A suicide bomber "blew himself up at the entrance to a crowded Shiite mosque" just south of Islamabad yesterday, killing at least 26 people. It was "the third suicide attack in Pakistan in 24 hours, in a sign that the Pakistani Taliban are overwhelming the nation's security forces."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is arming her diplomatic efforts with a new set of tools including Facebook, text messaging, and YouTube. The State Department has hired a new staffer whose job will be to "blend technology with diplomacy in an attempt to help solve some of the globe's most vexing problems on health care, poverty, human rights and ethnic conflicts."

The U.N. Security Council met yesterday to discuss North Korea's rocket launch but "took no immediate action." The U.S, Japan, and South Korea said the launch violated resolutions banning missile launches by Pyongyang, but China and Russia "were not convinced that the launch…constituted a violation of U.N. rules."

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said yesterday that Cuba "does not fear dialogue" with the U.S. and praised Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) "for calling for a new U.S. policy of engagement" with Cuba. "We don't fear dialogue…[n]or do we need confrontation to exist, as some fools think," Castro wrote in an internet column. Dialogue "is the only way of procuring friendship and peace between peoples," he said.

And finally: Since his stints as a plumber, war correspondent, economist, and anti-labor crusader have had only mixed results, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher is taking up a new cause: abolishing the IRS. In a video at IRSvote.com, Wurzelbacher says, "I'm here to ask my fellow Americans to join me to make this the last year we ever have to file a tax return. I'm going to give the American people the opportunity to vote the IRS out." Visitors can then "vote via the Internet, or by sending a text message or making a phone call to a 900 phone number. However, the site warns that they will be charged 99 cents a vote."

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The U.S plans to "step up its use of drones to strike militants in Pakistan's tribal areas and might extend them to a different sanctuary deeper inside the country." The Pakistani government has "expressed concerns that the missile strikes from remotely piloted aircraft fuel more violence in the country."

A long-secret International Committee of the Red Cross report found that medical officials were deeply involved in the torture of terrorist suspects held overseas, constituting a "gross breach of medical ethics." The report found that the "medical professionals' role was primarily to support the interrogators, not to protect the prisoners, and that the professionals had 'condoned and participated in ill treatment.'"

"The traditional teaching career is collapsing at both ends," a National Commission on Teaching and America's Future report says. One in three new teachers is leaving the profession within five years and "over the next four years, more than a third of the nation's 3.2 million teachers could retire."

And finally: Shortly after throwing out the first pitch at the Yankees-Orioles Opening Day game yesterday, Vice President Biden "went up to the announcers booth and brought the house down, poking fun at the anonymity of his office, mocking his own baldness, and making a well-timed joke about former V.P. Dan Quayle's failures as a speller." When the announcers told the Vice President that he was handling his job well, Biden jokingly replied, "No one ever remembers your name. It's okay." Watch it here.

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Energy Secretary Steven Chu said yesterday that the U.S. should invest in so-called "clean coal" technology. "It absolutely is worthwhile to invest in carbon capture and storage because we are not in a vacuum," Chu said, adding that even if the U.S. and Europe move away from coal, "India and China will not." "Quite frankly," he said, "I doubt if the United States will turn its back on coal."

"Members of Congress and advocates for the armed services pushed back" yesterday against Defense Secretary Robert Gates' plan to reform the Defense Department budget by cutting some traditional weapons systems while investing in others. Military analysts told the New York Times that the biggest lobbying campaigns will be aimed at stopping Gates' deep cuts to F-22 and the Future Combat Systems.

"Three members of the Congressional Black Caucus met with ailing former Cuban President Fidel Castro on Tuesday," marking the first time that "Castro has met with any American officials since he fell ill and had intestinal surgery in 2006." The lawmakers are interested in relaxing travel and trade restrictions between Cuba and the U.S.

Al Franken (D) "extended his lead over former Sen. Norm Coleman (R) in the ongoing Minnesota Senate recount on Tuesday," increasing his winning margin to 312 votes. "There are still legal issues to be resolved in recount court, but Coleman can no longer gain enough votes to overtake Franken." Yesterday, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) called on Coleman to concede.

And finally: Was that First Lady Michelle Obama on F Street in D.C. yesterday? No, it turns out that it was just the unveiling of her wax likeness at Madame Tussauds. Nevertheless, there was a block-long line outside the museum of people itching to glance the new statue. The wax Michelle Obama is dressed in a "custom-designed red sleeveless dress and black cardigan" and "stands in the museum's replica Oval Office." One visitor said that the figure was "[e]xactly like her" because it captured her "essence."

The White House is "open to compromise on certain key elements of its climate-change agenda, including whether businesses could get some emissions allowances for free." An Obama administration spokesman said the president prefers a "100% auction" but "will be flexible during the policy-making process as long as those larger goals" of a clean-energy economy are met.

A coalition of liberal groups called Health Care for America Now (HCAN), which includes the AFL-CIO, Campaign for America's Future, and MoveOn.org, is "waging a national grassroots campaign this week to demand that all Americans be given access to government-run public health insurance plans." They are also pushing centrist senators like Evan Bayh (D-IN) to allow health care legislation to pass through budget reconciliation.

The team organizing the Chicago Tea Party protest has rejected RNC Chairman Michael Steele as a speaker. Eric Odom, the event's organizer, explained: "[W]e prefer to limit stage time to those who are not elected officials, both in Government as well as political parties."

And finally: The Colorado Division of Motor Vehicles has turned down a vegan driver's license plate request for "ILVTOFU." According to the agency, "the plate might be offensive to some people." "We don't allow FU because some people could read that as street language for sex," explained a spokesman for the Department of Revenue. Kelley Coffman-Lee, the woman who requested the personalized plate, said that she simply wanted to show her love for tofu, a "staple" for her vegan family.

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"Slowly but surely," President Obama's $787 billion economic recovery package "is beginning to percolate nationwide, six weeks after" he signed the legislation. Some of the money is arriving quickly, such as $337 million for community health clinics, but "White House officials say the bulk of the money will start hitting the streets later this year and early next." The goal is to spend 70 percent of it by the summer of 2010.

"The ailing financial and retail sectors showed tentative signs of strength yesterday, as financial markets "surged" with the news that Wells Fargo had earned record profits from January to March. Though yesterday's data offer "some hope that the darkest days of the recession could be ending," the recession "remains severe, and economists stress that the worst for U.S. workers is still to come."

A new study by Environment America predicts that global warming "could rob the U.S. economy of $1.4 billion a year in lost corn production alone." The study, based on government and university data, "projects that warming temperatures will reduce yields of the nation's biggest crop by 3% in the Midwest and the South compared with projected yields without further global warming."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported yesterday that "[e]fforts to reduce the number of food-borne illnesses in the United States have stalled in the past three years, and some illnesses are on the upswing." The CDC found that "the rate of infection for several bacteria had been dropping until about 2004, when the numbers began rising again or leveled off."

And finally: Stephen Colbert has hurt Rep. Bill Posey's (R-FL) feelings. Last month, Posey introduced legislation requiring presidential candidates to present a valid birth certificate before running for office. His bill - inspired by right-wing hysteria over Obama - has yet to receive a co-sponsor. Colbert recently lambasted Posey, saying that he should take a DNA test to prove he isn't "part alligator." Posey is now upset, telling the Orlando Sentinel, "I expected there would be some civil debate about it, but it wasn't civil. Just a bunch of name-calling and personal denigration. … There is no reason to say that I'm the illegitimate grandson of an alligator."

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Michael Astrue, the commissioner of Social Security, "says benefits for tens of thousands of people with severe disabilities are being delayed by furloughs and layoffs of state employees around the country." Astrue said that "governors are hurting their own states" by furloughing workers to help balance state budgets, calling the response "completely illogical."

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) is pushing the House Republicans' message through a coordinated and disciplined group of committee-level communications staffers. Boehner's spokesman said the communications meetings were part of his "'entrepreneurial insurgency' tactics to communicate Republicans' better solutions to the American people." "The committee communicators are in the vanguard of that effort," he said.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, laid-off workers over the age of 45 "were out of work 22.2 weeks in 2008, compared with 16.2 weeks for younger workers." Further, after finding new employment, "they typically experience a much steeper drop in earnings than their younger counterparts."

Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said on CNN yesterday that the U.S. is on track to withdraw combat troops by August 2010 but the pace could adjust depending on stability. He added that U.S. troops may have to remain in Iraqi cities after the June 31 deadline but said "ultimately it will be the decision of Prime Minister Maliki."

And finally: Glenn Beck announces his long-awaited comedy tour! Calling himself a "poor man's Seinfeld," Beck said he will be taking his entertainment act on the road for six live performances over six days during the first week of June.

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