Time.com - The Senator's retirement is a double test for Governor Charlie Crist -- of his own ambitions and of his party's outreach to women and minorities

Time.com - Ezekiel Emanuel, Obama's 'Deadly Doctor,' Strikes Back

Bloomberg - Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama, whose effort to revamp U.S. health insurance has run into angry protests and slumping public approval, urged Americans to ignore opposition “scare tactics” fanning baseless fears about Democratic health-care plans.

AP - President Barack Obama's campaign for a health care overhaul is an intense installment in a long-running story, dating to Theodore Roosevelt in 1912.

AFP - US President Barack Obama on Tuesday condemned the wild 'scare tactics' peddled by foes of his healthcare reform plan in a passionate defense of his signature domestic priority.

Bloomberg - Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continues her African journey in Nigeria today where she will seek to improve ties with the largest U.S. oil supplier on the continent while offering to help it tackle corruption.

Politico - Frustrated older Americans are packing the town halls on health care.

AP - The newest addition to the Supreme Court pays her nominator a visit Wednesday.

AP - Iranian authorities have freed a French Embassy employee on trial in Iran from a Tehran prison, President Nicolas Sarkozy's office announced Tuesday, asking that a young French academic also be quickly freed.

AP - Tarzan is back! (Cue distinctive jungle yell.)

AP - A proposed government plan to use National Guard troops to help stem Mexican drug violence along the southern border is stymied by disagreements over who will pay for the soldiers and how they would be used.

Politico - In an Ideas piece, Nethercutt says that Democrats are out of touch with�unrest over national debt.

AP - The FBI and police were investigating after a swastika was painted outside Rep. David Scott's district office in Georgia, an act the suburban Atlanta Democrat said reflects an increasingly hateful and racist debate over health care and should remind people to tone down their rhetoric.

AP - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has accused Ukraine of endangering European gas supplies, and threatened to delay sending a new Russian ambassador until relations with its neighbor improve.

Reuters - Ensuring justice in last November's Mumbai attack is a 'high priority' for President Obama and the United States will keep pressing Pakistan for action against its planners, a top U.S. diplomat said on Wednesday.

CQPolitics.com - Tiberi has seen his re-election percentages decrease as Democrats make gains in his Columbus-based district. Though his 55 percent victory in 2008 was no nailbiter, it was the closest of his four re-election races and it came against an underfunded and little-known Democratic opponent.

AP - Sen. Arlen Specter faced more jeers and taunts during another town hall meeting that turned into a vocal debate about health care reform.

AP - Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, the blunt-talking conservative who once was the No. 3 Senate Republican, will make appearances this fall in the early caucus state of Iowa.

AP - A top U.S. commander in Iraq said Tuesday that simmering ethnic tensions between Kurds and Arabs remain a grave threat to Iraq's stability, especially after American forces depart.

Bloomberg - Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged U.S. support for Nigeria’s efforts to combat militants who have slashed oil production in the Niger Delta, while the country’s foreign minister predicted peace would be restored to the region by year’s end.

AP - Afghan pilots-in-training soon will begin using force to join the fight in their country.

AP - Looking for ways to boost business, the Postal Service is planning to offer discounts to some of its best customers.

Politico - Why the vicious tone? Some of the nation’s rowdiest Town Hallers say it feels therapeutic.

AP - NASA is charged with seeking out nearly all the asteroids that threaten Earth but doesn't have the money to do the job, a federal report says.

AP - The Supreme Court's newest member and first Hispanic, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, has spoken emotionally about her ascension to the high court.

AP - Slovakia is observing a day of mourning for 20 fatal victims of a fire and explosion in a coal mine, one of the worst accidents in the country's history.

AP - The construction minister in Russia's violence-plagued Ingushetia was shot to death in his office Wednesday, the latest in a series of high-profile attacks on top officials in the restive republic.

AFP - An explosion of joy greeted the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor, Wednesday, as President Barack Obama hailed her elevation as 'a great day for America' at the White House.

CQPolitics.com - The FBI is investigating the discovery of a painted swastika at the office of Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., who is among the lawmakers drawing the most attention for exchanges with constituents at town-hall meetings on health care.

AP - As Congress agonizes over health care, an even more daunting and dangerous challenge is bearing down: how to shore up Social Security to keep it from burying the nation ever deeper in debt.

AP - The White House says anyone who painted a swastika on a sign outside the office of a congressman recently involved in a heated argument over health care should be ashamed.

Politico - Senators and members of Congress continued to get battered by constituents angry about President Barack Obama’s reform plan Wednesday.

Politico - Obama's envoy warns that Afghanistan's presidential election may have a muddled result.

AP - A satirical political party that calls for rebuilding the Berlin Wall has launched a campaign fronting a chancellor candidate chosen at a casting call to add pizzaz and humor to Germany's largely predictable parliamentary election.

AP - NATO may face tough losses as Taliban guerrillas gain ground in the escalating war in Afghanistan, but ultimately the alliance will win, NATO's supreme commander said Wednesday in his first interview since taking charge.

AP - Nancy Snyder says she kept quiet when abortion was legalized and prayer in schools was eliminated. Not this time.

AP - President Barack Obama is presenting the nation's highest civilian honor to 16 actors, athletes, activists, scientists and humanitarians.

AP - The Obama administration is sending officials to Michigan to tour a state prison that could be used to hold terrorism suspects now detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

AP - President Barack Obama threw a big White House party Wednesday to celebrate Sonia Sotomayor as the Supreme Court's first Latino justice � and to publicly savor the victory sure to earn him points with politically potent Hispanics.

AP - The Obama administration is sending a delegation to Syria for talks this week on ways to stem the movement of foreign fighters into Iraq.

AP - A 90-year-old former German army officer convicted of Nazi-era war crimes said Wednesday that the verdict against him was a 'swindle.'

AP - Which is nicer to have echoing through a small Italian village � the chiming of bells or the banging of pots?

AP - Seven companies on government life support � bailout recipients like General Motors and Citigroup � face a deadline Thursday to propose compensation packages for their highest-paid employees, which will have to get the thumbs-up from the Obama administration's 'pay czar.'

AP - Nancy Snyder says she kept quiet when abortion was legalized and prayer in schools was eliminated. Not this time.

AP - President Barack Obama awarded the nation's highest civilian honor to 16 'agents of change' on Wednesday, highlighting their accomplishments as examples of the heights a person can reach and the difference they can make in the lives of others.

AP - A company with a $4.6 billion contract to supply U.S. forces in Iraq with Arabic-speaking translators received a scathing review on Wednesday from government officials who described tens of millions of dollars in questionable costs and poor management.

Politico - A document dump this week from the House Judiciary Committee?s long-running probe into the 2006 firing of nine U.S. attorneys has exposed a stark disagreement in the stories told by former White House aide Karl Rove and former Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.).

AP - John Demjanjuk's attorney filed a motion Wednesday calling for the Nazi death-camp case against his client to be closed, saying the charges against him violate German legal precedent.

McClatchy Newspapers - WASHINGTON � When Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson takes the floor at a meeting at Vineville United Methodist Church in Macon on Thursday, he's expected to face tough questions about why President Barack Obama credits the Republican lawmaker as the inspiration behind the Democrats' push for end-of-life counseling efforts that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and some fellow conservatives call 'death panels.'

McClatchy Newspapers - KABUL, Afghanistan � The U.S. military commander in Afghanistan is considering pulling American troops out of some remote outposts on the country's mountainous eastern border with Pakistan, where local guerrillas are allied with the Taliban and al Qaida, U.S. officials told McClatchy.

Politico - If drug and insurance companies fail to shape reform in their image, the'yre preparing to go negative.

Politico - He honors Harvey Milk and Billie Jean King among 16 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

AP - Police said Wednesday they have arrested a suspect in connection with a daring daytime heist that netted $65 million worth of jewelry from a prominent London diamond merchant last week.

AP - California's ongoing water crisis is a major national priority, akin to restoring the Chesapeake Bay or Florida's Everglades, a top Obama administration official said Wednesday.

Bloomberg - Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged U.S. support for Nigeria’s efforts to combat militants who have disrupted oil production in the Niger Delta, while the country’s foreign minister predicted peace would be restored to the region by year’s end.

Politico - “I’m sorry, I’m laughing, I’m sorry,” Steele said as he tried to respond to Specter.

AFP - Democratic Senator Jim Webb is to meet Myanmar supremo Than Shwe later this week in the first high-level encounter between a senior US official and the junta strongman, Webb's office said Thursday.

AP - Former Vice President Dick Cheney believes his old boss, President George W. Bush, gradually turned away from his advice during their second term in the White House, showing a surprising independence as he started taking more flexible positions on a range of issues, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

AP - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon marked the 60th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions on Wednesday with a plea to all countries to take steps to ensure that civilians and other non-combatants are protected during armed conflicts.

CQPolitics.com - President Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan said Wednesday that the administration feels pressure 'to produce results' in the volatile region, but couldn't define exactly what those results would be.