At his 8 p.m. press conference, President Obama announced that the $787 billion stimulus bill is having a positive effect on the economy. “We are beginning to see signs of progress,” he said in his opening statement. “We will recover from this recession. But it will take time, it will take patience, and it will take an understanding that when we all work together; when each of us looks beyond our own short-term interests to the wider set of obligations we have to each other—that’s when we succeed. That’s when we prosper.” The president is pressing aggressively for his $3.6 trillion budget, Politico reports, and making the case that his health care, education, and energy plans are essential investments, not wasteful spending.

The early reviews are in—and it looks like Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal did better against Obama the second time around. (You may recall his disastrous rebuttal to the president’s address to Congress and the ensuing Mister Rogers jokes.) On Tuesday night Jindal got an opportunity for redemption, addressing a House GOP fundraiser in Washington before Obama’s press conference. “Let’s agree on this tonight, the time for talking about the past is now over,” Jindal told the 1,200 attendees at the $2,500-a-plate event, which raised $6 million. “It has been healthy for Republicans to look in the mirror. It has been healthy for us to realize and admit the mistakes of the past…It’s time to declare our time of introspection and navel gazing officially over.”

Testifying before Congress about the economy and AIG on Capitol Hill today, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke sparred with lawmakers and urged expanded authority to take control of financial institutions. Both men “called for new powers to take over and wind down failing financial companies after the government’s troubled rescue of American International Group Inc,” Bloomberg reports. The two also called for stronger regulation and reiterated their opposition to the AIG bonuses. Bernanke also said he tried to sue the insurance giant to halt bonus payments to its financial products division but failed because the Fed’s legal counsel said punitive damages could be awarded if the lawsuit failed.

The AIG scandal refuses to fade away: Talking Points Memo’s Muckraker reports investigators are “hot on the trail” of Joseph Cassano, the former head of the bailed-out insurance giant’s ill-starred financial products division. Cassano, in the words of TPM, “walked away with a multi-million dollar golden parachute after spearheading the credit default swaps that brought down AIG.” Now House Oversight Committee investigators are planning to interview him about his role in the AIG collapse and have already contacted his lawyer, a source tells the site. If he testifies, Cassano—who stepped down from AIG in March but signed a $1 million a month consulting contract with the firm that was canceled in September—will follow former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg, who goes before the committee April 2.

Don’t cry socialism just yet: A bill that would embolden organized labor by easing union organizing is encountering resistance from Sen. Arlen Specter. The AFL-CIO had been counting on the Pennsylvania senator’s vote in support of the Employee Free Choice Act to block a Republican filibuster. Citing “many difficult reasons,” Specter rejected the hotly contested bill, saying it was the most heavily lobbied issue that he could recall. As it is currently written, the bill “would enable unions to more easily organize workers by getting signatures on cards, rather than by voting in secret ballot elections,” The Wall Street Journal reports.

Britney Spears may shout “This mama is in control!” at her “Circus” concerts, but off the stage, she’s not the decision maker—and her handlers are proving expensive. “At least 17 lawyers and firms have had a hand in Spears’ personal or business matters in the 14 months since a judge determined she was not competent to manage her life and multimillion-dollar music empire herself,” the Los Angeles Times notes, and “the legal work has not come cheap.” The singer’s estate paid at least $2.7 million in lawyers’ fees and costs during the first 11 months of her conservatorship, and many of the lawyers continue to work on the case. Her divorce from ex-backup dancer Kevin Federline alone cost her $417,000. “Miss Britney Spears is being bled dry by these proceedings,” snipes an opponent.

Two US journalists captured by North Korea while working on the wrong side of the border with China have been taken to the capital and are being "interrogated," Reuters reports. The two female reporters were working for Al Gore's cable channel, Current TV. Full diplomatic efforts are under way to secure their release. The experience of the last American arrested by North Koreans does not bode well for the duo: It took three months to free him. The situation only adds to the tension surrounding North Korea's preparation for a missile launch.

For one morning only, Rod Blagojevich will get behind the mic and take Chicago AM radio by storm, answering calls, chatting up guests, and reflecting on times past. Unfortunately, it's only a temp job—the regular hosts are on vacation this week. WLS-AM offered the disgraced former governor his own show two months ago if he resigned from office. Apparently, the deal is no longer on the table. Hope he has a good screener—there will certainly be lots of prank calls.

This might be a small pittance, but still some consolation. A construction worker in Queens won the lotto—a cool $1,500—after playing Bernie Madoff’s prison number, which he saw emblazoned on the cover of the Daily News. The numbers 61727-054 proved lucky for 50-year-old Ralph Amendolaro, who said, “Somebody had to get a little lucky with him." The Daily News cheekily notes that his three $3 bets scored a 16,000 percent return on his investment, which was “far more than even Madoff promised his bilked investors.”

In the Bush years, Nancy Pelosi was the hell-raising vocal voice of the opposition. Now, with the Democrats running the show, the speaker of the House is acclimating to the spotlight shining on the White House. Her work has become more behind-the-scenes, inside-the-Beltway. Still, Pelosi is a prominent figure in the trenches of Congress and has made it clear that she and Obama are not always on the same page. Far from a uniter, Pelosi has taken a hard line on torture, investigations of the controversial wiretap program, and taxes on AIG execs' bonuses. Of course, at the end of the day, Obama and Pelosi play nice: they're both creatures of Washington roaming in the same pack.

Who says newspapers have no influence anymore? In a public relations blitzkrieg, President Obama has taken his message directly to the people with an op-ed calling for “global economic cooperation” at the upcoming Group of 20 summit, which will focus on the economic crisis. Headlined “A Time for Global Action,” the opinion piece ran in more than 20 papers around the world. Those skeptical of more US leadership will probably not be too keen on its tone: The piece establishes America as ready to take charge, lead by example, and set the economy back on the right track. Obama, Geithner, et al. have been pushing for decisive, coordinated action by the world’s major economies in the lead-up to the meeting.

Venice may be sinking into the ocean, but that's no excuse not to go green while there is still time. The city's port authority has announced it will build a power plant fueled entirely by algae to power its seaport. The algae will be cultivated in the plant, broken down into fuel, and the resulting carbon dioxide will be fed back into new algae, resulting in zero emissions. The plan almost sounds too good to be true. The extra energy from the process may "be supplied to ships docked at the harbor." Somewhere, Al Gore is smiling.

Al Gore isn’t about to let you forget about global warming. In Our Choice, a new book he wrote that comes out later this year, the former vice president compiles discussions from the “Solutions Summits” he held in 2006. The book, a follow-up to An Inconvenient Truth, is intended to be a call for action. The Atlantic writes: “Since the political climate of 2009 is different, linguists would argue that the meaning of Gore’s new book will be too."

espite much hope for change when NAFTA was signed during the Clinton era, Mexico's number one export remains its own people. Fifteen years later, NAFTA stands as an imperfect agreement that exceeded expectations in some areas and completely failed in others. One expert quoted by the New York Times talks about "high productivity poverty," a phenomenon tied to the infamous maquiladoras: massive factories dotting the border that are notorious for their brutal conditions and low wages. NAFTA has also forced an exodus from the Mexican countryside as farmers are no longer are able to make a living due to cheaper imported goods. Obama, who pledged to renegotiate NAFTA during his campaign, visits the country next month.

Some people have all the (bad) luck. Details are leaking out from a contentious divorce trial currently underway in Connecticut—and they’re soap opera good. Swedish countess Marie Douglas-David was pampered with a $200,000 a week budget by her millionaire mogul husband, George David, currently seated as chairman of United Technologies. While she claims her life was under total control—she wasn’t allowed to work or own anything in her name, not even her $190,000 engagement ring—he simply says, “She wrote the checks, she made the charges, and I paid them…I never once complained about her spending.” Some of the perks include opulent furs, a half-dozen $26,000 Birkin handbags, and weekends in Sardinia.

Details are emerging from the Montana plane crash that killed 14 on Sunday: Investigators suspect that ice buildup on the wings was a factor, just as it was in the crash in Buffalo last month that killed 50. However, the plane had neither a voice recorder nor flight data to confirm the suspicion. Also, the plane was carrying more passengers than it was licensed for, although, since many of the passengers were children ages one to nine, the extra weight may not have been a factor. "Lap children can be allowed on an aircraft up to the age of two," said the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. "We can't tell you if in fact they were sitting on the laps or not."

Publishers searching for success stories amid the ruins of extinct magazines need look no further than AdWeek's Hot List of '09, which ranks the top magazines based on ad revenue and page performance. What's on top? The Week at #1, followed by Fast Company, Golf World, People Style Watch, and Cookie.

Has the financial crisis inspired China to kick its dollar addiction? The Wall Street Journal reports “China called for the creation of a new currency to eventually replace the dollar as the world's standard, proposing a sweeping overhaul of global finance that reflects developing nations' growing unhappiness with the U.S. role in the world economy.” China is frustrated with its financial dependence on a currency over which it has no control. Russia proposed a similar plan last month.

With 8,000 dead in drug violence in the past two years and narcotrafficking raging out of control, Mexico is taking drastic measures—offering $2 million each to informers who help arrest the country’s 24 most wanted drug gang leaders. The move is a public challenge to the cartels, the BBC reports, and comes amid increasing U.S. and Mexican cooperation as gang violence spills over the border. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week will be in Mexico, where she’s expected to confirm the U.S. will deploy more federal agents along the American-Mexican border, before President Obama travels to Mexico City for meetings next month.

Not everyone's listening to Rush these days: NPR is having a banner year, offering some hope to a media industry in shambles. At least 20.9 million listeners tuned in to NPR every week this year, a 9 percent increase over the previous year. Its ratings have risen since Sept. 11, 2001, and—this is slightly shocking (and reassuring)—the audience for Morning Edition is 60 percent larger than the one tuning in for Good Morning America and one-third larger than devotees of The Today Show. Boffo ratings may be small consolation for the 7 percent of staff fired in December due to budget constraints, but the whispery news juggernaut still operates with an $8 million deficit.

Well, this is slightly terrifying. Curb your Big Mac-and-beer recession stress eating, because a new study of over 500,000 middle-aged and elderly adults now claims that eating red meat increases the risk of dying earlier. The detailed study claims those who ate more than four ounces of red meat a day possess a 30 percent higher chance of dying, particularly of heart disease and cancer, only 10 years later. Eating fish, chicken, or turkey, on the other hand, decreased the risk of death.

Among Bernard Madoff’s unlikelier casualties: the dream of immortality through architecture. The Wall Street Journal reports on two architects, Arakawa and Madeline Gris, who lost their life savings to Madoff. “The pair's work, based loosely on a movement known as ‘transhumanism,’ is premised on the idea that people degenerate and die in part because they live in spaces that are too comfortable. The artists' solution: construct abodes that leave people disoriented, challenged and feeling anything but comfortable.” Since losing their life savings to Madoff, the couple has closed its Manhattan office and laid off five employees.

Atomic bombs have been dropped twice in history. Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived both of them. Yamaguchi, 93, is the first person to be certified a survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. He was in Hiroshima on a business trip on August 6, 1945. After suffering serious burns, he returned the next day to his hometown of Nagasaki, which was bombed three days later. Approximately 210,000 people died in the attacks.

According to the Associated Press, David Letterman married longtime girlfriend Regina Lasko last week. “During a taping Monday of CBS' Late Show, Letterman said he and Lasko married March 19 at the Teton County Courthouse in Choteau, Mont.” The couple has dated since 1986 and has a five-year-old son. After the truck broke down, Letterman, 61, said he had to walk two miles in 50 mph winds. "It's not Beverly Hills, it's Montana, for God's sakes. And the whole way, I'm thinking, 'See, smart ass, see, see, you try to get married, this is what happens.”

Has Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner saved his job? It may be too soon to tell, but had his bank rescue plan flopped yesterday, it’s hard to see how he’d have hung on. Instead, the Dow Jones surged 500 points. The Obama administration spent much of the weekend trying to rally Wall Street behind the plan, after antagonizing bankers over the past week. Geithner and his team called executives to line up support for the plan, while Obama scaled back his prior endorsement of a 90-percent tax on bonuses. The administration also appointed two new people to help Geithner’s several understaffed team: Neal S. Wolin for deputy Treasury secretary, and Lael Brainard for under secretary for international affairs.

Bernie’s assets are popping up all over: A trustee appointed to unwind Madoff’s businesses says the swindler’s assets that have been tracked to Gibraltar are worth about $75 million, raising the recovered total to $1 billion. Trustee David Sheehan also told a court today that French authorities could soon try to seize Madoff’s three-bedroom apartment in Cap d’Antibes, worth about $1.6 million. Sheehan is also asking the court to give him power of attorney over Madoff’s UK unit to help speed his efforts to recover assets for investors.

AIG is taking the first steps of a corporate makeover. Yesterday, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced that 15 of the top 20 bonus recipients have returned the funds, amounting to $30 million. Now, ABC News reports that the insurance giant that benefited from $180 billion in taxpayer backing, has sold two luxury corporate jets and cancelled plans for two new ones. It's all part of a "comprehensive expense reduction plan," a spokesperson said. "It would be a very good thing for America for these executives to learn to fly coach," said one researcher. "In this one area at least they are setting an example for the other bailout companies to follow."

Those who dream of getting even with Madoff will get a kick out of Woody Allen’s latest “Shouts and Murmurs” column in The New Yorker, for which he invents two victims of Bernie who drop dead after learning they’re bankrupt. Reincarnated as lobsters awaiting their demise in a posh New York City restaurant, the pair passes the time reminiscing, until in walks their nemesis—and he has a hankering for crustacean. Outraged at the sheer injustice of it all, the lobsters manage to topple their tank and assault the Ponzi schemer. With their rose-colored pincers firmly wrapped around Madoff’s ample proboscis, the lobsters demand a guilty plea and get their wish.

Big news on the AIG bonus front: Nine of the top 10 bonus recipients at AIG have given the money back. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo made the announcement late this afternoon, adding that 15 of the top 20 recipients in the ill-starred financial products division have returned their bonuses, for a total of $30 million. “Those bonuses will be returned in full,” he said. Interestingly, 47 percent of the $165 million in bonuses was given to Americans, and Cuomo said he expects to get that money back. Some tricky bonus recipients are refusing to give their “retention payments” back, however—especially those who are overseas, outside the jurisdiction of New York State.

Dick Cheney’s sudden penchant for the limelight apparently has Republicans longing for his secrecy of old: According to The Hill, “Congressional Republicans are telling Dick Cheney to go back to his undisclosed location and leave them alone to rebuild the Republican Party without his input.” Congressman John Duncan Jr. of Texas says “He became so unpopular while he was in the White House that it would probably be better for us politically if he wouldn’t be so public.” Another congressman suggested “tending a legacy is best done in a memoir.” And another: “He represents what’s behind us, not what’s ahead of us.”

It's Round 2 of the Obama-Jindal face-off, with the president giving an 8 p.m. televised press conference, and the Louisiana governor addressing a Republican fund-raiser. So how is the press preparing? While some correspondents prepare their questions word for word and others go in with "concept questions," all of them strive to come up with the question that will elicit some shred of news. One example: CNN's Ed Henry, who took the president by surprise in his first press conference by asking about the ban on photographs of soldiers' coffins. Obama said it was "under review" and subsequently changed the policy—a "grand slam" for the White House reporter. Another skill the press corps is still refining: asking questions that don't allow Obama to go on and on, boring everyone to the point that they forget the original subject matter.