Nukes scare people. The before and after satellite photos of Friday’s earthquake in Japan showed over the weekend that the resulting tsunami had sheared off and washed away whole sections of the country’s economy. But it was the threat of a nuclear meltdown that sent global markets plunging Tuesday. US investors drove the Dow down [...]
(White House/Pete Souza) –CIA contractor Raymond Davis has reportedly been freed by Pakistani authorities after families of his victims accepted compensation. –The latest from Japan: The widespread feeling of dread surrounding the nuclear crisis intensified further Wednesday when, for the second consecutive day, a fire broke out at reactor unit number 4, where 15 highly [...]
Ben Smith correctly identifies the first sort of interesting event in the Republican presidential primary race: Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour has had enough of Afghanistan and wants to start drawing down troops. No details about how many and when, of course–and, in the end, Barbour’s timetable may not be all that different from Obama’s, which, [...]
Members of the House’s Subcommittee on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, bless them, aren’t humorless. They gathered Tuesday to address the U.S. response to piracy, and as ranking Democrat Rep. Rick Larsen gave his opening statement, he quipped: “It’s clear that today’s pirate is no Jack Sparrow.” He also, as others did, remembered the [...]
As Alex notes below, the House today passed another short-term budget bill that makes a few billion dollars in new spending cuts while kicking the need to reach a broader spending deal down the road for three weeks. Congressional Democrats have been frustrated that the Obama White House is not fighting the GOP’s cuts more [...]
The House of Representatives has passed a stopgap spending measure to keep the government running through April 8. The continuing resolution, which passed by a 271-158 margin, includes $6 billion in discretionary spending cuts. Now it heads over to the Democratic-controlled Senate, whose leaders have been receptive to a short-term fix that would buy time [...]
Reps. Steve King and Michele Bachmann are among those who are really, really, really hoping health reform will be defunded by Congress this year. They’re hoping against hope. The real threat to Democratic health care reform – aside from the court challenges mounted against it – isn’t wholesale defunding. (Democrats in the Senate and President [...]
With Japan in a state of emergency and the Middle East still roiling in dangerous and unpredictable ways, President Obama has been notably absent from view over the past few days. This is of a piece with a recent strategy, coinciding with a staff shift that brought Bill Daley and David Plouffe to the White [...]
A handout satellite image of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant taken on March 14. (DIGITAL GLOBE REUTERS/Digital Globe/Handout) –The situation at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has turned from bad to worse, reports Bill Powell. A third explosion rocked the power facility early Tuesday, setting off fears of widespread nuclear contamination and prompting the government [...]
For a second time this month, Congress faces a weekend deadline to negotiate a stopgap funding measure to keep the federal government open. And as recently as Sunday, it appeared to be a relatively light lift. House Republican leaders and Senate Democrats have signaled support for a three-week continuing resolution that would trim $6 billion [...]
