Obama ‘amused’ by Tea Party rallies  —  President Barack Obama struck a hyperpartisan note Thursday, telling Democrats that he was “amused” by the Tax Day Tea Party rallies.  —  Obama, addressing a Democratic National Committee (DNC) fundraiser in Miami, did little to endear himself …

Obama orders hospitals to grant same-sex couples visitation rights  —  President Obama on Thursday signed a memorandum requiring hospitals to allow gays and lesbians to have non-family visitors and to grant their partners medical power of attorney.  —  The president ordered the Department …

Fox News yanks Sean Hannity from Cincinnati Tea Party rally he was set to star in  —  Angry Fox News executives ordered host Sean Hannity to abandon plans to broadcast his nightly show as part of a Tea Party rally in Cincinnati on Thursday after top executives learned that he was set to headline the event …

C.I.A. Document Details Destruction of Tapes  —  WASHINGTON — Porter J. Goss, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in 2005 approved of the decision by one of his top aides to destroy dozens of videotapes documenting the brutal interrogation of two detainees, according to an internal C.I.A. document released Thursday.

The Fire Next Time  —  On Tuesday, Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, called for the abolition of municipal fire departments.  —  Firefighters, he declared, “won't solve the problems that led to recent fires.  They will make them worse.”  The existence of fire departments …

Former Sen. Mack withdraws as Crist campaign chair  —  TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Charlie Crist's political mentor, former U.S. Sen. Connie Mack, resigned Thursday as Crist's campaign chairman in his race for the U.S. Senate.  —  Mack wrote a terse, two-paragraph letter to his one-time protege …

Dueling Columnists  —  A surprising disagreement has broken out between two Times columnists, with Paul Krugman demanding an apology from Andrew Ross Sorkin and Sorkin so far refusing to back down.  —  The argument is over what approach Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who writes …

White House complains about CBS News blog post saying that possible Supreme Court nominee is gay  —  The White House ripped CBS News on Thursday for publishing an online column by a blogger who made assertions about the sexual orientation of Solicitor General Elena Kagan, widely viewed as a leading candidate for the Supreme Court.

President Obama and Vice President Biden's Tax Returns  —  Today, the President released his 2009 federal income and gift tax returns.  He and the First Lady filed their income tax return jointly and reported an adjusted gross income of $ 5,505,409.  The vast majority of the family's 2009 income …

Graft Feeds Greek Crisis  —  ATHENS—Behind the budget crisis roiling Greece lies a riddle: Why does the state spend so lavishly but collect taxes so poorly?  Many Greeks say the answer needs only two words: fakelaki and rousfeti.  —  Fakelaki is the Greek for “little envelopes,” …

Steve King Blows Up, Physically Grabs TP Blogger When Asked About His Justification Of IRS Attack  —  In February, a software engineer named Joseph Stack flew a small aircraft into an IRS building in Texas, killing two people and leaving another two hospitalized.

Lawyer: Laptops took thousands of images  —  The system that Lower Merion school officials used to track lost and stolen laptops wound up secretly capturing thousands of images, including photographs of students in their homes, Web sites they visited, and excerpts of their online chats …

Obama Sees Manned Missions to Mars  —  CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — President Barack Obama predicted Thursday his new space exploration plans would lead American astronauts to Mars and back in his lifetime, a bold forecast relying on rockets and propulsion still to be imagined and built.

Dobbs-Mania Explodes Over Manhattan  —  TPM's Versha Sharma was minding her own business walking down 8th Avenue when she stumbled upon a Manhattan Tea Party event featuring Lou Dobbs.  —  Versha reports in by iPhone: “Lou dobbs was just introduced as the brave man who left CNN when it got too liberal.

Recalling '95 Bombing, Clinton Sees Parallels  —  WASHINGTON — With the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing approaching, former President Bill Clinton on Thursday drew parallels between the antigovernment tone that preceded that devastating attack and the political tumult of today …

Massive fireball reported across Midwestern sky  —  (CNN) — Authorities in several Midwestern states were flooded Wednesday night with reports of a gigantic fireball lighting up the sky, the National Weather Service said.  —  The fireball was visible for about 15 minutes beginning about 10 p.m. …

Merrill Lynch's $50 billion feud … (Fortune) — For Stan O'Neal, late August 2007 was a period of great anxiety.  The chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch was vacationing at his home on Martha's Vineyard and, as the world would later learn, playing a lot of golf.

What's Obama Doing to Your Taxes?  —  When President Obama outlined his 2011 budget proposal in February, he said government cannot “continue to spend as if deficits don't have consequences... as if the hard-earned tax dollars of the American people can be treated like Monopoly money.”