EXCLUSIVE: White House asked Bill Clinton to talk to Joe Sestak about Senate run  —  Senior White House advisers asked former President Bill Clinton to talk to Joe Sestak about whether he was serious about running for Senate, and to feel out whether he'd be open to other alternatives, according to sources familiar with the situation.

He Was Supposed to Be Competent  —  The spill is a disaster for the president and his political philosophy.  —  I don't see how the president's position and popularity can survive the oil spill.  This is his third political disaster in his first 18 months in office.

Oil Flow Is Stemmed, but Could Resume, Official Says  —  HOUSTON — By injecting solid objects as well as heavy drilling fluid into the stricken well leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico overnight, engineers appeared to have stemmed the flow of oil, Adm. Thad W. Allen of the Coast Guard …

Folks' data shows 600 Haley calls  —  Colleagues' talks prove nothing, candidate's manager says  —  COLUMBIA — In 2007, the year political blogger Will Folks claims he had an affair with state Rep. Nikki Haley, the two spoke by phone at least 600 times.  —  Some of those calls came late at night …

OPINION POLL: U.S. SENATE RACE: Survey shows Lowden gives GOP best chance of winning in fall  —  Lowden would attract more independent voters than Reid  —  Republican Sue Lowden has the best chance of defeating U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, according to a new poll for the Review-Journal that also suggests …

Rand Paul Suggests Children Of Illegal Immigrants Should Not Be U.S. Citizens (VIDEO)  —  Here's another one for the list of out-there Rand Paul statements...  Paul recently suggested to a Russian TV station that the U.S. should abandon its policy of granting citizenship to the children …

The Atlantic Has A Mess On Its Hands  —  The Atlantic Magazine thought it would be able to speak poetic historical justice, by splashing the headline that the original reviled one, Kenneth Starr of Monica and Bill and Blue Dress and Impeachment fame, had been arrested for running a Ponzi Scheme.

Marine's cheeky Sarah Palin tattoo the butt of jokes  —  Gunnery Sgt. Benjamin Lepping, an explosive ordnance disposal technician currently deployed to Afghanistan, says former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is “the hottest cougar in the Republican Party.”  (Left photo by the AP.

House Votes to Allow Repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Law  —  WASHINGTON — The House voted Thursday to let the Defense Department repeal the ban on gay and bisexual people from serving openly in the military, a major step toward dismantling the 1993 law widely known as “don't ask, don't tell.”

GOP moves to repeal healthcare law  —  House Republican leaders introduced a bill Thursday to repeal and replace the sweeping healthcare law adopted in late March.  —  According to Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the measure would repeal the current law and replace it with the alternative …

The Chinese Economic Model  —  Something that emerges quite quickly and a bit unexpectedly from being taken around on an economics-focused tour of China is that the Chinese economic miracle is really a great deal less of a “free market” miracle than the conventional understanding in the United States would suggest.

Louisiana Fishermen: “How Are We Going to Live?”  —  I spent a heartbreaking three hours with Louisiana fishermen Jim and Angel.  They work and live on a mid-size shrimping boat docked on Grand Isle, Louisiana.  They've been through Hurricanes Katrina, Gustav, and Ike.

Mass. Senate passes crackdown on illegal immigrants  —  With one lawmaker citing President Lincoln's respect for the rule of law, the Massachusetts Senate passed a far-reaching crackdown this afternoon on illegal immigrants and those who would hire them, going further, senators said …

Poll finds anger over country's leaders  —  WASHINGTON — Americans are increasingly optimistic about the economy, but that brightening outlook hasn't softened their outrage over the country's direction and its political leadership, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds.

Health insurance rate hikes hitting California small businesses could hurt state's economic recovery  —  Small firms say they are curtailing plans for hiring and expansion amid rising insurance bills.  —  Small businesses in California are being hit this year with double-digit hikes …

New York Subway System Is Getting a New Map  —  In a city of world-class art museums and an instantly recognizable skyline, no image is more closely examined than the New York City subway map, the ubiquitous blue-and-taupe rectangle scrutinized by millions.  —  Now the subterranean icon is poised to get a spruce-up.