Workers Strain to Retake Control After Blast and Fire at Japan Plant  —  TOKYO — Japanese officials and safety workers struggled to reassert control over badly damaged nuclear reactors and avert calamity on Tuesday after the situation at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant appeared …

Confidence Falls in U.S. System of Government  —  Confidence in the U.S. System of Government Drops to a 35-Year Low  —  Confidence in the U.S. system of government has dropped to a new low in more than 35 years, with public attitudes burdened by continued economic discontent …

Kansas legislator suggests using hunters in helicopters to control illegal immigration, likens immigrants to feral hogs  —  TOPEKA — A legislator said Monday it might be a good idea to control illegal immigration the way the feral hog population has been controlled — with hunters shooting from helicopters.

Huckabee, Bachmann Have Most Intense Following in GOP Field  —  Sarah Palin is best known, but her Positive Intensity Score trails  —  PRINCETON, NJ — Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee leads the field of possible GOP presidential candidates in “positive intensity” among Republicans nationwide …

N.R.A. Declines to Meet With Obama on Gun Policy  —  WASHINGTON — More than two months after the Tucson shootings, the administration is calling together both the gun lobby and gun safety groups to find common ground.  But President Obama has no plans to take the lead in proposing further …

The Abuse of Private Manning  —  Pfc. Bradley Manning, who has been imprisoned for nine months on charges of handing government files to WikiLeaks, has not even been tried let alone convicted.  Yet the military has been treating him abusively, in a way that conjures creepy memories …

Are Israeli Settlers Human?  —  A family of five slaughtered in their beds.  Some Palestinians call it ‘natural.’  —  A few years ago, British poet and Oxford don Tom Paulin offered a view on what should be done to certain Jewish settlers.  “[They] should be shot dead,” he told Al-Ahram Weekly.

USA Inc.  —  If the United States were a company, what financial shape would it be in?  And what would it make sense to do to put the company on a sounder footing?  These are the intriguing questions that a group of investment analysts from Kleiner Perkins, headed by Mary Meeker, set out to answer.

Don't donate money to Japan  —  Individuals are doing it, banks are doing it — faced with the horrific news and pictures from Japan, everybody wants to do something, and the obvious thing to do is to donate money to some relief fund or other.  —  Please don't.

Republicans wary of David Rivera scandal  —  Florida Rep. David Rivera, under an ethical cloud and facing an expanding investigation into his finances, is in a political squeeze from Republicans in Washington and Miami just two months into his congressional tenure.

Social Security reform splits White House political, economic teams  —  Social Security reform is splitting President Obama's economic and political advisers.  —  Obama is being pulled in opposite directions by those whose priorities are fiscal and those whose No. 1 concern is electoral.

To America's hot-to-protest college students  —  Not sure about you, but I was absolutely thrilled last week when Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed the legislation ending most collective bargaining rights for government worker unions.  The more these government employee unions get slapped around by reality, the happier I am.

Adam Hasner all but declares U.S. Senate run  —  Former state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner has formed an exploratory committee for an expected U.S. Senate run, the latest sign that Florida may have a sizable crowd of Republicans running to unseat Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.

Barbour meets and greets in Iowa  —  (CNN) - Appearing more and more like a presidential candidate, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour wraps up a two-day visit to Iowa Tuesday night by headlining a state Republican party dinner.  —  Barbour keynotes the Chairman's Dinner in Davenport, Iowa.

Fitzgerald: Dem senators won't be allowed to vote in committees  —  Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald wrote this afternoon in an email to his caucus that Senate Dems remain in contempt of the Senate and will not be allowed to vote in committees despite returning from their out-of-state boycott of the budget repair bill vote.

Former Senator Evan Bayh To Pair Lobbying With Conservative Television Punditry  —  When he first announced that he was stepping down from the United States Senate, Evan Bayh cited a lot of high-minded reasons for the decision.  So high-minded was his talk that Ezra Klein was moved to remark that …