Morning Buzz: Sept. 18, 2007

The number of Americans whose homes were foreclosed in August shot up 36 percent from those reported in July, doubling the number reported in August of last year. Many homeowners are unable to make mortgage payments or sell homes as a result of the sluggish housing market.

Earlier today, North Korea denied having a relationship with Syria involving nuclear weapons. Pyongyang was responding to suspicions that arose earlier this month about the two countries secretly cooperating.

The digital smiley face — :-) — turned 25 today. Carnegie Mellon University Prof. Scott Fahlman says he was the first to use the three key strokes—a colon, a hyphen, and an end-parenthesis—to create the horizontal face that was the first "emoticon," a symbol that allows people to express emotion in computer messages.