– President Obama is personally overseeing “the shadow war with Al Qaeda,” spearheading “the ‘nominations’ process to designate terrorists for kill or capture.”

– While Mitt Romney was “running the Olympic games he had been investing in a company that was making performance-enhancing drugs banned by them, and he had been for almost a decade.”

– Romney attacks Obama for giving “billions of taxpayer dollars to companies that later failed”:

– How the debt ceiling debacle hurt the economy:

– And finally: Retiring Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) made an awkward Trayvon Martin reference during a commencement address at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth Sunday. “You know when you get an honorary degree they give you one of these,” said Frank, indicating the white graduation hood around his neck. “Hubie, I think you have a hoodie you can wear and nobody will shoot at you.” Frank was referring to African American activist Hubie Jones, who received the University’s honorary degree.

– Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin E. Dempsey warned on Sunday that ongoing violence in Syria could make military intervention more likely.

– The likelihood of a nuclear breakthrough with Iran appeared to dim after last week’s talks in Baghdad failed to deliver results leading Iran, this week, to a take harsher tone, saying that the Islamic Republic won’t halt enrichment of uranium or reduce it below a 20% threshold, a central demand of the international community in Baghdad.

– A new Gallup poll found that Mitt Romney leads President Obama among veterans. Fifty-eight percent of veterans polled said they preferred Romney while 34 percent said Obama.

– The New York Times reports: “The presidential campaign headquarters of Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister burst into flames Monday night as demonstrators marched in the streets protesting that former official’s confirmation as one of two candidates to advance to Egypt’s runoff election.”

Mitt Romney regrets saying that he likes being able to fire people. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Romney said he got frustrated whenever he made flubs like his line, “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me,” last winter in New Hampshire.

President Obama has nominated a new head for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Allison Macfarlane is a nuclear waste expert who is set to replace Gregory Jaczko who had “a tumultuous three-year tenure in which he pushed for sweeping safety reforms but came under fire for an unyielding management style that fellow commissioners and agency employees described as bullying.”

Mitt Romney’s campaign bus rolled into one West Philadelphia community on Thursday, but his appearance was less than welcomed. Hecklers shouted at him to leave, and a sign featuring Romney’s “I’m not concerned about the very poor” comment was raised.

The same Senate Republicans who pushed for massive spending cuts are now hitting Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid for insisting that Congress abide by them.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has outspent his Democratic opponent Tom Barrett more than 3-1 on TV ad buys during the three months leading up to the state’s June 5 recall election. Walker’s campaign has raised over $25 million for the recall campaign, $12 million of which has been spent on campaign ads.

Partial results from Egypt’s landmark presidential election indicate that the candidate from the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Morsi, has won a spot in the runoff election on June 16-17.

And finally: Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) kicked it “old” school on Highway 53, when a car he was sharing with staffers got a flat tire. The former Real World star took off his shirt, got on his knees, and promised, “This is going to be a 15-minute stop and that’s going to be it.”

– Egyptians voted yesterday in the first major post-Arab Spring election, likely setting up a run off between the Muslim Brotherhood candidate and a former air force general who served as prime minister in the last days of the fallen Hosni Mubarak regime.

– A new United Nations repot has found that Syrian government forces continue to commit “gross violations” in the country’s ongoing civil war.

– Fresh off his election win, French President François Hollande arrived in Afghanistan today and reaffirmed his pledge to remove the country’s combat troops — NATO’s fourth largest contingent — two years before the rest of the allies. “We have accomplished the mission,” Hollande said.

– Amid already heightened tensions, the U.S. launched unmanned drone air strikes in each of the last two days, killing between 11 and 14 alleged militants.

– A nearly $300 million fleet of cargo planes provided to Afghanistan by the U.S. will be grounded because of maintenance and safety issues.

“I am not going to back off the sequestration,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told Politico, warning that Senate Democrats will allow the automatic defense cuts agreed upon in last summer’s debt deal to go into effect unless Republicans are willing to compromise on revenues.

Senate Democrats are gearing up for a fight over the Paycheck Fairness Act, an update to the Equal Pay Act which passed into law nearly half a century ago. The debate over the measure will likely put more pressure on Republicans, who have already been labeled instigators in an ongoing legislative war on women.

New reports reveal George Zimmerman’s close connection to the Sanford police department. Zimmerman went on patrol rides with police officers, went to police department picnics, and even went back to the police station three days after he killed Trayvon Martin and wandered around unaccompanied.

Congress will be investigating Facebook’s initial public offering (IPO) to see whether any investors received insider tips before the stock officially opened.

Missouri has become the first state to start using the drug propofol — an untested anesthetic that caused the overdose death of pop star Michael Jackson — as the primary drug for its executions. This marks a switch from the traditional three-drug cocktail, which contains an imported drug that has become difficult to obtain in the U.S. in recent years.

Despite conservative outrage over Elizabeth Warren’s claimed ties to Cherokee nation, voters in Massachusetts don’t seem to care all that much. A new Suffolk University poll shows Warren trailing Senator Scott Brown (R) by just one point, an eight point shift in her favor since February.

Ali Al-Saadi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

– Egyptians voted for the second day of their presidential elections after millions voted yesterday, an unprecedented event in the Arab world with heightened drama because of the absence of a clear favorite.

– The rights group Amnesty International accused the United Nations of “failed leadership” for its inability to assert itself in order to stem violence in Syria, where 14 months of crackdowns on anti-government protests have taken thousands of lives.

– A Syrian government minister said international oil sanctions against Syria are taking a toll on the restive country’s economy, draining $4 billion and created fuel shortages.

– Secretary of State Hillary Clinton disclosed that an interagency team called the Center for Strategic Counterterrorrism Communications, housed at the State Department, is part of the department’s efforts to “do a better job contesting the online space, media websites and forums where al-Qaida and its affiliates spread propaganda and recruit followers.”

– “We disagree with those who argue that preserving American military pre-eminence requires maintaining or increasing current levels of defense spending,” the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) authors wrote in a new report urging significant reductions in the Joint Strike Fighter, the littoral combat ship and the Ground Combat Vehicle.

“A record-low 41 percent now identify as ‘pro-choice,’ down from 47 percent last July and one percentage point down from the previous record low of 42 percent, set in May 2009,” a Gallup poll finds.

The Congressional Budget Office released a report on Tuesday warning that the “fiscal cliff,” the combination of the expiring Bush tax cuts and the automatic budget cuts, could trigger an economic recession in 2013 if lawmakers fail to act.

The doctor who helped the US catch Osama Bin Laden has been sentenced to 33 years in prison by the Pakistani government. Dr Shakil Afridi set up a fake vaccination program as a way to spy on the Bin Laden compound in order to help the US figure out if the terror leader was inside. But the Pakistani government sent him to jail on treason charges.

President Obama’s re-election prospects are seeing a boast as key swing-state economies improve at a faster pace than the rest of the nation.

A new Rasmussen poll indicates that 56 percent of Americans are now in favor of legalizing marijuana and regulating its use and sale in a similar fashion to the way states control alcohol and tobacco sales. Just 36 percent of respondents voiced opposition to the proposal, a new low.

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) have introduced a bill that would prohibit financial industry executives from taking positions at the Federal Reserve. The measure seeks to curb the kind of self-regulation that has enabled big banks to avoid strict oversight and regulation.

The state of Hawaii has provided verification of the president’s birth to Arizona’s secretary of state, who claimed he needed proof of President Obama’s U.S. citizenship in order to include Obama on the state’s November ballot.

London is gearing up for the summer Olympics, and the city that is already known for its heavy surveillance is using a new tool to monitor crime and terror threats: Helicopter-mounted cameras that can see a suspect’s eye color from the air.

– The P5+1 resumed negotiations with Iran in Baghdad today, a day after Tehran indicated willingness to allow IAEA inspectors into suspected nuclear sites, raising expectations that Tehran may be seeking a diplomatic solution to the standoff over its nuclear program.

– Egyptians vote for their next president today and tomorrow, front-runners include two more secular minded candidates with ties to the former regime of Hosni Mubakrak and a pair of Islamist candidates, to select Egypt’s first democratically elected president.

– Regional officials in Pakistan announced that the physician who aided the CIA in finding Osama Bin Laden was sentenced to prison for treason because of his role in the manhunt and eventual raid into Pakistani territory.

– Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Carl Levin (D-MI), the chair and ranking members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the U.S. should not pay exorbitant fees — up to $5,000 per truck, which McCain called “extortion” — to Pakistan to allow NATO supply lines to pass through its territory into Afghanistan.

– North Korea made vague threats of “countermeasures” as the U.S. promised sanctions should the reclusive East Asian dictatorship undertake a nuclear test, a possibility heightened by reports of images indicating more underground nuclear sites.

–The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is auditing the Pentagon’s “military information support operations” — Pentagon propaganda campaigns abroad — in light of concerns about their growing costs and questionable merit.

– Nuclear disarmament advocates on Monday voiced frustration with what they saw as a missed opportunity for NATO to use its summit in Chicago to declare it would reduce the role that nuclear weapons play in the defense of the military bloc’s membership.

President Barack Obama praised the residents of Joplin, Missouri during a commencement address last night, “a day before the anniversary of the twister that killed 161 people.” “You are from Joplin. And you are from America,” Obama said. “You will not be defined by the difficulties you face, but how you respond—with strength, and grace, and a commitment to others.”

Yesterday, NATO allies formally agreed to end the decade-long war in Afghanistan and transition power over to the Afghanistan government by 2013, committing to withdraw international troops next summer.

A new poll shows President Obama and presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney locked in a dead heat over the economy, each tied with 47 percent of respondents who agree with their handling of economic issues.

Three Drug Enforcement Agency agents are being investigated for hiring prostitutes in Colombia, allegedly at the same time Secret Service agents got in trouble for the same thing.

States are moving slowly to set up health care exchanges. Only 14 states have authorized the insurance marketplaces, despite the fact that 34 states received planning grants. The exchanges are supposed to be fully enacted by the states by 2014, but the federal government will likely play a larger role in establishing the pools.

Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) effort to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress may fail. Two of the Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee have said that they will not support such a move. Six others repeatedly denied The Hill’s requests for comment.

A new United Technologies/National Journal poll shows that only about one quarter of Americans think Congress should ban gay marriage or re-instate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. However, half of Americans supported Congress’s ban on gay marriages in the military.

– The U.S. Senate approved new sanctions on Iran ahead of nuclear talks in Baghdad this week. The bill allows President Obama to impose sanctions on any country or company that enters joint ventures with Iran to develop its oil or uranium resource, or provides technology or resources to help Iran with such development.

– A federal appeals court ruled that CIA interrogation methods — including detention and harsh questioning of suspected terrorists — will remain off limits to public release, finding that “intelligence methods” are not subject to a Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union.

– In a perceived snub, President Obama left Pakistan off the list of nations he thanked Monday for help getting getting war supplies into Afghanistan. Pakistan closed supply routes into Afghanistan last year following a U.S. attack on the Pakistani side of the border which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

– Iran is bolstering the Syrian regime’s finances after economic sanctions have choked off many sources of funding. CNN reports that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “likely had about $30 billion in cash reserves to spend when unrest and bloodshed began in March 2011. He’s about down to $6 billion to $9 billion.”

– Lebanon’s capital Beirut remained tense after its worst fighting in years on Monday when Sunni Muslim forces for and against Syria’s Assad regime clashed after a week of such fighting in the city of Tripoli, raising fears of more spillover from the Syrian civil war.

–The group allied with Al Qaeda that claimed credit for yesterday’s bombing of a planned military parade in Yemen, taking took more than 100 lives, said on Facebook that the attack targeted the defense minister in response for a military campaign against militant groups in the country’s south.

– A Senate panel this week examined government foreign language capabilities and found that only 61 percent of “language-designated positions” at the State Department were filled, while the Pentagon had 80 percent of such positions filled but only a quarter of them at the required level of proficiency.

– President Obama refused to meet with his Pakistani counterpart at the NATO Summit in Chicago because the sides failed to reach a deal to reopen the Western militaries’ supply lines through Pakistan into Afghanistan, which remain closed since an American strike killed Pakistani soldiers in November.

– Despite objections from Russia, the NATO alliance has installed an interim ballistic missile defense shield in Europe, a first step towards the long-term goal of providing missile defense for all NATO European countries, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters on Sunday.

– U.S. ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder said yesterday that the Atlantic Alliance has no plans to intervene militarily in Syria. However, he added that NATO would “obviously take any requests of that nature seriously if it were to be made.”

– The Supreme Court will decide as early as today whether to take up constitutional challenges to the George W. Bush-era anti-terrorism laws involving wiretapping, email monitoring and Guantanamo prisoners.

– A cooperation office of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad announced that the Iraqi government purchased some American unmanned drone planes to help secure its southern oil platforms, where most of the country’s oil is shipped.

After the Syrian revolution spread this month to Tripoli in Lebanon, the country’s capitol Beirut saw fighting between pro- and anti-regime factions on Monday, with Lebanese press reporting that three people died and 20 were wounded.

– The New York Times reports that the rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah signed an agreement late Sunday in Cairo that paves the way for elections and a new unity government for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

NATO allies enter their second day of talks today, focusing on the logistical aspects of ending the U.S. war in Afghanistan after last month’s strategic partnership agreement between the two nations put forth a plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan by 2014.

The United States is selling drones to Iraq. The unarmed surveillance drones will be used to protect Iraqi oil exports. Additionally, the U.S. is selling tanks, fighter planes, and personnel carriers to the Iraqi navy.

Newt Gingrich is $4.8 million in debt for his Presidential campaign. CNN reports where the money went: “$466,370 for security services, $181,977 for public relations consulting and $165,000 for web advertising… The filing also listed a debt of $580,134 to Gingrich himself for travel expenses.”

Conservative donors have been slow to back Mitt Romney’s campaign, an Associated Press analysis shows. Only a few hundred donors to primary rivals gave to Romney or the Republican Party in April, despite endorsements from his former foes.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) gives significant access to companies and donors. The Center for Public Integrity finds the controversial Republican took campaign cash from employees or PACs at more than half of the 130-plus companies with whom he held official meetings.

And finally: A new analysis of congressional speech-making shows that the average grade-level at which Congress members speak has fallen by almost a full grade since 2005, from 11.6 to 10.5 on the Flesch-Kincaid scale.

Facebook stock will begin trading on the Nasdaq today, just as co-founder Eduardo Saverin announces that he will pay “hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes to the United States government” in the process of renouncing his U.S. citizenship. Saverin now lives in Singapore, a country that has no capital gains tax.

Mitt Romney launched his first general election advertisement today. The ad, titled “Day One,” promises that Romney would start the Keystone Pipeline, repeal the Affordable Care Act, introduce tax cuts — all on his first day! You can watch the ad here.

Two regulations from the National Labor Relations Board have been shut down by lawsuits this year. The regulations would have required employers “to post notices explaining collective bargaining rights” and would have sped up the union election process. Republicans in Congress have also been trying to cut down these regulations, but were headed off on their efforts by private lawsuits.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will address Georgetown University students today, despite conservative Catholic groups’ protests that the invitation is inappropriate given controversy over the Obama administration’s birth control coverage mandate.

House Democrats introduced legislation yesterday to push back on the stringent, often discriminatory voter ID laws that have recently been proposed in states across the country. As Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) put it, “I hope and pray we do not return to the days of overt discrimination before we decide to do something about it…We must not be silent while leaders we elect take away our voting rights.”

And finally: It’s no secret that First Lady Michelle Obama loves healthy organic foods, so it’s fitting that she will appear Food Network’s “Restaurant: Impossible” on June 13 in an episode where chef Robert Irvine — the host of the reality show– will renovate the dining areas of a children’s community center in DC.

– U.S. Senate Republicans blocked legislation for new economic sanctions on Iran’s oil sector on Thursday saying they needed more time to study the bill.

– With oil production down 12 percent and falling due to sanctions, according to experts, an OPEC report suggested Iran could fall out of the second-place production spot in the international oil producers’ consortium.

– Ahead of a meeting of NATO nations in Chicago on Sunday, American officials are lowering the bar for success in the ten year war in Afghanistan and giving up on the expectation that NATO will leave behind a cohesive central government with influence beyond Kabul and a handful of other population centers.

– The head of a U.N. observer team in Syria warned on Friday that no number of observers can achieve “a permanent end to the violence if the commitment to give dialogue a chance is not genuine from all internal and external actors.”

–Andrew Liepman, the departing deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told The Washington Post that while al Qaeda was weakened by Osama bin Laden’s death, the group “hasn’t been strategically defeated.”

– The U.S. is considering naming which groups associated with Al Qaeda can be targeted with drone strikes, a move that would further lift the veil of secrecy on a robust program that officials have barely commented on but which receives wide attention.

– Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced $70 million in assistance, separate from the $3.1 billion in regular defense aid, to support Israel’s anti-missile Iron Dome system, a joint project funded with robust U.S. help and widely viewed as a success.

– Attacks by the Taliban jumped 31 percent this fighting season in three farming districts that were centerpieces of the American escalation under President Obama, according to U.S. Army Maj. Gen. James Huggins, which, along with less than 100 Al Qaeda fighters decamping in Afghanistan’s eastern mountains, hints at dangers of the coming U.S. withdrawal.

– Since India cut its Iranian oil imports by more than 10 percent, Iraq replaced Iran as its second largest oil supplier, after Saudi Arabia.

– U.S. plans for a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities are “fully available” but “It would be preferable to resolve [the showdown over Iran's nuclear program] through the use of pressure than to use military force,” U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro told Israel’s Army Radio.

– An ideologically diverse alliance that includes liberal Democrats, Tea Party Republicans, and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) “is attempting to throw out a post-9/11 law that grants the president broad authority to indefinitely detain any person apprehended on American soil.”

– A confidential U.N. report details that Iran is exporting arms to the Syrian government in violation of a ban on weapons sales and describes three seizures of Iranian weapons shipments, including two bound for Syria, within the last year.

– A U.S. official said the Obama administration is in a “holding pattern” waiting for Russia to abandon its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, for economic sanctions on the Syrian government to take effect and for the Syrian opposition to organize to present a coherent vision for a post-Assad Syria.

– The top U.S. Air Force commander Gen. Norton Schwartz said he disagreed with a report citing retired Gen. James Cartwright calling for U.S. deployment of nuclear warheads to be cut in half.

WellPoint “rejected a call for more disclosure about the health insurer’s political contributions Wednesday during a shout-filled, contentious annual meeting.” Union representatives “repeatedly interrupted Chairwoman and CEO Angela Braly after she opened the meeting” and “one person presented a petition she said was signed by 15,000 people asking the Indianapolis company for more disclosure.”

The number of racial and ethnic minorities born in the U.S. will surpass white births for the first time, according to 2011 census estimates. Although the new data points to big changes in the country’s racial makeup, it also reveals the prolonged impact of a weak economy, which is resulting in fewer Hispanic entering the U.S after decades of high immigration levels.

A GOP super PAC plans to spend $10 million on an ad campaign attacking Obama’s relationship with his former spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr. The ads are timed to coincide with the Democratic National Convention in September.

DC’s Congressional Representative will not be able to testify today on a law that would apply to her district. Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) is proposing a 20-week abortion ban for the District, over which Congress has full legislative authority, and he is preventing Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) to participate in the hearings. This breaks a longstanding tradition in Congress that members be allowed to testify over laws that apply to their constituents.

The GOP is readying itself for the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act. Politico reports, “If the law is upheld, Republicans will take to the floor to tear out its most controversial pieces… If the law is partially or fully overturned they’ll draw up bills to keep the popular, consumer-friendly portions in place.”

And finally: Actor Will Smith fights aliens in his “Men in Black” films, and apparently his 13-year-old son, Jaden, shares similar interest as he asked Preisdent Obama about aliens during a recent tour of the Situation Room. Smith told BBC radio he forbade his son from asking Obama about extraterrestrials, but the tween asked nonetheless, to which Obama replied, “OK, I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of extraterrestrials but I can tell you if there had been a top secret meeting and if there would have had to have been a discussion about it, it would have taken place in this room.”

Vice President Joe Biden will be touting “Obama economics” during his campaign swing through Ohio over the next two days, emphasizing a populist economic message to draw sharp policy contrasts between the president and Mitt Romney.

A key reason for Deb Fischer’s upset win in yesterday’s Nebraska GOP Senate primary: a huge infusion of Super PAC cash. Conservative outside groups spent more than $2 million on advertising, nearly $1 million of which was for ads attacking presumed front-runner Jon Bruning.

Crossroads GPS will unveil an $8 million TV ad campaign criticizing President Obama on the economy “by using his own words against him.” The ad “shows clips of Obama making pledges that critics say he hasn’t kept on issues like taxes, health care and federal deficits.”

Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) believes Democrats have “a fighting chance” of taking back the House if they emphasize the party’s health reform law. As Clyburn put it, Democrats “can’t run from [healthcare reform]. You have to go out and say, ‘This is what we did and this is why we did it.’ And I think that you win like that.”

A new survey from Mason-Dixon shows that a large majority of Americans believe that federal government should respect medical marijuana laws enacted by states. The Huffington Post reports, “Nearly three-quarters of Americans and more than two-thirds of Republicans believe” that state laws should remain unfettered by federal government.

Catholic bishops are threatening to sue over the contraception mandate. Though the Obama administration came to a compromise on requiring religious employers to provide birth control as part of their health plans, the bishops say they are still unhappy with insurers being forced to provide copay-free contraceptives, and will take legal action if Congress does not rectify the situation.

On average, U.S. law enforcement has 55 interactions with suspected terrorists a day. Officials told Reuters today that very few of those interactions lead to arrest, but that they keep an eye on the huge number of people who are on U.S. watch lists.

– The House Appropriations subcommittee that handles military procurement budgeted $5.3 billion more for ships, vehicles and weapons than the Pentagon asked for, thereby ordering the military to keep open programs it intended to close down.

– Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered the Air Force to ground F-22 Raptor flights and accelerate the installation of backup oxygen generators in response to pilot complaints of wooziness and fainting spells in the cockpit.

– Pakistan has reportedly agreed to re-open supply lines for NATO forces in Afghanistan but not without a new fee: $1,500 to $1,800 for each truck carrying supplies, a tab that officials familiar with negotiations estimated would run nearly $1 million a day.

– French President Francois Hollande, sworn in just yesterday, backtracked on a campaign promise to pull all French troops out of Afghanistan by the end of this year.

– Through more robust contacts with and evaluations of Syrian rebels, the U.S. provides aid to Gulf Arab sheikdoms arming and supplying the fighters against the embattled Syrian regime.

– Retired General James Cartwright, the former top military officer in charge of the U.S.’s nuclear weapons, proposed in a report that the U.S. reduce its stockpile of nuclear weapons because “the current arsenal carries the baggage of the cold war” that is “beyond our needs” and doesn’t match today’s threats.

– Several former top U.S. officials said that a U.S. or Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities is unlikely this year, but the U.S. presidential election and current diplomacy with Iran will push into next year final deliberations about whether to attack the facilities.

– An adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader said the country’s nuclear program has advanced beyond red lines laid out by the West “without violating any international laws or the nonproliferation treaty.”

– India, which gets about a tenth of its crude oil from Iran, agreed to cut down those imports 11 percent under heavy pressure from the U.S.

–The Obama administration is moving towards removing the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a controversial Iranian opposition group, from the State Department’s terrorism list.

– For a third day, pro- and anti-Assad factions, largely divided along sectarian lines, fought in the streets of Tripoli, Lebanon, bringing the death toll to at least five and leaving more than 100 injured.

–A “humanitarian update” report, written at the end of April for USAID and acquired by Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin, details attacks by Syrian troops and the targeting of aid workers despite an ongoing U.N. monitoring mission and cease-fire agreement.

A new USA Today/Gallup Poll shows that a large majority of Americans believe the economy is on its way up. Fifty eight percent believe that a year from now, the economy will be “good.” And this translates to good news for President Obama — 56 percent believe the President will win in November, while only 36 percent believe Romney will beat out Obama.

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon will face calls to step down from his chairmanship during the company’s shareholder meeting in Tampa today. Following the bank’s big loss, which totaled $2 billion over six weeks, California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) will demand that the top roles at the company be split up. They argue that having Dimon as both CEO and chairman leads to less oversight and fewer protections from big losses.

Common Cause has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Senate’s filibuster rule.

Americans Elect, an elaborate and well-funded attempt to nominate a centrist third-party presidential candidate, acknowledged that it has failed to nominate a candidate through its online process.

The Liberty Committee, a libertarian organization that has provided financial support for Ron Paul’s presidential bids, is now alleging that Paul defrauded the group out of $20,000 by doubling billing dozens of plane tickets using taxpayer money.

The Colorado legislature held a special session yesterday to address a bill that would have introduced civil unions for same sex couples in the state, but the Republican-controlled House effectively killed the bill in committee.

And finally: Hardball host Chris Matthews had a rough night on Jeopardy. Matthews finished dead last with the paltry sum of only $2,300, and many right-wing sites are seizing the opportunity to remind people of his Jan. 2011 quip against Sarah Palin’s intelligence: ”I’d like to see her on just a couple of episodes of ‘Celebrity Jeopardy.’”