U.S. negotiators are trying to strike “a pledge to limit the global temperature rise this century to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, as well as an agreement to reduce worldwide greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.”

Amount short in the “massive federally funded program…initially created to distribute $6.9 billion in federal money to the owners of homes destroyed or damaged by Hurricane Katrina who lacked enough insurance money to rebuild. … To date, only 16,000 of 130,000 applicants have received money.”

“Tommy Thompson cited a dead hearing aid and an urgent need to use the bathroom in explaining on Saturday why he said at a GOP presidential debate that an employer should be allowed to fire a gay worker. Speaking to reporters after giving an address at the state GOP convention, Thompson also said he was suffering from the flu and bronchitis and had been admitted to a hospital emergency room three days prior to the May 3 debate.”

in a New York Times profile: “In the Army, you communicate up the chain of command, and I communicated vehemently with my senior commanders while I was in Iraq,” he said. Of his departure from the Army, he said: “It was the toughest decision of my life. I paced my quarters for days. I didn’t sleep for nights. But I was not willing to compromise my principles for one more minute.”

Kevin Drum asks: “Here’s a question for any old-timers who might be reading this blog: was George Romney’s Mormon faith an issue for him when he ran for president in 1968?” I wonder, too. One important difference, though, is that George Romney, much like Mitt Romney when he ran for office in the past, was a moderate Republican.

If you’re going to adhere to secular politics, then people are either going to dislike you because they dislike secular politics, or else they’re not going to care a lot about your religious views. When Romney was running in 2002, I recall his Mormonism only really playing insofar as it made a lot of people assume Romney was anti-choice and anti-gay and his campaign put a lot of effort on reassuring people about that. The new Mitt is trying to run as a cultural conservative who’s trying to get people to write things like “we believe Governor Romney is not only acceptable to conservative Christians, but that he is clearly the best choice for people of faith.” This is a demographic that clearly sees its political views as grounded in religion. Evangelicals for Mitt have the view that conservative Christians principles drive them, in this instance, to support a Mormon for the presidency but it’s natural that other conservative Christians might feel that their principles drive them to seek out someone whose religious views are more closely aligned with their own.

NBC News reports that former congressman and current Gov. Jim Gibbons (R-NV) is being investigated by the FBI for potentially receiving “a fancy vacation and perhaps other lucrative benefits” from defense contractor Warren Trepp in exchange for “multi-million-dollar government contracts.”

Sources close to the investigation say a key focus is a lavish week-long Caribbean cruise in March 2005 by Gibbons, his wife and son, and Trepp, who paid for almost everything. In photos obtained by NBC News, Gibbons is seen hamming it up — kicking back with a drink and posing with his wife, Dawn, Trepp and Trepp’s other guests.

Software designer Dennis Montgomery was also on that cruise with Gibbons. He estimates the trip cost “probably $20,000 a person,” claiming he saw the invoice. Montgomery says his former business partner Trepp chartered a 727 to fly guests from Nevada to Florida and back and picked up the tab for penthouse rooms, private meals and expensive wines.

In an exclusive interview with NBC, Montgomery — who’s now at war with his former partner — makes an explosive charge. He says that near the end of the cruise, he saw Trepp pass money to the congressman.

Watch NBC’s extensive report:

Our guest blogger, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

When President Kennedy committed the United States to send a man to the moon, he said, “The vows of this nation can only be fulfilled if we are first, and therefore, we intend to be first. Our leadership in science and industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort.”

Kennedy’s leadership inspired and spurred American innovation. We reached the moon, and we did even more. The public investment we made to win the space race spawned a generation of discovery and technological dominance that made the United States the most productive, efficient, competitive and prosperous nation on Earth.

Today at the dawn of the 21st Century, we’re facing serious new challenges.

China, India, the European Union and others are steadily — sometimes dramatically — gaining on us in critical areas. South Korea, which has 1/6th of our population, now graduates more engineers than the United States. Japan and the United Kingdom award more doctoral degrees in science and engineering. U.S. elementary and high school students rank near the bottom among developed countries in science and math proficiency. The U.S. has slipped from 11th to 16th in broadband, and foreign-based companies are increasing their share of U.S. patents.

Fortunately for us, we can take action as we have in the past, and not allow the rest of the world to pass us by. Read more