Postal Service to Cut Saturday Mail  —  ABC OTUS News - US Postal Service to End Saturday Mail Delivery (ABC News)  —  Apparently trying an end-run around an unaccommodating Congress, the financially struggling U.S. Postal Service says it will stop delivering mail on Saturdays but continue to disburse packages six days a week.

Hagel Tells Lawmakers He Can't Provide Details On Speaking Engagements, Foreign Funders  —  “He is basically telling Senators they have no right to know if he has been unduly influenced by foreign governments or foreign agents over the last five years.  What is he hiding?”  GOP aide says.

With Brennan Pick, a Light on Drone Strikes' Hazards  —  SANA, Yemen — Late last August, a 40-year-old cleric named Salem Ahmed bin Ali Jaber stood up to deliver a speech denouncing Al Qaeda in a village mosque in far eastern Yemen.  —  It was a brave gesture by a father of seven …

We Had To Tax The Retirement Plan In Order To Save It  —  Duncan (He can't be Sirius) Black, the econ degree holder formerly known as Atrios, explains in USA Today that baby boomers face a retirement crisis which can only be solved by raising both taxes and Social Security benefits.  Really:

CNN Host Destroys Supporter Of Boy Scouts Discrimination For Equating Pedophilia With Being Gay  —  CNN's Soledad O'Brien challenged the conservative opposition to keeping gays scouts and leaders out of the Boy Scouts on Wednesday morning, comparing the organization's ban to past restrictions on African Americans and women.

Karl Rove Is Not a Conservative  —  Karl Rove — “The Architect,” as President George W. Bush called him — crafted Bush's two presidential campaigns and served as a key player in Bush's White House.  —  Now, with an assist from The New York Times, Rove is presenting himself as a conservative leader.

Poll Finds a Boost for Obama on Handling Immigration  —  Public approval of Barack Obama's handling of immigration has jumped to a career high in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, buttressed by majority support for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and, much more broadly, endorsement of stricter border control.

Women's Unclean Breasts Cause Diarrhoea, Says Egypt Prime Minister Hisham Qandil  —  By VASUDEVAN SRIDHARAN: Subscribe to Vasudevan's RSS feed  —  Egypt's prime minister, Hisham Qandil - Reuters  —  The inability of women in rural Egypt to clean their breasts is causing a diarrhoea epidemic …

Embattled Scott plans $100M campaign vs. Crist  —  Rick Scott is preparing to defend the Florida governorship with the most expensive reelection campaign in state history, drawing up plans for a battleship-sized political operation aimed at overcoming the Republican's deep personal unpopularity.

Fox News drops Dick Morris: Hooray  —  No more Fox News contributor Dick Morris.  His contract to spout republic-damaging nonsense on Fox airwaves has expired, and the network isn't renewing it.  —  Taken together with the news that Sarah Palin will no longer be contributing …

Obama to nominate REI chief Sally Jewell for Interior Secretary  —  President Barack Obama on Wednesday will nominate Sally Jewell, president and CEO of the outdoor and recreational retailer REI, to replace outgoing Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, a White House official confirmed to POLITICO.

Ahmadinejad: Iran already a nuclear state, but has no intention of launching attack on Israel  —  In interview with Al-Ahram on eve of Islamic Summit Conference in Cairo, Iranian president also says his country opposes outside intervention in Syria.  —  Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad …

Obama, drones, and the blissful ignorance of Americans  —  When it comes to the war on terror, most Americans rather conveniently employ an out-of-sight, out-mind attitude  —  leaked Department of Justice memo outlining the legal rationale for President Obama's aggressive drone policy …