A bombing in Baghdad claims twenty-seven.

More homeland insecurity:

Nuclear weapons plants have eliminated or reduced training for guards responsible for repelling terrorist attacks, leaving the government unable to guarantee the plants can be adequately defended, the Energy Department’s internal watchdog said Tuesday.

Only one of 10 plants surveyed, Hanford, Wash., trains guards in the basic use of a shotgun, according to the report. None of the plants teaches guards how to rappel down buildings or cliffs because of concerns that guards might be injured. The report noted that one guard died rappelling in 1995. “Inconsistent training methods may increase the risk that the department’s protective forces will not be able to safely respond to security incidents or will use excessive levels of force,” said the report prepared by Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman’s office.

Barack Obama triumphs in Illinois:

Obama had 55 percent of the Democratic vote, followed by Hynes with 23 percent, with 84 percent of precincts reporting.

Hynes pledged to support Obama in the November election, saying: “He’s an unbelievably talented individual, and I respect him very much.”

Now on to trounce Jack Ryan in November.

The Democratic party needs a lot more Barack Obamas, and fast.

The LA Times reports on the lengths to which the Bush team went, in the case of mercury, to privilege profits for industry over health for citizens:

Political appointees in the Environmental Protection Agency bypassed agency professional staff and a federal advisory panel last year to craft a rule on mercury emissions preferred by the industry and the White House, several longtime EPA officials say. The EPA staffers say they were told not to undertake the normal scientific and economic studies called for under a standing executive order. At the same time, the proposal to regulate mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants was written using key language provided by utility lobbyists.

EPA veterans say they cannot recall another instance when the agency’s technical experts were cut out of developing a major regulatory proposal. The administration chose a process “that would support the conclusion they wanted to reach,” said John A. Paul, a Republican environmental regulator from Ohio who co-chaired the EPA-appointed advisory panel. He said its 21 months of work on mercury was ignored.

Last week, when I knocked on one woman’s door while canvassing about the failure of the Bush administration’s current proposal to meet Clean Air Acts standards for mercury emissions, she said to me, “I used to eat tuna every day. I love tuna. Now I don’t eat it anymore because of mercury here. And I miss tuna.”

So what’s national is local – sometimes very, very local.

Meanwhile, every body of water in Florida is under a mercury advisory warning consumers that its fish could cause birth defects. It’s time for a substantive response.

The UN reports that 70% of Palestinians lack or risk losing access to food.

Tom Frank on the elitists on the left:

…certain kinds of Left politics are indeed activities reserved for members of the educated upper-middle-class, for people who regard politics more as a personal therapeutic exercise than an effort to build a movement. For them, the Left is a form of mildly soothing spirituality, a way of getting in touch with the deep authenticity of the downtrodden and of showing you care. Buttons and stickers desperately announce the liberal’s goodness to the world, as do his or her choice in consumer products. Leftist magazines treat protesting as a glamour activity, running photos of last month’s demo the way society magazines print pictures from the charity ball. There is even a brand of cologne called Activist.

For them, having fewer people on the Left isn’t a problem that might one day affect their material well-being, cost them their healthcare or their power in the workplace. Those things aren’t on the line for this species of liberal. Quite the contrary: having fewer people on the left makes the left more alluring to them. Superficial nonconformity is what the creative white-collar class values above all else, and the lonelier you are in political righteousness, the more nonconformist, the more rebellious you are. Standing up against the flag-waving masses is the goal for this variety of liberal. Being on the Left is not about building common cause with others: it’s about correcting others, about pointing out their shortcomings.

Illinois votes today in primaries for Senate and President, as Barack Obama has solidified his lead for the Democratic nod while his likely Republican opponent, Jack Ryan, tries to defend his against calls to release his divorce records.

(Update: Years later, corrected Barack Obama’s name)

Thousands of community college students converge in Sacramento to resist Gov. Schwarzenegger’s bid to raise their tuition by nearly half. “New Republican,” maybe, but same old dirty tricks.

More news on the NewAlliance Bancshares front: In a short-sighted move, a Stamford judge has thrown out two suits by depositors of the bank-hoping-to-soon-be-known-as-NewAlliance is, as the Rev. Lillian Daniels observed, an unholy alliance. Folks looking into buying NewAlliance bancshares should take a closer look at the merits of the case against the bank than Judge Adams apparently did.

And let the google-bombing continue in earnest.

The AFL-CIO draws on the Trade Act of 1974 in a bid to hold the White House accountable for the impact of its free trade with China on workers there and here:

“American workers are suffering, they’re losing their jobs, they’re losing hope,” said Barbara Shailor, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s director of international affairs. “At the same time, Chinese workers are suffering under repressive conditions and are denied their most fundamental rights. Unless some action is taken to remedy this, we will see a continued hemorrhaging of jobs in the United States.”

The A.F.L.-C.I.O., which represents 13 million American workers, plans to file the complaint under Section 301 of the trade act, which makes it an unfair trade practice for countries to violate internationally recognized workers’ rights.

Nathan Newman points to the most ominous line of this Business Week story:

If young people’s participation rate were equal to its level in March, 2001, the unemployment rate could be 6.6%.