Trump fails to produce birth certificate  —  Donald Trump made headlines earlier today when he provided what he said was a copy of his birth certificate — but a quick check reveals it's actually not an official document.  —  The paper that Trump released says “Jamaica Hospital” …

It's beginning to look a lot like a shutdown  —  (Alex Brandon - AP) Brian Beutler has a nice story running down the state of play on the budget negotiations.  The takeaway is that Republicans aren't just insisting that Democrats cut as deep as the GOP wants, but that they also cut in the way the GOP wants.

Obama's Libya speech: Full text as prepared for delivery  —  Here is the prepared text for President Obama's address on Libya Monday night:  —  Good evening.  Tonight, I'd like to update the American people on the international effort that we have led in Libya - what we've done, what we plan to do, and why this matters to us.

U.S. Plan to End Libya War: Hope The Generals Quit  —  NATO is taking command of the Libya war.  But the real strategy for victory over Moammar Gadhafi is found on the airwaves above Libya: communications frequencies telling his commanders to simply give up fighting.

WHO ARE THE REBELS?  —  Three of the world's great armies have suddenly conspired to support a group of people in the coastal cities and towns of Libya, known, vaguely, as “the rebels.”  Last month, Muammar Qaddafi, who combines a phantasmagorical sense of reality with an unbounded capacity for terror …

Wisconsin's Cronon Affair: The Power of a Simple Fact  —  More than a million people teach at colleges and universities in the United States, but only one faces a Republican demand for his e-mails: William Cronon, who teaches history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  —  Cronon is a brilliant historian.

When standardized test scores soared in D.C., were the gains real?  —  WASHINGTON — In just two years, Crosby S. Noyes Education Campus went from a school deemed in need of improvement to a place that the District of Columbia Public Schools called one of its “shining stars.”

Wisconsin Fight Goes to Court  —  As the dust settles in Madison, Wisconsin Republicans face a troubling coda: Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair bill is being tripped up in the courts.  Union heavies smell blood.  And the unruly parade of lefty activists and hulking Teamsters that occupied …

Facebook May Hire Robert Gibbs, Former Obama Aide  —  Facebook is in talks to hire Robert Gibbs, President Obama's former White House press secretary, for a senior role in helping to manage the company's communications, people briefed on the negotiations said.

Haley Barbour, slavery and the Civil War  —  Haley Barbour, the Mississippi governor and likely 2012 Republican presidential aspirant, has recently made a series of missteps involving race and the Civil Rights Movement.  He seemed unclear about basic historical points.

EU to ban cars from cities by 2050  —  Cars will be banned from London and all other cities across Europe under a draconian EU masterplan to cut CO2 emissions by 60 per cent over the next 40 years.  —  The European Commission on Monday unveiled a “single European transport area” …

After Paying Zero Income Taxes, GE Plans To Ask Its Union Workers To Make Wage And Benefits Concessions  —  Our guest blogger is Mike Elk, a freelance labor journalist and third generation union organizer based in Washington, D.C. You can follow him for more updates on Wisconsin on twitter at @MikeElk.

The Kill Team  —  How U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses - and how their officers failed to stop them.  Plus: An exclusive look at the war crime photos censored by the Pentagon  —  By  —  Early last year, after six hard months soldiering in Afghanistan …