Posey Gruener

Today or tomorrow, the House is expected to vote on a repeal of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, preventing gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military. It will be a close vote on a divisive issue. Nancy Pelosi has said that she would only bring the repeal to the floor if it had the votes necessary to pass. Todd Zwillich has been trying his best to count heads to see just how much support there is.

Over the past thirty years, the Gulf coast has become home to many Vietnamese Shrimpers. But the Gulf oil spill has put their livelihood in jeopardy.

UPresident Obama will send 1200 National Guard Troops to the US/Mexico border, an administration official announced yesterday. The president will also request $500 million for border patrol and law enforcement activities. This comes after demands from both Republicans and Democrats to tighten the Southwest border.

Since last month’s explosion on the Deepwater Horizon well, it seems like everyone has an idea for how to clean up the spill. BP spokesman John Curry told us on Friday that its call center had received 74,000 calls and 19,000 emails with recommendations for cleanup technology – everything from advice to services to equipment.

Smoking is in decline. This is good news for the CDC, but bad news for tobacco farmers. This month, Washington State increased their cigarette tax to more than three dollars a pack. And two new smoking bans will take effect this summer in Kansas and Wisconsin, making a total of 26 states that say no to smokers.

Today marks one month since the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The accident caused a massive fire that killed eleven workers. And days later, the rig capsized and sank. Ever since, an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil have been gushing into the Gulf every day. (That's a minimum, according to BP: Many observers think the rate is much, much higher.) Three companies are being held responsible: BP owns the well, Transocean owned the rig and Halliburton was contracted to run certain rig services. Over the past month, we've seen the executives from those three companies pass the blame around on Capitol Hill, we've heard leading politicians change their stance on offshore drilling, and we've learned of innovative technologies that have been used to try to plug the leak and clean up the spill (with little success).

The results are in. Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter lost the Democratic primary to Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Penn.), while incumbent Sen. Blanche Lincoln will now face Lt. Gov. Bill Halter in a run-off election in three weeks.

A study published yesterday in the Journal Pediatrics links pesticide exposure in children to a diagnosis of ADHD. When chemicals are everywhere, how can we keep ourselves and our children safe? 

Incumbent Senators Arlen Specter (D-Penn.) and Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) have had tough fights against primary challengers this spring. As polls open today, we look at these two bellwether races with reporters Michael Hibblen of public radio station, KUAR in Little Rock, and Susan Phillips of WHYY in Philadelphia.

We're talking about anti-incumbent fever. Would you vote against your Congressman or Senator today if you could?

• Finance Takeout: Last week, the euro dropped to its lowest point since October 2008 when Lehman Brothers collapsed. This, despite the $1 trillion bailout from the European Union; it seems that not even twelve zeroes can save Europe from it's current crisis of confidence. To talk about why, we turn to Louise Story, Wall Street and finance reporter for The New York Times.
• Listeners Respond: Takeaway listeners offered reading suggestions to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.

• Washington Takeout: Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan hasn't left much of a paper trail, but that could change. We talk to Takeaway Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich about the reams of paper the Senate will soon be sifting through to get a better sense of her record, and what Senate Republicans might be hoping to find. [Read the Senate's full questionnaire for Elena Kagan (PDF).]
• Sports Takeout: In the NBA and NHL Conference finals this week, historic teams are going against upstarts. We talk to Takeaway sports contributor Ibrahim Abdul-Matin about old wounds, fresh blood, and best bets.

Unemployment numbers were released this morning. They show that 290,000 new jobs have been added, the most in four years. However, the unemployment rate, which had been holding steady at 9.7 percent since January, rose to 9.9 percent in April. Managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute, Lakshman Achuthan says that although there seems to be a discrepancy with these numbers, they actually make sense as hopeful workers reenter the job force.

It's still not known what caused the fatal explosion at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine, a powerful blast that killed 29 miners in the worst mining disaster in a generation. But, in today's New York Times, a foreman from the Upper Big Branch Mine, speaking on condition of anonymity, revealed a pattern of lax safety practices that pointed to disaster.

Last month, the international community came together and pledged over $9 billion to the earthquake crippled country of Haiti. Now the question is, how should the money be used?

In 1980, R.E.M. played their first concert at a friend's birthday party. Thirty years later, they've become an iconic American alternative rock band with over 15 albums, containing almost 300 songs. In 2007, music blogger, Matthew Perpetua, decided to write a post about every single one of them. He joins the us to talk about some of his favorites.

Move over, Thanksgiving. Easter weekend is shaping up to be a big one for televised sports. The Final Four square off in Indianapolis Saturday, and Major League Baseball opens (in a major way) at Fenway on Sunday. Takeaway sports contributor Ibrahim Abdul Matin joins us to talk about what the weekend holds for the NCAA, and for the Yankees and the Red Sox.

Russia says it is suffering from a "tsunami" of heroin flooding the country, and all of it is coming from the poppy fields of Afghanistan. Addicts and counter-narcotics officers in Russia want NATO to do more to stop the influx of the drug.

The New York Times reported this week that top Vatican officials, including the future Pope, did not defrock an American priest who had sexually abused as many as 200 boys at a Milwaukee school for the deaf. Arthur Budzinski is one of the deaf victims named in the abuse case and he tells us how the experience changed his life. We also hear from his daughter, Gigi, who interprets on the air.

What does it mean to be categorized as "white" in this day and age? The census arrives in the mail this week and if you've gotten yours, you've seen these boxes to check off, indicating race: White, Black, Hispanic-White, Samoan, Filipino. But these categories are not static, and have changed over time as our cultural views of race have changed.

Even though his book, “The Genius In All of Us”, has the word "genius" in the title, author David Shenk doesn’t think it's a particularly useful term.