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But Tapscott’s paper has gotten there first. After Anschutz’s Baltimore Examiner newspaper was closed in February, more resources were allocated to the Washington paper. They’ve been used to scoop up talent from other conservative media. Tim Carney wrote a column about the lobbying industry while still editing the Evans-Novak Political Report; when founder Robert Novak decided to shutter it in January, Carney moved to the Examiner full-time. One week later, the paper hired Byron York away from a nine-year stint National Review, where he’d been the magazine’s lead political reporter. At the start of June it poached David Freddoso also of National Review, the reporter who’d written the bestselling “The Case Against Barack Obama” for Regnery, and it hired J.P. Freire, who had recently left The American Spectator, to be the managing editor of the editorial pages.

As Jon and Kate’s big announcement draws near, People.com reported that the reality show couple filed documents to initiate a legal split at the Bucks County Courthouse in Reading, Pa., Monday afternoon.

The United States said Monday its invitations were still standing for Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 celebrations at US embassies despite the crackdown on opposition supporters.

President Barack Obama's administration said earlier this month it would invite Iran to US embassy barbecues for the national holiday for the first time since the two nations severed relations following the 1979 Islamic revolution.

"There's no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.

"We have made a strategic decision to engage on a number of fronts with Iran," Kelly said. "We tried many years of isolation, and we're pursuing a different path now."

But he said it was not clear if Iranian diplomats had accepted the invitations.

Police have charged the tour manager of the Black Eyed Peas with assault after he allegedly gave celebrity blogger Perez Hilton a black eye outside a Toronto nightclub.

Hilton said he got into an argument with band members Fergie and will.i.am at the Cobra nightclub early Monday morning and was punched outside by Polo Molina, the band's tour manager. They were at the club following a Sunday night video awards show.

Molina turned himself in and has been charged with assaulting Hilton, Toronto Police Constable Tony Vella said. Molina is due in court Aug. 5.

Hilton, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira, complained about the incident on the microblogging site Twitter. He tweeted at 4 a.m.: "I am bleeding. Please, I need to file a police report. No joke."

Expectations for President Obama's stimulus package have diminished, with barely half of Americans now confident the $787 billion measure will boost the economy, and the rapid rise in optimism that followed the 2008 election has abated, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Eroding confidence in President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy and ability to control spending have caused his approval ratings to wilt to their lowest levels since taking office, according to a spate of recent polls, a sign of political weakness that comes just as he most needs leverage on Capitol Hill.

The good news for Obama is that his approval ratings — 57 percent in a Gallup tracking poll over the weekend — remain comfortably high by historical standards for presidents.

But the trend lines among a variety of polls over the past several days are unmistakable: Independents and even some Republicans who once viewed him sympathetically are becoming skeptical, and many people of all stripes are anxious about economic and fiscal trends.

Sen. Chris Dodd writes, "Public officials aren’t supposed to change their minds. But I firmly believe that it’s important to keep learning."
Hey, guess who now supports gay marriage? Chris Dodd. Gay Democratic donors, please note the reappearance of your fair-weather friend.

UPDATE: Once again, Dick Cheney leads, Chris Dodd follows.

I see that back in 1996, when the Defense of Marriage Act was up for debate, Chris Dodd said, "I agree with my colleagues who have risen and raised questions as to the motivations of why this legislation is before us. It is clearly, in my view, premature." Then . . . he voted for it anyway. Profile in courage!

U.S. President Barack Obama has accepted an invitation to attend the opening ceremony of the World Cup finals in South Africa next year, FIFA president Sepp Blatter said on Monday.
President Obama, whose late father was Kenyan, has indicated he will attend the event on June 11 next year when the first World Cup to be staged on African soil begins.

Blatter told a media briefing: "The World Cup in Africa will go well, there is no doubt.

"And the man who said, 'Yes we can do it,' will be there. President Obama has accepted an invitation to the opening ceremony.

"Of course the schedule of heads of state can change, but he has said he will be there if he can."

The whereabouts of Gov. Mark Sanford was unknown for nearly four days, and some state leaders question who was in charge of the executive office.

But Sanford’s office told the lieutenant governor’s office Monday afternoon that Sanford has been reached and he is fine, said Frank Adams, head of Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer’s office on aging.

Neither the governor’s office nor the State Law Enforcement Division, which provides security for governors, had been able to reach Sanford after he left the mansion Thursday in a black SLED Suburban SUV, said Sen. Jake Knotts and three others familiar with the situation but declined to be identified.

President Nicolas Sarkozy lashed out Monday at the practice of wearing the Muslim burqa, insisting the full-body religious gown is a sign of the "debasement" of women and that it won't be welcome in France.
In the first presidential address in 136 years to a joint session of France's two houses of parliament, Sarkozy laid out his support for a ban even before the panel has been approved—braving critics who fear the issue is a marginal one and could stigmatize Muslims in France.

"In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity," Sarkozy said to extended applause in a speech at the Chateau of Versailles southwest of Paris.

The French leader expressed support for a recent call by dozens of legislators to create a parliamentary commission to study a small but growing trend of wearing the full-body garment in France.

In Hawaii, state employees are bracing for furloughs of three days a month over the next two years, the equivalent of a 14 percent pay cut. In Idaho, lawmakers reduced aid to public schools for the first time in recent memory, forcing pay cuts for teachers.
And in California, where a $24 billion deficit for the coming fiscal year is the nation’s worst, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed releasing thousands of prisoners early and closing more than 200 state parks.

Meanwhile, Maine is adding taxes on candy and ski tickets, Wisconsin on oil companies, and Kentucky on alcohol and cellphone ring tones.

With state revenues in a free fall and the economy choked by the worst recession in 60 years, governors and legislatures are approving program cuts, layoffs and, to a smaller degree, tax increases that were previously unthinkable.

North Korea reminded the U.S. on Monday that it has nuclear weapons and warned it will strike back if attacked, as a U.S. destroyer continued to trail a North Korean cargo ship suspected of carrying illicit weapons.

The Kang Nam, previously involved in weapons shipments, is the first vessel monitored under new U.N. sanctions adopted after the North's nuclear test last month. It could become a test case for interception of North Korean ships at sea – something Pyongyang has said it would consider an act of war.

President Barack Obama said the U.S. is ready to cope with "any contingencies" amid reports the North appears to be preparing for a long-range missile test planned sometime around July 4, the Independence Day holiday. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered additional protections for Hawaii as a precaution.

North Korea has accused US President Barack Obama of plotting a nuclear war on the communist nation by reaffirming a US assurance of security for South Korea, the North's state media said.

In a first official response to last week's US-South Korean summit, the state-run weekly Tongil Sinbo said in its Saturday edition Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak "are trying to ignite a nuclear war".

Welfare rolls, which were slow to rise and actually fell in many states early in the recession, now are climbing across the country for the first time since President Bill Clinton signed legislation pledging "to end welfare as we know it" more than a decade ago.
Twenty-three of the 30 largest states, which account for more than 88% of the nation's total population, see welfare caseloads above year-ago levels, according to a survey conducted by The Wall Street Journal and the National Conference of State Legislatures. As more people run out of unemployment compensation, many are turning to welfare as a stopgap.

California's historic budget crisis threatens to devastate a public education system that was once considered a national model but now ranks near the bottom in school funding and academic achievement.

Deep budget cuts are forcing California school districts to lay off thousands of teachers, expand class sizes, close schools, eliminate bus service, cancel summer school programs, and possibly shorten the academic year.

Without a strong economic recovery, which few experts predict, the reduced school funding could last for years, shortchanging millions of students, driving away residents and businesses, and darkening California's economic future.

The daughter of Iran's former president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani and four relatives were arrested over their involvement in protests
against alleged election fraud in Iran, the Fars news agency reported on Sunday.

Faezeh Hashemi, a renowned women's rights activist, former parliament deputy and head of women sports in Iran, has in the recent years emerged, like her father, as one of the main opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Government media Sunday lashed out at opposition leader Mir Hussein Mousavi, suggesting that some of his actions were illegal and blaming terrorists for the deadly clashes here Saturday. But the former prime minister responded by strongly condemning the use of force against the protesters and urged his supporters to stay calm.

The president tells CBS News the country is "prepared for any contingencies" involving North Korea — including threat to attack Hawaii.

"I want … to give assurances to the American people that the t's are crossed and the i's are dotted in terms of what might happen."

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 32% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-four percent (34%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -2. That’s the President’s lowest rating to date and the first time the Presidential Approval Index has fallen below zero for Obama

A U.S. Navy destroyer is tailing a North Korean ship suspected of carrying illicit weapons toward Myanmar in what could be the first test of new U.N. sanctions against the North over its recent nuclear test, a leading TV network said Sunday.

The South Korean news network YTN, citing an unidentified intelligence source in the South, said the U.S. suspects the cargo ship Kang Nam is carrying missiles and related parts. Myanmar's military government, which faces an arms embargo from the United States and the European Union, has reportedly bought weapons from North Korea.

Comforted by the U.S. military's missile defense systems, Hawaii residents doubt a North Korean missile would light up the clear island sky like fireworks on the Fourth of July.

But that doesn't mean the islands' laid-back beach-goers aren't worried that a long-range missile could be launched in the direction of Hawaii's emerald mountains and white sand beaches around Independence Day.

"The North Koreans are unbalanced and could try anything," said Dan Gleason while walking his Jack Russell mix dog in downtown Honolulu. "If they do hit Honolulu, I hope it's a good shot, because I don't want to go through the aftermath."

President Barack Obama stuck to his carefully tailored response to Iran's internal crisis Sunday despite pressure from Republican critics, as he continued to speak up for protesters' rights without making specific demands on Iran's hard-line leaders.

"The last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make this an argument about the United States," Obama said in an interview released Sunday. "We shouldn't be playing into that."

The president spoke Friday during an interview with CBS News' Harry Smith. It will be broadcast Monday on "The Early Show."

Here are some Twitter messages I saw today from Change_for_Iran, a pro-Mousavi Iranian student, and Mark Knoller, CBS News White House Correspondent:

Ice cream run with the girls

POTUS, riding in his motorcade SUV, departed at 3:40 p.m. from the White House with daughters Malia and Sasha in tow.

POTUS took the girls on a sugar-coated Father's Day Eve jaunt to The Dairy Godmother, a boutique ice cream parlor in the Del Ray section of Alexandria, Va.

Malia had a waffle cone of vanilla custard and Sasha had a cup of vanilla custard. POTUS had a cup of vanilla custard with hot fudge and toasted almonds, the shopkeeper disclosed. The trio were in the shop for about 15 mins, and sat at a table and enjoyed their frozen treats.

POTUS and the girls received applause from the staff and patrons inside and a small crowd outside as they exited the ice cream shop. POTUS, carrying a bag of frozen "puppy pops" for Bo the First Dog, waved to the crowd before he hopped in the SUV.

The motorcade returned to the White House at 4:32 p.m.

Statement from the President on Iran

The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.

As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.

Martin Luther King once said – “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples' belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.

President Barack Obama's job approval rating fell to 58% in Gallup Poll Daily tracking from June 16-18 — a new low for Obama in Gallup tracking, although not dissimilar to the 59% he has received on four other occasions.

Sen. John Ensign’s (R-Nev.) office on Friday charged that the husband of the Senator’s ex-mistress sought cash in exchange for his silence about the affair, according to a statement released by his office. The statement did not say how much money was sought but said the proposed payment was rejected.
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Such attacks, including a string of devastating bomb blasts in April, have cast doubt on the ability of Iraqi security forces to take over after U.S. troops leave.

The bloodshed diminished significantly in May, and June has also seen fewer large-scale attacks.

It is not clear if that is due to the efforts of Iraqi police and soldiers, or if it means that insurgent groups, beaten back over the past two years in most of Iraq, now lack the organization and support to keep up the momentum.

Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Abdul-Karim Khalaf said al-Qaeda was resorting to paying people to fight for it. It had also turned to criminal activities to raise funds.

We talked about all this disruption with Joe Sebok, a poker player, the CEO of the Poker Road news site and a man with almost 330,000 people following him on Twitter. All the major poker news sites are racing to integrate Twitter and Sebok says his site isn't one of the biggest – but as far as we can tell, Poker Road's use of Twitter during the World Series of Poker may be defining the state of the art better than anyone else in the industry.

"It's completely changing poker for the audience," Sebok says of Twitter. "Traditional poker media coverage is a lot of hand histories online. It's bland and basic. Now you get to hear players exclaim and interact – 'oh I feel so sick' or 'oh that player is a knucklehead.' They upload pictures and they reply to each other. It gives you a sense of the pressure these guys are under and what it's like to be here."