Cheat Sheet

General Motor's bondholders may be prevaricating, but company won its creditors' support for a new bankruptcy plan on Thursday. The Wall Street Journal reports that the auto titan's new plan will give the U.S. government a 72.5 percent stake in the company and will boost its coffers by as much as $50 billion. Though bondholders "soundly rejected" a deal to forgive $27.2 billion in debt for 10 percent equity, an ad hoc committee of bondholders supports a new plan that offers them rights to buy an additional 15 percent of the company; in a statement, they said they want to avoid "uncertain and costly bankruptcy litigation." But a separate group of bondholders, representing small individuals who hold 20 percent of the company's bond debt, are still reticent. The Main Street Bondholders, as they call themselves, think the new proposal "is still a bad offer." While G.M. stateside baby-steps are considered a success, however, the company's European branch suffered setbacks this week as the German government dodged making a decision on whether it will offer loans to GM's Opel/Vauxhall units.

Committee hearings on health care begin next week, and President Obama is gearing up for a fight. In an attempt to motivate political supporters and lawmakers to take action, President Obama told supporters by phone today that 2009 is the Congress’s last chance to get health care reform right. If lawmakers are not pressured to act, Obama said, health care reform would fall by the wayside in Washington and never take place. He also said the health care plan should extend coverage to the 50 million Americans who are currently uninsured, lower costs, and ensure choice—and it will cost an estimated $1.5 trillion, which Obama argues will actually be less than the current system's costs. "If the country stands with the president and if the country is demanding health care reform then we'll get it done,” Obama said. “Washington will not have any option but to follow us." Obama’s urgent words come one day after Senator Ted Kennedy penned a Boston Globe column arguing that, when it comes to health care, “we cannot afford to wait—or to fail.” Get ready for a battle.

The U.S. and South Korea raised military alerts on North Korea today after North Korea broke its truce ending the Korean War and announced it was ready to attack. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the alert level was raised to stress how serious a threat North Korea is, making it the highest threat level since 2006, when the North conducted its only other nuclear test. So what do the experts think we should do? Washington Post columnists Dan Blumenthal and Robert Kagan say we should drop the notion that a unified Korea is a common goal for both the U.S. and China. And rather than going through Bejing to reach Pyongyang, send Obama to meet with Kim Jong-Il. Some analysts say the nuclear threats are an attempt to strengthen Kim’s image after a suspected stroke caused doubt over his control, while weapons experts point out that although North Korea wants to build a nuclear arsenal, it does not yet have a method of attack with a nuclear bomb or warhead.

Lest there be a deficit of party-hard socialites in New York City, Britain’s resident bad boy and sailor-mouthed soldier will be stateside Friday. On Friday, 24-year-old Prince Harry will embark on a 2-day official visit to America, where he plans to meet with veterans, visit ground zero, and squeeze in a polo match on Governors Island. Harry, who commanded troops alongside the U.S. in Afghanistan, has done his best to shake his previously infamous party boy ways, and, according to Alan Collins, the British consul general in New York, is “well known and respected in the United States.” Harry will meet with families of four people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks at the World Trade Center site before formally naming a site in Hanover square for the 67 British victims of Sept. 11. Says Monica Iken, whose husband died in the terrorist attacks, "It's a testament to our loved ones that royalty from another country is coming and expressing interest.”

Captain Richard Phillips has sold rights to his harrowing experience being held hostage by Somali pirates to Columbia Pictures. The studio has also optioned the film rights to Phillip’s upcoming memoir. Actor Kevin Spacey has signed on to produce the film, which will focus on the captain’s capture on the Maersk Alabama and the subsequent sniper-stand off between the Navy and the pirates.

It is not clear which party is at fault, but one of them has their facts wrong. The Pentagon has denied Wednesday's story detailing the Iraqi prison abuse photos, saying that the descriptions "completely mischaracterized the images." The Pentagon spokesman specifically criticized The Daily Telegraph, the paper which broke the story, saying that it has "at least on two occasions, demonstrated an inability to get the facts right." The article in question cited retired Army Major General Antonio Taguba as the source of the new details of the censored photos, which supposedly depict rape and sexual abuse of prisoners.

Hell hath no fury like a foreign dignitary scorned. British tabloids announced today that Queen Elizabeth II was not invited to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy next week, where President Obama and French president Nicolas Sarkozy will be in attendance. At 83, the queen is the only living head of state that served in uniform in WWII, during which she was a driver and a mechanic. The French said they consider the landings commemoration to be “primarily a Franco-American ceremony”, but in 2004 at the 60th anniversary, Queen Elizabeth attended alongside President Bush. British commentators speculated that Sarkozy is reluctant to share the televised event between himself and Obama.

President Obama’s pet may not be a “mutt like me,” but people in the nation he leads are increasingly racially mixed. According to the Associated Press, multiracial Americans are the nation’s fastest growing group, reaching 3.4 percent of the population last year at 5.2 million—though census-takers acknowledge that the numbers are likely vastly undercounted. Demographers say the rising public profiles of self-described mixed-race Americans like Obama and golfer Tiger Woods may be impacting the rate at which people self-identify themselves as multiracial. Hawaii has the highest proportion of multiracial citizens, counting nearly 1 in 5 residents as hailing from multiple racial backgrounds. California, Texas, New York, and Florida have the highest numbers of multiracial citizens “due partly to higher populations of second- and later-generation immigrants who ‘marry out.’”

AP Photo

Arlen Specter switched to the Democratic Party so he could cruise to reelection in 2010, but he may have to fight for his life anyway: Talking Points Memo is reporting that Rep. Joe Sestak “is privately telling supporters that he intends to run for Senate.” According to his sister, “He intends to get in the race.” TPM also has its hands on a memo handwritten by Sestake that says, “"I am writing you as especially dear supporters to let you know I intend to run for the U.S. Senate.”

Just when you thought the swine flu threat was dimming: Eton, preparatory academy to the UK’s most well-heeled gentlemen-in-training (including former pupil Prince Harry) has announced it will close its doors until June 7 due to the revelation that a 13-year-old boy has come down with swine flu. This brings the United Kingdom’s swine flu toll to 203. No word on how the boy caught the flu, and whether his infections means Eton’s primogeniture-primed lads—and the fate of the crown!—are at risk.

Here is a less-noticed consequence of the government's close work with flailing companies: The Democrats are getting bigger campaign donations from the industries they work with. Since the Democrats won their majority, donations have been flooding in from the auto industry, pharmaceutical companies, the health care industry and more. The industries, not typically thought of as allies of the Democrats, have all signaled that they are on board with Obama's ambitious agenda. Marc Ambinder, writing for The Atlantic, says that donations to Democratic campaigns in 2010 are already on track to break records held by the GOP when they were top dogs on Capitol Hill.

An L.A. high school has crowned gay student Sergio Garcia its queen. Garcia warned he wouldn’t wear a dress for the ceremony: "I will be wearing a suit," Garcia said, "but don't be fooled, deep down inside, I am a queen!" While his campaign started as a stunt, it triggered serious discussion about gender roles on the progressive campus, which is active in the gay rights debate. He will be among the first male students in Southern California to beat out the typical high school beauties for the crown. "It just shows how open-minded our class is," the school's senior class president said.

Look out, Miss California: Jon Chait demolishes the anti-gay-marriage position in The New Republic. Arguments like the one put forth by the National Organization for Marriage, which alleges gay marriage harms “the people of this state who lose our right to define marriage as the union of husband and wife,” boil down to, “Expanding a right to a new group deprives the rest of us of our right to deny that right to others,” Chait writes. “If making a right less exclusive devalues it, then any extension of rights is an imposition upon those who were not previously excluded.” He also tears down the argument that gay marriage would weaken the link between marriage and child-rearing. “[M]arriage proponents might worry about anything that expands childbearing to the non-married, but they have no reason to fear expanding marriage to the non-childbearing.”

Please, talk to your kids about hugging before it's too late. The New York Times reports that among teenagers, hugging has replaced simple hand shakes, hellos, and air kisses as the greeting of choice. The trend has spread so quickly that some students feel pressure to fit in. One Manhattan freshman said that a non-hugger would be thought "weird or peculiar." School officials wary of sexual harassment or improper touching suits have instituted a three-second rule or banned hugging in the hallways altogether. The grassroots trend has has left parents scratching their heads. As one parent put it, “Maybe it’s because all these kids do is text and go on Facebook so they don’t even have human contact anymore."

What are the odds? Winner, SD—a rural hamlet of only 2,800 people--is now home to one lucky local who's about to become $232 million richer. The Powerball lotto winner has 180 days to step forward and claim the jackpot, which is the ninth-largest in the game's history. Millions of Powerball tickets were sold across 30 states in the lead-up to Wednesday's drawing. The Associated Press has advice for the winner: "Sign the ticket and hire a good lawyer" before claiming the fortune.

Could there be possibly be a meeting room full of gloomier individuals? Top execs from most of print media (The New York Times, McClatchy, the AP and more) are meeting outside of Chicago to discuss how to save newspapers. On the summit's itinerary are a presentation on how to make money off third parties that profit off of journalism, such as Google, Yahoo, etc. Another will address how best to charge users for content. There are also presentations dealing with how to reach online audiences through targeted advertising. Writing for the Atlantic, James Warren hopes that the meeting concludes with some serious, bold innovations being seriously considered. Ironically, it appears that whoever wrote the itinerary couldn't afford a quality proofreader, as even it has a typo.

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The end of an era. Time Warner will spin off AOL into a separate Internet company run by former Google advertising executive Tim Armstrong, the Associated Press reports. Later this year, Time Warner will buy Google's 5 percent stake and reshape AOL into a publicly traded company. Time Warner and AOL merged eight years ago in an ill-fated $147 billion deal during the height of the dot-com bubble. In 2002 and 2003, the AP writes, "Time Warner absorbed nearly $100 billion in charges to account for the rapidly diminishing value of the combined company." In a statement, Time Warner Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes said that the deal would give AOL "a better opportunity to achieve its full potential as a leading independent Internet Company."

China is not renowned for its environmental protection, but the country's new fuel efficiency standards will be more stringent than those proposed by President Obama. Driven by spiraling dependence on foreign oil and environmental concerns, China's new regulations will require automakers to improve fuel efficiency by 18 percent by 2015, the New York Times reports. Chinese vehicles tend to be smaller and lighter than American cars, so they already get better mileage. The average new Chinese car gets 35.8 miles a gallon, but by 2015, it'll need to make 42.2 miles per gallon. In contrast, last week President Obama announced that automakers will have to achieve a mere 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016.

Despite the Cuban government’s own history of suspect interrogation methods, Fidel Castro criticized former Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday for defending the counterterrorism policies of the Bush administration. Posted on a government website, Castro rebuked Cheney’s speech from last week, and went on to accuse the US of using terrorism against Cuba after his 1959 revolt, mentioning US plans to overthrow the Cuban government in its formative years. A report released earlier this month by the Organization of American States' Inter-American Commission on Human Rights chided Cuba for not fully protecting human rights, and Cuban rights activists estimate that Cuba is currently holding around 200 political prisoners. Despite this, Castro said in his statement that torture is an unacceptable means of obtaining information.

Bryan Bedder / Getty Images

Government bribes? Sort of. In an upcoming GQ interview, Levi Johnston, Bristol Palin’s ex-boyfriend and father to her child, said Todd Palin offered to buy his daughter a car if she dumped the boy. Johnston has a track record for divulging scandalous details of the estranged couple’s relationship, including an allegation that Governor Sarah Palin knew Bristol and Levi were knocking boots. And don’t hold your breath on the couple reuniting any time soon: Johnston said he has no plans of asking Bristol back.

Haraz N. Ghanbari / AP Photo

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner gave economists sticker shock when he announced his $1 trillion plan to buy up toxic assets from banks in March, but according to the Wall Street Journal, the scheme might now be scaled back significantly thanks to an improved economic climate. Already one part of the Public Private Investment Partnership, the Legacy Loans Program, is on hold as banks fear additional regulation if they participate and grow more confident in their stability. According to FDIC officials, banks may be overestimating the value of their assets and gains are still fragile, but the latest market rally has made the need for the PPIP less urgent. "There are a couple of factors that are still at play here as we try and develop this structure," FDIC Chairman Sheila Blair said at a news conference Wednesday. "Banks have been able to raise a lot of new capital even before taking more aggressive steps to cleanse their balance sheets, so the incentives to sell may be less."

President Obama, under fire in recent weeks from civil libertarians for classifying photos of alleged detainee abuse, is asking top government officials to review whether the government is keeping too much information classified. According to the Washington Post, Obama has asked national security adviser James L. Jones to gather recommendations from officials on making their information more accessible and assigned Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano with investigating the issue as well. "This is music to the ears of many of us," one advocate said, "but the hard work remains to be done—how to translate these goals into policies."

Saul Loeb, AFP / Getty Images

It would be a supreme irony if, just as the Republican-appointed David Souter proved a closet liberal, Sonia Sotomayor turned out to be a secret conservative on abortion. But that's the scenario that pro-choice groups are worried about given a lack of representative cases on the issue from Sotomayor's tenure as a federal appeals court judge. In one case, she sided with the Bush administration in denying a claim challenging the "Mexico City rule," which prevented foreign aid from going to organizations abroad that funded abortion. In a letter the president of Naral Pro-Choice America, Nancy Keenan, is pushing senators to dig deeper on the issue in her confirmation hearings. “Discussion about Roe v. Wade will — and must — be part of this nomination process,” Keenan wrote. “As you know, choice hangs in the balance on the Supreme Court as the last two major choice-related cases were decided by a 5-to-4 margin.”

As part of a major financial-system overhaul, senior administration officials are debating whether to create a single agency to control the banking industry. The current system allows banks to choose from one of three regulators: the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Because bank fees fund these regulators, agencies vie for business by offering more relaxed supervision. This system also creates coverage gaps by splitting up the largest banks among agencies, an oversight many experts believe contributed to the financial meltdown. Also up for deliberation: officials may give the FDIC the ability to seize large financial firms to thwart their collapse—both Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said having this authority could have allowed the government to sidestep the financial crisis entirely. The regulation proposals should be revealed in the next few weeks, but the single-agency bit could face major opposition from states, which have the power to contract and supervise banks.

Tension is rising on the Turkey/Iraq border. Turkish authorities say that the rebels of the Kurdistan Worker's Party planted a landmine on the Turkish side of the border that killed six soldiers and wounded eight early Thursday. The Associated Press reports that within hours of the explosion, Turkish warplanes flew into the Iraqi border region of Avasin-Basyan and targeted what a military statement called a "crowded group" of rebels. The rebel group, located in southeastern Turkey, has been fighting for self-rule for the last 25 years in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people, although today a Kurdish political party accused of ties with the rebels asked the two sides to lay down their arms.