urges teens who need help to call the Trevor Project, a hotline for gay teens contemplating suicide.

Savage started the project in late September after two gay 15-year-olds committed suicide. The recent suicide of Rutgers teen Tyler Clementi drew national attention to the issue. Clementi threw himself off the George Washington Bridge after his college roommate allegedly broadcast online his romantic encounter with a man.

[First Person: A flamboyant boy's "immense, soul-quaking shame in being bullied"]

"The point of the videos is to give despairing kids in impossible situations a little thing called hope. The point is to let them know that things do get better," Savage said on his blog.

Since then, a slew of public figures have spoken out against anti-gay bullying in an attempt to raise awareness about the high suicide rate among gay teens.

You can watch Gunn's video below:

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