The Commentariat -- March 22, 2012

Linda Greenhouse of the New York Times: "The constitutional challenge to the [Affordable Care Act]’s requirement for people to buy health insurance — specifically, the argument that the mandate exceeds Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause — is rhetorically powerful but analytically so weak that it dissolves on close inspection." News Flash: "unprecedented" does not equal "unconstitutional."

War on Women -- Supreme Edition. Nicole Belle of Crooks & Liars on the Supreme's 5-4 decision yesterday to negate part of the Family Leave Act (see yesterday's Ledes): "I'll be damned if the conservatives on the Supreme Court weren't getting jealous of all the congressional and state-level battles in the war on women and decide that they needed to take up arms themselves.... First, conservatives want to make sure you get pregnant by limiting access to birth control, then force you to have the baby by limiting access to abortions, then if you get fired for taking time off to have the baby, you have no right to recourse for being fired. Great. All these things that have been litigated decades ago and established as basic rights have been inverted."

Michael Scherer of Time: "The most recent filing by Restore Our Future, the technically independent group supporting the candidacy of Mitt Romney, revealed a number of firms — a for-profit school, several payday lenders, and a chemical company – whose bottom lines have been threatened or harmed by regulations supported by the Obama Administration.... The contributions represent a clear realization of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which permitted independent spending by corporations to directly influence the outcome of elections for the first time in decades: If politicians mess with a company’s bottom line, that company now has the power to directly retaliate...."

New York Times Editors: "Stand Your Ground laws are abominations that should be repealed."

Major Garrett of the National Journal: "The White House has chosen to own the energy debate on its terms, which is to say talk about alternative energy instead of gas prices. They know Republicans want to use high pump prices as a weapon against Obama's heavy investment in solar, wind and other forms of alternative energy (even algae)." ...

... Amy Gardner & Scott Wilson of the Washington Post: "The White House has launched a concerted effort to turn political weakness into strength on two critical election-year issues that have become big vulnerabilities for President Obama: rising gas prices and the controversial health-care law." ...

Daily Kos: In Illinois' 10th District, progressive Congressional candidate Ilya Sheyman loses to a ConservaDem.

Right Wing World

It's Gaffe Day in Willard's World!

Gaffe No. 1. I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again. -- Eric Fehrnstrom, longtime aide to Mitt Romney, on Romney's general election strategy

You take whatever he said and you can shake it up and it will be gone and he’s going to draw a whole new picture for the general election. Well, that should be comforting to all of you who are voting in this primary. -- Rick Santorum

Etch a Sketch is a great toy, but a losing strategy. -- Newt Gingrich, tweet ...

... Jeff Zeleny & Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "Mitt Romney sought to use the coveted endorsement of Jeb Bush on Wednesday to amplify his call for Republicans to rally behind his candidacy and get on with the mission of ousting President Obama.... The comments from Mr. Fehrnstrom followed a Romney campaign pattern of committing unforced errors after major victories. ...

... Philip Elliott of the AP: "... Mitt Romney tried Wednesday to shake accusations that he's an inconsistent conservative after a top adviser compared the campaign's shift from primary fight to general election to an Etch A Sketch.... His Republican rivals and Democrats were positively giddy over the remark, which gave them an opening to resurrect a familiar story line that the former Massachusetts governor will take any position on an issue to get elected." ...

... CW: the other connection Romney has to Etch-a-Sketch is pretty interesting:

... Steve Benen: "The knock on Romney since Day One has been that he's a shallow, unprincipled politician, willing to say anything to anyone to win. 'Etch A Sketch' is so perfect a metaphor, it's extraordinary that it came from the candidate's own communications director." ...

... CW: Ha ha. Even the New York Times Home & Garden section weighs in with a little history of the Etch-a-Sketch. This portrait of Romney is not going away. ...

Gaffe No. 2. I keep hearing the president say he's responsible for keeping the country out of a Great Depression. No, no, no, that was President George W. Bush and [then-Treasury Secretary] Hank Paulson. -- Mitt Romney ...

... Jon Chait of New York magazine: Oops! "Obama’s plan is to depict Romney as continuing the failed policies of the Bush administration. Praising Bush’s economic stewardship is probably not the wisest strategy.... the Wall Street bailout is actually a huge political liability for Obama because it’s incredibly unpopular and most Americans think Obama, not Bush, signed it. So having Romney run around reminding people that Bush bailed out Wall Street is actually Obama’s prayer answered."

CW: This long New Yorker article by Louis Menand is a pretty good analysis of how Willard looks at life. Menand is a fine writer, so reading it won't make you gag, & it will help you understand why Romney is such a cold fish.

Paul Krugman: "... are people finally willing to concede that [Paul] Ryan is not now and has never been remotely serious? And — I know this is probably far too much to ask — are they going to do a bit of soul-searching over how they got snookered by this obvious charlatan?"

Local News

Norma Love (apparently her real name) of the AP: "New Hampshire lawmakers on Wednesday rejected a bill that would have made their state legislature the first one to repeal a gay marriage law, handing gay-rights supporters a key victory in the Northeast, where same-sex marriage is prevalent. The state House voted 211-116 to kill the measure, ending a push by its new Republican majority to rescind New Hampshire's 2-year-old gay marriage law. Nevertheless, both sides are pledging to continue fighting into the fall elections."

News Ledes

Reuters (via the NYT): "JPMorgan Chase quietly paid $384 million to American Century Investment Management after losing an arbitration over accusations of breaches related to the bank’s purchase of a retirement plan services business." JPMorgan wanted to buy American Century so stacked the deck to lower the company's value -- needless to say, in violation of the contract.

New York Times: "The embattled Florida police chief overseeing the investigation into the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin temporarily stepped down Thursday, a day after the Sanford City Commission voted 3-to-2 that it no longer had confidence in him. The move comes as thousands gathered in Sanford Thursday night for a rally to protest the police department’s handling of the case that [was] live-streamed." ...

... Orlando Sentinel: "Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi today appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, removing the state attorney who had been considering the case, they announced tonight. Scott and Bondi appointed State Attorney Angela B. Corey, whose office handles cases in Duval, Clay and Nassau counties. Scott today also created a task force headed by Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll to review Florida's 'Stand Your Ground'" law...."

Los Angeles Times: "Singer Whitney Houston appears to have suffered a heart episode before accidentally drowning in the bathtub of a Beverly Hills hotel suite, according to coroner's officials who listed cocaine use as a contributing factor."

New York Times: "The Senate gave final approval on Thursday to an ethics bill that bans insider trading by members of Congress, clearing the measure for President Obama, who called for such legislation in his State of the Union address two months ago. The legislation was adopted by unanimous consent after the Senate voted, 96 to 3, to end debate on the bill, which was approved in the House last month by a vote of 417 to 2."

New York Times: "Staff Sgt. Robert Bales will be charged on Friday with 17 counts of murder and various other charges, including attempted murder, in connection with the March 11 shooting deaths of Afghan civilians, a senior United States official said on Thursday."

New York Times: "A 23-year-old Frenchman who claimed responsibility for the killings of four men and three children died on Thursday after jumping from a balcony as security forces stormed the apartment where had been holed up for more than 30 hours, Claude Guéant, the French interior minister said."

New York Times: "A group of junior officers in the West African state of Mali, upset over the conduct of a sporadic guerilla war in the country’s north, has seized control of the country’s national television station and its presidential palace in an apparent coup attempt."

The Commentariat -- March 21, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is titled "David Brooks -- Natural-Born Killer." The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.

Alexander Burns of Politico: "... the voters of 2012 ... appear to be wandering, confused and Forrest Gump-like through the experience of a presidential campaign. It isn’t just unclear which party’s vision they’d rather embrace; it’s entirely questionable whether the great mass of voters has even the most basic grasp of the details – or for that matter, the most elementary factual components – of the national political debate." ...

... Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic finds the Alexandra Pelosi video above offensive because the gist of it is to laugh at, not with, the voters. ...

... Dave Weigel of Slate disagrees: "There’s no shame, no journalistic crime, in finding the ignorance and pointing it out."

Sam Stein of the Huffington Post: "Top officials in President Barack Obama's administration pushed back Tuesday on a report that they would still support a debt-reduction deal nearly reached this past August with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio)."

Adam Sorensen of Time calls the 17-minute Obama campaign documentary "Gloom You Can Believe In." Video of the film is embedded in his post.

John Sides of the Monkey Cage: the conventional wisdom notwithstanding, a recent study shows that Americans may not be self-segregating in neighborhoods of like-minded political persuasions.

Public Policy Polling: "Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren leads Republican Scott Brown by 5 points, 46-41, a new poll from Public Policy Polling finds. Warren has increased her lead from 46-44 the last time PPP polled Massachusettes in September 2011." CW: a couple of polls in the last few weeks have showed Brown ahead of Warren, so this is a good thing.

In a few days, I will lay down my official responsibilities in this office -- to take up once more the only title in our democracy superior to that of president, the title of citizen. -- Then-President Jimmy Carter, farewell address ...

... Emily Yoffe of Slate: "Politicians like Newt Gingrich who cling to their old titles are pretentious, incorrect, and un-American."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times reports on new, strong evidence that William Rehnquist lied -- twice -- during his confirmation hearings for Justice & Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to cover his own opposition to Brown v. Board of Education, and in the process, smeared a former Justice.

Brian Ross, et al., of ABC News: "More than a year after 29 people were trapped in a fire at a garment factory in Bangladesh used by well-known American clothing brands, an ABC News investigation found the retailers right back in business at the factory. And labor groups say dangerous conditions such as locked gates and shoddy wiring persist.... In advance of the ABC News report, the company that produces the Tommy Hilfiger line announced it would be the first company whose clothes were being made during the deadly blaze to demand changes -- committing to spend more than $1 million to enforce a set of safety reforms demanded by labor rights groups."

Right Wing World

     ... From Americans United for Change.

Following is some analysis & commentary on the Republican House's proposed budget. Also, be sure to see the comments in yesterday's Commentariat. Our contributors really hit the essentials.

... Ezra Klein: "Here’s the basic outline of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s 2013 budget in one sentence: Ryan’s budget funds trillions of dollars in tax cuts, defense spending and deficit reduction by cutting deeply into health-care programs and income supports for the poor." ...

... Edwin Park of the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities: "House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s new budget again proposes to radically restructure Medicaid by converting it into a block grant and to slash federal funding by about one-fifth over the next decade (as well as to repeal health reform’s Medicaid expansion). All told, it would add tens of millions of Americans to the ranks of the uninsured and underinsured." ...

... Igor Volsky & Travis Waldron of Think Progress list the five worst things about Ryan's budget. ...

... Steve Benen: "... some of the more offensive elements of the plan -- forcing seniors to pay more for health care; cutting coverage for the elderly and disabled; eliminating coverage for 30 million Americans; giving a big tax cut to the wealthy; cutting the safety net while increasing Pentagon spending -- and it's worth appreciating the fact that the American mainstream doesn't support any of this.... Last April, just four House Republicans voted against the Ryan plan. This year, I suspect that number will go up, not down." ...

... AND this from Benen, another post worth reading in its entirety: "I realize there's nothing I can say to convince the political establishment to stop treating Paul Ryan like a Very Serious Person and start treating him like an Ayn Rand-loving con man, but his budget plan is a bad joke."

... Ed Kilgore of the Washington Monthly: "... if you want to know how Ryan’s proposal is likely to affect you without looking at a lot of charts or believing a lot of phony assurances, just ask yourself: are you part of a demographic or economic category that tends to vote Republican? You’ll probably do okay, and you’ll do much better the wealthier and/or the more dependent you are on robust defense spending. Otherwise, look out!"

Public Policy Polling: "Callista Gingrich is actually pretty unpopular, with an 18/44 favorability rating. But it's at least better than her husband's 28/61."

Local News

Carl Hiaasen in the National Memo: "Among its dubious achievements this year, the Florida legislature passed a law authorizing random drug tests for state workers. Guess who's exempt? Lawmakers themselves. So now the clerk down at the DMV gets to pee in a cup -- but not the knuckleheads in Tallahassee who control $70 billion in public funds. Whom do you think is more dangerous to the future of Florida?" CW: this is a fabulous column by a superb writer, which I comment to you to read for the fun of it.

Robert Gehrke of the Salt Lake City Tribune: "Utah Gov. Gary Herbert [R] signed legislation Tuesday requiring women to wait 72 hours before receiving an abortion, giving the state the longest waiting period in the country.... Marina Lowe, an attorney with the Utah chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which urged the governor to veto the bill, said the new Utah law raises serious constitutional questions."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Outrage over the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, 17, in central Florida continued to grow across the country, with more than a thousand people rallying Wednesday night in New York City and civil rights leaders planning more demonstrations in other cities in the coming days. In Sanford, Fla., on Wednesday night, the city commission passed a vote of “no confidence” in Police Chief Bill Lee Jr."

New York Times: "The JOBS bill, which would make it easier for small companies to raise money from investors, is now scheduled for a vote on Thursday, after the Senate considers two Democratic amendments to tighten proposed rules on how companies raise financing online and to strengthen other provisions that were approved by the House."

New York Times: "Criminal defendants have a constitutional right to effective lawyers during plea negotiations, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday in a pair of 5-to-4 decisions that vastly expanded judges’ supervision of the criminal justice system. The decisions mean that what used to be informal and unregulated deal making is now subject to new constraints when bad legal advice leads defendants to reject favorable plea offers." ...

... New York Times: "By a 5-to-4 vote that split along ideological lines, the Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that state workers may not sue their employers for money for violating a part of the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. The decision prompted the term’s first dissent read from the bench, by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who said the justices in the majority had made it harder for women 'to live balanced lives, at home and in gainful employment.'”

New York Daily News: "Cops rousted about 300 Occupy Wall Street protesters camped out in Union Square Park early Wednesday. One person was arrested. The demonstrators moved into the camp on Saturday, continuing the protest against economic inequality that started this summer in Zuccotti Park."

New York Times: "Mitt Romney swept to victory in the Illinois Republican primary on Tuesday, using the full force of his campaign and an argument that he has the best chance of defeating President Obama to overcome doubts among the more conservative voters at the heart of his party." ...

... The Chicago Tribune's complete election coverage of the Illinois primaries. Most notable, besides Romney's big win: "Iraq War veteran Tammy Duckworth won the Democratic primary tonight in the 8th Congressional District. Duckworth had 66 percent of the vote to 34 percent for Raja Krishnamoorthi, a former deputy state treasurer with about 60 percent of the vote in.... Duckworth will challenge Republican Rep. Joe Walsh, the conservative firebrand.... Walsh is seeking re-election on mostly new turf in northwest Cook and northeast DuPage counties."

ABC News: "The Florida police department handling the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teen by a self-appointed neighborhood watch leader admitted to ABC News tonight that investigators missed a possible racist remark by the shooter as he spoke to police dispatchers moments before the killing.... On a tape of one of Zimmerman's 911 calls the night of the shooting, he is heard saying under his breath what sounds like 'f**ing coons.' Seconds later he confronted Martin and after a brief scuffle shot him dead.... It's the latest in a series of possible police missteps uncovered by ABC News."

Washington Post: "The Senate will move ahead later this week with the House version of a congressional ethics package, including a formal ban against insider trading on Capitol Hill, but jettisoning tough provisions that had won bipartisan approval in the Senate.Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), in a Tuesday afternoon floor speech, announced that he would not compel a conference committee to hash out the differences between the two chambers’ approaches to the STOCK Act, setting up likely final passage of the legislation by early next week."

New York Times: "Hundreds of elite police officers surrounded a multifamily residence in Toulouse early on Wednesday and were negotiating with a 24-year-old man suspected in the killings this week of three young children and a rabbi at a nearby Jewish school, French officials said." The Guardian has a good liveblog of the unfolding story.

New York Times: "The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Tuesday that medical tests that rely on correlations between drug dosages and treatment are not eligible for patent protection."

Reuters: "Little Rock, Arkansas renamed its airport to honor two of its most famous citizens -- former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the airport commission said on Tuesday."

The Commentariat -- March 20, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on journalistic standards of the New York Times. I actually have something nice to say! The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.

Neil deGrasse Tyson makes the case for NASA -- and the future of the nation:

In today's Comments, contributor P. D. Pepe refers to this editorial in today's New York Times: A "study, issued Monday by a consortium led by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan watchdog group, found that most states shy away from public scrutiny, fail to enact or enforce ethics laws, and allow corporations and the wealthy a dominant voice in elections and policy decisions. The study gave virtually every state a mediocre to poor grade on a wide range of government conduct, including ethics enforcement, transparency, auditing and campaign finance reform. No state got an A; five received B’s, and the rest grades of C, D or F."

Our Corrupt President & Congress. New York Times Editors: the House has passed, the Senate is about to pass & the President will sign a JOBS bill that is all about deregulation & not about jobs. "Its opponents — the current and former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the association of state securities regulators, AARP, the Consumer Federation of America, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. labor federation and unions, several big pension funds and many prominent securities experts — have presented ample evidence to show that deregulation raises the cost of capital by harming investorsand impairing markets, making it harder for legitimate companies to thrive." Why pass & sign it? "... they can all get more from corporate constituents if they cooperate to enact legislation that big donors want." CW: I just wrote to the POTUS & urged him to "Prove you're not corrupt & veto the JOBS bill." It made me feel better.

"How Obama Tried to Sell out Liberalism." Jonathan Chait of New York magazine: "... Obama’s disastrous weakness in the summer of 2011 went further toward undermining liberalism than anybody previously knew." Read Chait's analysis. We knew dribs & drabs of this last summer, & everything I read at the time was startling/dismaying. Chait nails it down. ...

... Here's the Washington Post story Chait writes about. CW: I skimmed it; too painful to read. ...

... Greg Sargent: why Obama concentrated on deficit reduction as jobs hemorrhaged: "Dems and White House officials knew that the policy justification for the pivot to deficit reduction was flimsy at best. But they decided they couldn’t win the short-term argument, and went ahead and pivoted, anyway."

... "Political Malpractice, Deficit Edition." Paul Krugman: "... the various accounts of what went wrong are converging on a very depressing picture, in which White House political 'experts' actually believed that trying to please the Washington Post editorial page was a winning political move."

Dahlia Lithwick & Raymond Vasvari in Slate: "H.R. 347, benignly titled the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act, passed the House 399-3.... President Obama signed it on March 8.... Simply put, the way the bill will 'improve' public grounds is by moving all those unsightly protesters elsewhere.... The teeny cosmetic changes to Section 1752, which purport to be about new kinds of security, are really all about optics. They conflate dissent with danger, a Cold War habit which America was beginning to outgrow, but which after 9/11 seems to be a permanent part of the political landscape." CW: as I recall, contributor Dave S. first brought HR 347 to our attention.

Mary Pat Flaherty, et al., of the Washington Post: "Like many others..., Robert Bales, the Army staff sergeant being held in a massacre of 16 villagers in southern Afghanistan..., enlisted out of a sense of civic responsibility.... But Bales’s decision to join the Army also came at a pivotal point in his pre-military career — a career as a stock trader that appears to have ended months after he was accused of engaging in financial fraud while handling the retirement account of an elderly client in Ohio.... An arbitrator later ordered Bales and the owner of the firm that employed him to pay $1.4 million — about half for compensation and half in punitive damages — for taking part in 'fraud' and 'unauthorized trading.'" Bales' victim says he has not "been paid a penny" of the award. "... the finding of financial fraud adds to an increasingly complex picture of a man who ... had repeated encounters with the law, including an arrest on suspicion of drunken driving, involvement in a hit-and-run accident and a misdemeanor assault charge. In addition to those incidents, he had evidently been under financial stress. His home near Tacoma was put up for a short sale a few days before the March 11 shootings in Afghanistan." ...

... NEW. Charles Pierce on Robert Bales & Trayvon Martin. CW: I'll have something to say on this myself later today or tomorrow.

Alex Pareene of Salon: White Police Chiefs Ray Kelly of NYC & Bill Lee of Sanford, Florida, complain everybody victimizes white police chiefs. CW: every so unkindly, Pareene describes Kelly "as an officious prick on a raging decade-long power trip." I've personally encountered both Kelly & Lee, & to be fair, I'd say they are both officious pricks.

Right Wing World

Exclusive! Secret Code Names Revealed! Marc Ambinder in GQ: "GQ can reveal the [Secret Service code] names chosen by the top two GOPers: ... Mitt Romney elected to call himself 'Javelin.' And Rick Santorum chose 'Petrus.' ... 'Petrus' is a biblical allusion — as in St. Peter, the first pope. (The Latin name is derived from the Greek word for 'rock.') Perhaps 'Javelin' is a reference to the '60s muscle car made by American Motors Corporation, the company once run by George Romney."

Quote of the Day. We need a candidate who's going to be a fighter for freedom.... I don't care what the unemployment rate's going to be. Doesn't matter to me. My campaign doesn't hinge on unemployment rates and growth rates. -- Rick Santorum

One way to tell a candidate has reaches his "sell-by" date: reporters start dumping their deeply-reported and analytical stories. It happened with Perry; it happened with Gingrich; and so today, as polls show Romney likely to pull out a big win in Illinois, we have THIS:

... Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "Over the last decade, Mr. Santorum has been a prolific writer of op-ed articles, letters to the editor and guest columns in some of the country’s largest and most influential newspapers. All the while he displayed many of the traits that define him as a presidential candidate today: a deep and unwavering Catholic faith, a suspicion of secularism and a conviction that the country was on a path toward cultural ruin." ...

... AND. Stephanie McCrummen & Jerry Markon of the Washington Post: "Within the story of how Santorum grew up and decided to run for president, there is the story of a boy who grew up to become ever more devoutly Catholic, a journey all the more relevant as Santorum has vigorously asserted a role for religious conviction in the realm of governance." Although he says he is not a member, Santorum has embraced Opus Dei, a group that "has been criticized ... by former members as 'cult-like.' ..."

After reading the fact-free comments to his column yesterday, Krugman explaiins Right Wing World: "... a large and cohesive bloc of voters lives in an alternative reality, fed fake facts by Fox and Rush — whom they listen to out of tribal affiliation — and completely unaware that it’s all fiction. It’s also, by the way, why attempts at outreach by Obama will fail. Even if he gives the GOP 95 percent of what it wants, these voters will never hear about it; they will still know, just know, that he’s a radical bent on destroying America."

Local News

Emily Bazelon of Slate: "Trayvon Martin's killer remains free" because "Florida’s self-defense laws have left Florida safe for no one — except those who shoot first."

News Ledes

At about 8:40 pm ET, NBC News projects Mitt Romney as the winner of the Illinois GOP presidential primary. Here's the New York Times page on the results.

Chicago Tribune: "Illinois primary voters head to the polls today to choose nominees for the fall in races from the White House to county courthouses after a final week of campaigning that saw the Republican presidential battle overshadow lower-level candidates seeking attention.... Democratic voters ... will decide several heated congressional contests in newly drawn districts."

AP: "Conservative Republicans controlling the House unveiled a budget blueprint Tuesday that combines slashing cuts to safety net programs for the poor with sharply lower tax rates in an election-year manifesto painting clear campaign differences with President Barack Obama. The GOP plan released by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan would, if enacted into law, wrestle the deficit to a manageable size in short order, but only by cutting Medicaid, food stamps, Pell Grants and a host of other programs that Obama has promised to protect." Washington Post story here.

Washington Post: "Federal authorities announced Monday night that they are opening a full-scale criminal investigation into the slaying of an unarmed black Florida teenager [Trayvon Martin] whose death provoked an outcry from African American leaders and sparked calls for gun-control reforms in Florida." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "A grand jury will hear evidence next month in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black Florida teenager [Trayvon Martin] by a neighborhood watch volunteer, the state attorney’s office for Brevard and Seminole Counties announced on Tuesday."

... ABC News: "In the final moments of his life, Trayvon Martin was being hounded by a strange man on a cellphone who ran after him, cornered him and confronted him, according to the teenage girl whose call logs show she was on the phone with the 17-year-old boy in the moments before neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman shot him dead."

New York Times: "As Iraq prepares to showcase itself to the world next week with a highly anticipated gathering of Arab leaders, a string of suicide attacks and car bombing on Tuesday morning offered a bloody reminder that insurgent violence still wreaks havoc with the country’s tenuous stability. The attacks killed at least 43 people in a half-dozen cities across the country...."

New York Times: A major [Pakistani] parliamentary review of relations with the United States opened on Tuesday with calls for an end to drone strikes and an unconditional apology for an American attack on Pakistani soldiers last November."

AP: "A gunman who killed four people at a French Jewish school may have filmed the attack, the interior minister said Tuesday, as hundreds of police combed southern France for the killer, suspected in three other deaths."

Guardian: "North Korea has invited the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to return, three years after expelling its nuclear monitors, the agency says.Without disclosing North Korea's terms, the IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor said it had received the invitation on Friday.