Anna Sale

Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is scheduled to announce at 3pm on Monday that he's forming a exploratory committee for a run for president. The official word will be available exclusively on Facebook, and to get to see it, you have to 'like' him.

Governor Andrew Cuomo said he's concerned over a report that one of the nuclear reactors at the Indian Point power plant along the Hudson River is on an earthquake fault line, and is checking into the matter.

Cuomo said it was a "surprise" to him that a federal study, first reported on MSNBC, finds Indian Point may be the nuclear plant most susceptible to possible damage from a massive earthquake in the nation.

One of the reactors is built very near an earthquake fault line.

At a hearing on Capitol Hill, Energy Secretary Steven Chu reaffirmed the Obama administration's support for U.S. nuclear energy development in the shadow of Japan's radiation fears.

"That position has not been changed," Chu said when pushed by Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) about whether President Obama still supports new domestic nuclear energy development. "That's a yes."

"That's what I wanted you to say," Barton said.

Stocks of GE declined in early trading on Tuesday because of concerns about the company’s connection to the nuclear reactors that are at risk of meltdown in the aftermath of the earthquake in Japan.

GE designed the six reactors at the Fukushima Dalichi nuclear power plant, where a third explosion erupted on Tuesday morning, which may have breached a reactor's inner containment vessels.

Now, nuclear experts are watching closely to see how well the earthquake-battered containment systems are containing radiation.

While nuclear power has enjoyed a resurgence of bipartisan support in Washington — like in this 2009 op-ed from Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) — the local politics around nuclear energy have remained charged. In both New Jersey and New York, leaders have been looking for exit plans for their decades-old nuclear plants.

Last year, President Obama was calling investment in new nuclear power plants “a necessity.” He reiterated his call for nuclear investment in his State of the Union this year and in his budget proposal, which calls for $36 billion in loan guarantees for new nuclear construction.  

Then, in the last 72 hours, two hydrogen explosions rocked Japan in the aftermath of the devastating tsunami and earthquake.

Now, Washington is readying its response, with key lawmakers urging caution, rather than a reconsideration, of domestic nuclear policy.

On the morning of the gubernatorial primary in Connecticut last August, Democrat Dannel Malloy stopped by a picket line to campaign, visiting nurses who had been striking for months.

The visit came back to haunt him in the general election, when his Republican opponent Tom Foley seized on the stop to show Malloy was “in the pocket" of unions, and cornered Malloy into insisting to voters that he hadn’t made any promises to public employees.

Malloy eked out a win, the first for a Democrat in Connecticut in twenty years, with a margin of about a half a percentage point.

“I thanked them for their support, but I also pointed out that one of the reasons it was as close as it was was because of their support,” Malloy said this week in his Capitol office. “And they know that.”

Standing next to one president, real estate mogul Donald Trump criticized another. Appearing today at a press conference to announce plans to build two luxury properties in the Republic of Georgia, Trump took a very campaign-worthy shot at President Barack Obama. 

First comes census numbers, then comes the redistricting battle. In New Jersey, a tiebreaker’s been brought in to settle the scuffle between jockeying Republicans and Democrats, while...

Donald Trump's continuing to lay the groundwork for a presidential run, and talking big about his grassroots outreach.

"I will meet many, many people, maybe all of people," Trump told The Des Moines Register. "If I decide to run, I will be shaking hands with everybody."

Former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich is announcing today that he's launching an “exploratory phase” to test the waters for a presidential run in 2012. His spokesperson told an Georgia radio host on Thursday that he’s launching a website, NewtExplore2012.com, but Gingrich is not forming a formal federal exploratory committee yet.

The rumors of Gingrich’s yen to take the oval office after a single Obama term have been swirling for over a year. He has been planting seeds in Iowa, a state whose early caucus is often a soothsayer for winning the Republican primary. For that reason, Gingrich has visited Iowa nine times in the past two years.

If he's going to get pension reform out of Albany, he doesn't want to have the unions, which support Albany lawmakers with huge contributions...as his enemies. He doesn't want that....

Former Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin did nothing to tamp down speculation about her 2012 plans during a speech in Long Island on Thursday.

When asked who would make the ideal Republican challenger, she said she couldn't offer any names, before adding, “What I would look for is a mom, somebody who's administered locally, state, interstate with energy issues, so maybe a mayor, a governor, an oil commissioner, maybe somebody who's already run for something, vice president. I don't know!”

“It's going to be a blast to see who does offer themselves up,” Palin said.

"Nobody knows Bill Daley in the White House. And yet Obama decided he needed someone who would force him out of his comfort zone and bring in people because of his network of cont...

We’re spending about a billion dollars a week on Medicaid, so when you have a 10 billion dollar deficit, anyone who thinks we’re going to somehow walk away from this problem witho...

What a difference an election makes. This week, President Obama loses his Democratic Congress as the GOP takes control. That’s the result of 63 local contests, where voters traded out a Democrat for a Republican.

The ideological transition maybe the most pronounced in New York’s 19^th Congressional District, which stretches through the Hudson Valley into parts of Westchester County.

At the No Labels gathering, the most resounding message from centrist politicians and consultants on the stage was simple: “We need backup.” Policy wasn't on the table so much as pol...

No Labels, but a lot of bold-faced names. Stars from politics and punditry will be at the Monday launch of a new independent group that's looking to seize the center of the national political debate.

It's been nearly a month since the midterm elections, but the impact on the elections of the Supreme Court's January decision that the government may not limit political spending by...

The recession was not kind to small business owners. As they closed down shop, big-box discount retailers moved in to grab their customers. But this holiday season – when consumers at...