Reading List: Tuesday 6/2

Here's a few highlights from today's news reading:

• Through NBC reporter David Gregory's Twitter I got this older article from The Economist: "America Grapples with Israel: What Does Barack Obama Truly Feel?", about whether Obama's focus is on the plight of Israel or on the plight of the Palestinians.
• The US seems to be willing to take a substantial risk on General Motors, with the government pouring billions of dollars into it, holding a majority stake, and hoping that their actions will be able to resurrect the company. But will it?
• More on the killing of Dr. George Tiller-- as may be easily assumed, the accused killer, Scott Roeder, was a staunch opponent of abortion, "convinced that killing an abortion doctor is not a crime because it saves the lives of unborn children." Will it reopen and refocus attention on the abortion debate?
• General Stanley McChrystal faced the Senate Armed Services Committee today for questioning. He has been nominated by the president and the Secretary of Defense to serve as the commander of US troops in Afghanistan-- an increasingly important post given the shifting of military resources to the volatile country.
• SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor today met with leading senators, including Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R-AL). The Republicans continue to insist that hearings after the August research would be more than sufficient, but the Democrats still seem inclined to push forward with the process beforehand.
• More support for health care reform: the WH Council of Economic Advisors released a report today indicating substantial financial benefits: "cutting costs while extending coverage to the 46 million people who lack health insurance would also dramatically improve the federal budget outlook, remove "unnecessary barriers" to job mobility and increase the nation's overall economic well-being by "roughly" $100 billion a year."
• Pashtun honor codes dictate that hospitality must be provided to the thousands of refugees in the region, but is putting immense strain on the finances of the people who provide it.
• After forcing his top officials to pledge loyalty to his youngest son over the past several days, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il today named the 26-year-old Kim Jong Un, his third son, as his successor. What does this mean? Time- and analysis- will tell.
• President Obama is off tonight on his first trip to the Middle East and second to Europe as president. The much-anticipated highlight is a speech to be made in Cairo about the US's relationships with the Muslim world, including the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
• Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has announced that he will be retiring at the end of his term. The young Republican has often been the subject of speculation as a possible candidate for the GOP nomination in 2012. In today's press conference, he only said about 2012 that he was "not ruling anything in or out."
• Brazil today found debris from the missing Air France flight in the Atlantic Ocean off their coast, saying that it seemed that the plane had crashlanded into the ocean.