AP - The government's use of legal exemptions to keep records secret rose during President Barack Obama's first year in office, despite promises of increased openness, an Associated Press review found.

AP - The Feds are on Facebook. And MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, too.

AP - Just back from a recent day trip to Georgia, President Barack Obama walked into the Oval Office and told his senior staff to get a grip.

AP - Michelle Obama has talked to schools and nutrition groups across the country in her effort to reduce childhood obesity. On Tuesday she will face the food companies that make the snacks and junk food that stuff grocery aisles and school vending machines.

Politico - Here is how health care could survive — or falter inches from the finish line.

Politico - Discontent among some of Obama's biggest fundraisers helped push out Rogers, says one source.

AFP - US President Barack Obama held a video call with Afghan head of state Hamid Karzai to discuss the war on the Taliban and progress in eradicating corruption, the Kabul government said Tuesday.

Politico - In an Ideas piece, Karp says technology may provide the map, but our values must remain the compass.

Politico - In an Ideas piece, the authors say Obama should tell regional allies a strike is highly unlikely.

AP - Irish police have charged two men from Algeria and Libya with minor offenses following a weeklong investigation into Muslim extremists allegedly involved in efforts to kill a Swedish artist.

AP - France's Socialists on Monday worked to secure alliances with rival leftists going into next weekend's final round of regional elections, an attempt to bolster their front against President Nicolas Sarkozy's struggling conservatives.

Time.com - If President Obama fails to win the upcoming congressional votes that are designed to get a health care bill to his desk, it will be one of the few times a loss truly threatens his future

CQPolitics.com - On any given day during House votes, Republican Reps. Don Young (Alaska) and Anh 'Joseph' Cao (La.) can be seen sitting next to each other in the upper-right side of the chamber, chatting and laughing.

AP - The government is warning of major flooding in the Midwest, confirming the fears of people in cities like Fargo, N.D. and Moorhead, Minn., where truckloads of sandbags are already rolling into town.

AP - The man who oversees U.S. forces in both the Iraq and Afghan wars says the fighting in Afghanistan will 'likely get harder before it gets easier' and predicts 2010 will be a difficult year.

Politico - House minority whip is worried about the administration forcing Israel to make new concessions.

Politico - Could Sheriff Joe become Governor Joe? Maricopa County lawman Joe Arpaio says he's thinking about running statewide and that at age 77, it's now or never. 'I get letters every day, from all over the country, all over the world, saying that I should run for governor,' the Republican firebrand told Fox 10 Phoenix. He's considered throwing his hat in the ring four times before, and he says he's confident he could beat any of the candidates already running. 

AFP - The US House of Representatives on Monday voted overwhelmingly to wish a Happy Nowruz for the Persian New Year, saluting contributions by Iranian Americans.

AP - North Korea should let farms produce freely and allow food to be sold in local markets because the communist government cannot provide enough food for its people, a U.N. human rights investigator urged Monday.

AFP - US President Barack Obama must move to defuse a bitter diplomatic feud with Israel and pursue a Middle East 'peace on Israel's terms,' one of his top critics in the US Congress said Tuesday.

AP - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says Israel must prove it is committed to the Mideast peace process with actions, but brushed aside suggestions that U.S.-Israeli relations are in crisis.

Politico - South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson is up with the first ad of his reelection campaign, featuring constituents praising the Republican for speaking out when 'most people have been silent.'

AFP - Under election-year pressure over trade-driven jobs, US senators were to unveil legislation Tuesday that would impose tough new penalties on China if it failed to revalue its currency.

AP - A museum tracing the history of Britain's 300,000-strong Jewish community is reopening after a 10 million pound ($15 million) expansion.

AP - France's railway operator says an 'internal error' caused it to post a false statement on its Web site saying a train explosion had killed 102 people.

AFP - US President Barack Obama held a video call with Afghan head of state Hamid Karzai to discuss the war on the Taliban and progress in eradicating corruption, the Kabul government said Tuesday.

AP - Democrats defended plans to push massive health care legislation through the House without a direct vote and Republicans assailed the strategy Tuesday, as both parties fenced ferociously over the health overhaul end game.

Politico - N.J. senator's lawyer had maintained senators cannot be removed by recall, but court rules otherwise.

AP - One year into its promise of greater government transparency, the Obama administration is more often citing exceptions to the nation's open records law to withhold federal records even as the number of requests for information decline, according to a review by The Associated Press of agency audits about the Freedom of Information Act.

AFP - President Barack Obama may have the chance within months to nominate a second justice to the US Supreme Court as the most senior member John Paul Stevens has hinted that he might be leaving.

AP - Vatican investigators have completed their probe into the Legionaries of Christ, the conservative order that was once hailed by Rome but fell into scandal after it revealed that its founder had fathered a child and had molested seminarians.

AP - It seems the British government's bark is worse than its bite.

AP - President Barack Obama's choice to be the first U.S. ambassador to Syria in five years went before a Senate committee Tuesday and said Syria remains a supporter of terrorist groups.

CQPolitics.com - House Democratic leaders are still struggling to produce a final health care overhaul bill at an acceptable official cost estimate, but Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer said Tuesday they continue to plan a final vote this week.

AP - Attorney General Eric Holder says Osama bin Laden (oh-SAH'-muh bin LAH'-din) will never face trial in the United States because he will not be captured alive.

AP - The top U.S. commander in the Middle East says Iran's efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon have been delayed 'a bit' and that Iran won't get a nuclear weapon this year.

Politico - 'Deem and pass' approach would be vulnerable to credible constitutional challenge, experts say.

AP - The State Department says the Obama administration's special envoy for Mideast peace, George Mitchell, has canceled plans for talks this week with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

AP - The wife and daughter of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are recovering from a violent crash last week that left them with injuries that could have been much worse, he told reporters Tuesday.

AP - The defense attorney for a former member of the Nazi SS who has confessed to killing three Dutch civilians during World War II says the case against him should be thrown out because he has already been tried in the Netherlands for the same crimes.

AFP - Bill Clinton predicted Tuesday that President Barack Obama's historic health care overhaul will become law, even as top Democrats hunted for the elusive votes to pass the sweeping measure.

CQPolitics.com - President Obama's nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to Syria, a post deliberately left vacant for years, encountered no resistance Tuesday at a Senate Foreign Relations confirmation hearing.

AP - With time and tempers short, everyone's playing hardball in the drive to pass — or stop — President Barack Obama's massive health care legislation by the weekend. Business groups are spending $1 million a day to depict the bill as a job killer in television ads in the home districts of 26 wavering House Democrats.

Politico - Monica Conyers makes a plea for a court-appointed lawyer as she appeals her federal bribery charge.

Politico - The question of whether bin Laden would be mirandized is absurd, says Holder.

AP - With the 2010 census under way, about 1 in 10 people may not participate in the population count, with many saying they see little personal benefit from the government survey or have concerns that it may be intrusive, according to a poll released Tuesday.

AFP - The US House of Representatives on Tuesday urged China to end its 'persecution' of the Falungong and rejected Beijing's charge that the banned spiritual movement is an 'evil cult.'

AP - As of Tuesday, March 16, 2010, at least 4,385 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Reuters - The leaders of France and Germany said they would consult their EU partners over concerns that protectionism is at play in a big U.S. military tanker deal that looks set to go to Boeing.

AP - The Senate on Tuesday easily killed a move by conservative Republicans to temporarily ban senators from earmarking spending bills with back-home projects like roads, water projects and grants to local governments.

Politico - 68-29 vote kills amendment by DeMint to establish one-year moratorium on earmarks.

Politico - Michelle Obama instructs grocery manufacturers to boost healthy food efforts to curb obesity.

AP - Financial institutions and their allies mobilized lobbyists and fueled their media campaigns Tuesday in a swift response to a Democratic plan to rein in Wall Street and protect consumers in their banking and borrowing transactions.

Reuters - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday criticized Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman for releasing information about what Ban said was a confidential telephone call between the two men.

Reuters - President Barack Obama is venturing into enemy territory to drum up last-minute support for health care reform ahead of a crucial vote in the House of Representatives.

McClatchy Newspapers - WASHINGTON — The number of sexual assaults reported in the U.S. military rose 11 percent last year, the Defense Department said Tuesday, but Pentagon officials conceded that they still don't know how common sexual assaults are because many troops fear retribution if the attacks come to the attention of their commanders.

Politico - Some members are getting calls from Obama – for others the pressure tactics are less friendly.

Reuters - President Barack Obama is venturing into enemy territory to drum up last-minute support for healthcare reform ahead of a crucial vote in the House of Representatives.

McClatchy Newspapers - WASHINGTON — The Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly defeated a bid to freeze spending earmarks for a year.

Politico - Most of the unhappy Republicans express their displeasure in temperate terms – but not all.

AFP - Facing election-year pressure over unemployment, US senators have introduced legislation that would impose tough new penalties on China if it failed to revalue its currency.