Facebook May Hire Robert Gibbs, Former Obama Aide  —  Facebook is in talks to hire Robert Gibbs, President Obama's former White House press secretary, for a senior role in helping to manage the company's communications, people briefed on the negotiations said.

Ayers affirms he wrote Dreams from my Father  —  Last Thursday evening at Montclair State University, with a video camera rolling, Bill Ayers volunteered that yes indeed he had written the acclaimed Barack Obama memoir, Dreams from My Father.  —  Unprompted, Ayers also noted that while Dreams deserves …

Fiscal Showdown Looms in Capitol  —  The White House and Democratic lawmakers, with less than two weeks left to avoid a government shutdown, are assembling a proposal for roughly $20 billion in additional spending cuts that could soon be offered to Republicans, according to people close to the budget talks.

The Reagan shooting: A closer call than we knew  —  Bob Schieffer on how quick thinking prevented a tragedy when a gunman fired on the president 30 years ago … It's one of those artifacts of the electronic age: Videotape of an ordinary afternoon that, in a matter of seconds, became etched forever in our memories.

Welcome to Wal-Mart: The Biggest Case of the Term  —  On Tuesday morning, the United States Supreme Court will hear argument in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, an already-epic battle between the world's largest corporation and perhaps as many as one million current and former employees, all of them female …

Biden Team Apologizes to Reporter for Sticking Him In Closet  —  “Scott - You have our sincere apologies for the lack of a better hold room today,” wrote Vice President Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander last Wednesday to Orlando Sentinel reporter Scott Powers.

Libyan Rebel Gains Could Be Fleeting, U.S. Military Says  —  TRIPOLI, Libya — As rebel forces backed by allied warplanes pushed toward one of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's most crucial bastions of support, the American military warned on Monday that their rapid gains could quickly be reversed without continued coalition air support.

Wages and Employment, Yet Again  —  Oh, my.  Even Matt Yglesias doesn't quite get it.  —  Writing about Republican plans to raise employment by reducing it, he writes … Then he turns, rightly, to the problem of nominally denominated debt.  But look: even if we didn't have that problem …

Japan nuclear plant data error was ‘unacceptable’  —  The BBC's Mark Worthington says many people in Japan are becoming increasingly concerned about what is going to happen in the future  —  The Japanese government has attacked the operator of a crippled nuclear plant for “unacceptable” mistakes.

N.Y. Budget Deal Cuts Aid to Schools and Health Care  —  Culminating weeks of secretive negotiations and intense political jockeying, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and leaders of the Legislature on Sunday announced a $132.5 billion budget agreement that would cut spending, impose no major new taxes …

American Thought Police  —  Recently William Cronon, a historian who teaches at the University of Wisconsin, decided to weigh in on his state's political turmoil.  He started a blog, “Scholar as Citizen,” devoting his first post to the role of the shadowy American Legislative Exchange Council …

Joe McQuaid's Publisher's Notebook: The newspaper's a year older; and we are still being blamed  —  This past Thursday was an anniversary.  The “Union” part of the Union Leader begn its 149th year of continuous daily publication.  It was a weekly even earlier.  — > Jim Grady: RGGI benefits all Granite Staters (13)

Billionaire self-pity and the Koch brothers  —  Since the financial crisis of 2008, one of the most revealing spectacles has been the parade of financial elites who petulantly insist that they are the victims of societal hostility: political officials heap too much blame on them …

When test scores soared in D.C., were the gains real?  —  WASHINGTON — In just two years, Crosby S. Noyes Education Campus went from a school deemed in need of improvement to a place that the District of Columbia Public Schools called one of its “shining stars.”  —  Standardized test scores improved dramatically.

U.S. Won't Intervene in Syria as Assad Differs From Qaddafi, Clinton Says  —  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. won't enter into the internal conflict in Syria the way it has in Libya.  —  “No,” Clinton said, when asked on the CBS “Face the Nation” program if the U.S. would intervene in Syria's unrest.

Gingrich: My Infidelities Helped Me Understand How To Impeach Clinton  —  This morning, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace questioned likely presidential candidate Newt Gingrich — who has placed social issues at the forefront of his emerging campaign — about his personal infidelities and multiple marriages.