More tax troubles for yet another Obama nominee: Health and human services appointee Kathleen Sebelius said today that she and he husband have paid $7,040 in back taxes and $878 in interest after discovering “unintentional errors” in their 2005-07 tax returns. In a letter to Senators Max Baucus and Charles Grassley, the Kansas governor said her accountant found “insufficient documentation” for several charitable donations and business expenses. Sebelius also said she mistakenly deducted interest on her home’s mortgage. The president’s first pick for health and human services secretary, Tom Daschle, withdrew his name from consideration after news broke that he owed $140,000 in back taxes. Embattled Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner also faced criticism for owing more than $30,000 in taxes, and a nominee for chief performance officer, Nancy Killefer, withdrew her name from consideration for the post after getting into tax troubles of her own.

Attention, London: The Obamas have landed. The first couple touched down at Stansted Airport today, ahead of the Group of 20 summit, and were met by Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling. The Obamas then boarded Marine One for central London, where they’ll stay at the US ambassador’s residence. Before the summit begins Thursday, the president is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Conservative leader David Cameron, and Queen Elizabeth. Brown, the BBC reports, “is keen for world leaders to reach agreement on a new set of rules for regulating global finance as well as measures to boost economic demand and support poorer countries.”

Fritz Henderson, General Motors’ new chief executive, is already correcting the mistakes of his predecessor: He announced today that he won’t be reducing his salary to $1 a year like the ousted Rick Wagoner. Perhaps his reasoning was that his base salary as chief operating officer was cut 30 percent earlier this year, to about $1.3 million, when GM took loans from the government. Of course, his total compensation in 2008 was valued at $8.7 million, $6.2 million less than Wagoner’s—and both are now worth a fraction of that, after GM shares plunged from around $40 in late 2007 to about $2 this week.

Here’s a frightening announcement: The leader of the Taliban in Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud, says he’s plotting an attack on Washington that will “amaze everyone in the world.” Mehsud, for whom the U.S. has offered a $5 million reward, also says he’s responsible for the attacks on a Lahore police academy that killed seven officers, which he characterized as retaliation for U.S. drone assaults in northern Pakistan. “We wholeheartedly take responsibility for this attack and will carry out more such attacks in future,” he said in a phone call to Western news organizations from an undisclosed location. Even scarier, the Pakistani Taliban is mending fences with the Afghan Taliban, apparently in response to Obama’s AfPak strategy, which calls for more U.S. troops in Afghanistan and treating both countries as a single military stage.

Politico’s got a scoop on a ruling by a three-judge panel in Minnesota that’s reduced the odds Norm Coleman will be able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in the Senate’s last undecided race. The ruling calls for 400 absentee ballots to be counted in court—far fewer than Coleman had sought, with Democrat Al Franken leading by 225 votes. Said a staffer close to Coleman: “It’s not looking good.” Both candidates’ legal teams are expected to speak with the press about the decision, and Coleman’s team has already pledged to take the case to the federal courts. Yesterday, Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn said the legal process could last “years.”

In yet another reversal of Bush administration policy, the United States has decided to join the U.N. Human Rights Council. The decision reaffirms President Obama’s pledge to re-engage with the international community, but it may prove controversial: The Bush administration decided not to join the new body to protest the membership of several nations that were known violators of human rights themselves. Since then, the council has faced criticism for dedicating the majority of its reports to violations in Israel. According to the BBC, 80 percent of the U.N. organization’s resolutions have been focused on Israel, with the rest aimed at North Korea, Sudan, and Liberia, among other nations.

Think twice before you call someone promiscuous—it could just be the way they were born. A study of identical twins separated at birth reveals that the age at which a person first has sex is determined in part by his or her genes. Innate traits such as impulsivity further the chances that a person will engage in sex earlier. Nancy Segal, the study’s leader and a psychologist at California State University, said other factors could also affect when people first have sex. The study found that women who reported being unhappy or unfulfilled had sex at an earlier age than others. Segal’s team studied 48 pairs of twins who were raised apart from each other, and 23 individual twins.

Fox News is still the preferred network for most of America, but don’t count out dark horse MSNBC sneaking up on the title. The liberal-leaning cable network grabbed more primetime viewers than CNN this March, outranking the network for the first time ever. Meanwhile, Fox widened its lead off the strength of Bill O’Reilly, who has about 3.4 million viewers a night, making his show the most popular on cable news. At CNN, Campbell Brown and Anderson Cooper lost about 9 percent of their audience, while Larry King’s audience went up about 9 percent. Maybe this is a sign that the public wants to listen to what they already know: CNN is nonpartisan during primetime, while gainers Fox and MSNBC, with Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann, are decidedly not.

Start fretting, Palin fans: The governor of Alaska will not be headlining the GOP’s annual fundraiser as planned, despite the Republican fanfare following the announcement that she would be speaking. A Palin aide said the governor was not aware she was chosen to headline the fundraiser and could not attend because of her responsibilities governing Alaska. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will now lead the June 8 event in her stead. Palin has recently grabbed headlines for rejecting (then accepting?) federal bailout money and appointing a controversial state attorney general.

Gay people can now have awkward blind dates, too. After facing criticism for limiting its dating services to heterosexuals, eHarmony.com is finally launching Compatible Partners, a gay matchmaking site foisted upon it as a result of a discrimination lawsuit settled last November. The settlement says the company must make a "good-faith commitment" to make the new site successful. The New Jersey district attorney filed suit because the site was restricted to male-female couples since it began in 2000. EHarmony’s founder, Neil Clark Warren, based the service on his experience as a couples' psychologist in Pasadena and the site gained a reputation as Christian-oriented and anti-gay, since most of its early promoters were evangelical co-workers and friends of Warren who spoke against gay rights. Warren, however, still seems ambivalent: "It's what I did for 40 years," he said. "I never had a gay couple."

Even in this economy, stock in the outrageously popular Facebook would seem like a sure bet. And you might get a chance to pick some up soon: Gideon Yu, the company’s chief financial officer, has stepped down, and The Wall Street Journal reports that a search is under way for a replacement with “public company experience.” The social networking site continues to rake in cash: It expects “revenue growth of 70 percent in 2009 compared with 2008.” The company, which famously began as a program only for Harvard students, now has roughly 200 million users.

In an exclusive interview with the Atlantic, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that if Obama doesn't stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons "quickly," his country will not hesitate to resolve the problem itself. "You don't want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs," Netanyahu said. If Iran were to acquire nukes, the P.M. explained, the threat would be truly be global: It would give the country license to be more aggressive, inspire radical Islamists, upset alliances in the Middle East, and affect the world's oil supply. Netanyahu insisted that, along with the economy, Iran should be Obama's top priority.

Peter Madoff has lost his bid to unfreeze his assets: A lawyer for Bernie’s brother, the Madoff firm’s chief compliance officer, argued in court today that because Peter reached an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department in December to have his assets frozen, a later freeze imposed last week was unnecessary. The second freeze came as part of a lawsuit by law student Andrew Ross Samuels, who’s suing Peter after $478,000 vanished from his trust, over which Peter allegedly presided as sole trustee between 2003 and 2008. The lawsuit asserts that Peter “had full knowledge that it was a fraudulent Ponzi-scheme and nothing more than an unprecedented fraud.” No federal charges have (yet) been filed against Peter.

Is the U.S. housing market in a free fall? Values in 20 major cities slid 20 percent in the 12 months ending in January, a record slide capped off with a record drop of 2.8 percent in the first month of this year. Home prices, off 29 percent from the peak in 2006, are now at 2003 levels. And we haven't hit bottom, according to analysts. "Looking ahead, depressed demand, tight credit, rising default rates and excess inventories will continue to lead prices lower," Merrill Lynch economists explained. "We estimate that an additional 10%-15% in downside is still in store."

Is a campaign pledge coming to fruition? Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. envoy to Afghanistan, exchanged words today with Iran's deputy foreign minister during a summit at the Hague to discuss Afghanistan. The unplanned meeting ended with the two promising to "stay in touch," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, describing it as a "brief and cordial exchange." The encounter is the first concrete example of Barack Obama's plan to engage America's critics through dialogue. Both the U.S. and Iran have expressed guarded interest in some form of collaboration on the war in Afghanistan.

It might be time to throw out that bag of pistachios you had set aside for March Madness this week. Pistachio flavored ice cream, cake mix, that all has to go too. The FDA has issued a warning regarding pistachios distributed by California-based Setton Pistachio. The company is the second largest producer of pistachios in the country. Recently, an outbreak of salmonella occurred in peanut products due to blatant neglect by a company based in Georgia. That case is still being brought under control. The two cases do not appear to be related. The AP reports that pistachios are typically cleansed of dangerous bacteria when they are roasted, but that they can be re-contaminated if "mice, rats or birds get into the facility."

Looking for a good time? Hurry and grab your tickets for tonight’s debut of Hair on Broadway. What began as a celebration of the show’s 40th anniversary with performances in last year’s Shakespeare in the Park has transformed into a full-fledged rock tribal musical. Director Diane Paulus says of her new show: “I really feel like as a director, you look for these moments when something you do in the theatre actually hooks up with the larger culture.” The free-wheeling ‘60s and ‘70s are chronicled through bombastic hits like “The Age of Aquarius” sung by a huge, young ensemble cast. Gavin Creel, one of the leads in the show, recently spoke out about marriage equality and gay rights.

As Michelle Obama gets ready for her London debut, her popularity is sky high. A fresh Washington Post/ABC News poll shows her favorability at 76 percent, up 28 points since the summer. "Her most striking inroads have come among Republicans who viewed her negatively last year, perhaps in part because of comments she made about feeling proud of her country for the first time," the Washington Post reports. No longer discounted by pundits as a political liability, Republicans now say she looks less "angry." Today, the first lady hits the G-20 summit with broad domestic support on her side.

It was less than two years ago that talk queen Oprah Winfrey vowed to clean up her South African school for girls. A dorm matron stood accused of sexual abuse, and Winfrey, calling herself “Mama Bear,” vowed to make things right. Well, she’s got more work to do. A South African paper reports that seven students at the school have been sent home for sexually harassing their classmates. The Daily News says, “One 15-year-old was accused of preying on another pupil,” while “[o]ther girls were caught fondling each other or trying to get other girls to join them in lesbian liaisons.”

A little bad news to accompany the good for Bruce Willis, who just married model Emma Heming: His Idaho ski lodge burnt down at Soldier Mountain yesterday. The 50-year-old lodge appears to be the victim of an accident, but possible foul play will be investigated. Luckily Willis had new plans for the area in the work and a new lift will be erected sooner than he expected.

Republicans have been hammering away at President Obama now for several months. Has it all been in vain? According to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, 66 percent of Americans approve of Obama’s job as president, 60 percent approve of his handling of his economy and 52 percent approve of his handling of the federal budget deficit. More shockingly, 42 percent of Americans now say that the country is headed in the right direction, up from a mere 15 percent in December. Efforts to label Obama as a socialist also seem to be failing: “62 percent see Obama as a ‘new-style,’ fiscally responsible Democrat; fewer, about a third, label him an "old-style" Democrat oriented toward taxing and spending.”

Rejoice Dillon Panther fans, the boys will live to play another game. In a surprising move, much-maligned NBC has renewed high school football drama Friday Night Lights for not one, but two additional seasons, ordering a total of 26 episodes. The network’s partnership deal with DirecTV, in which the dish premieres the season before it runs on broadcast television, was apparently a success in the eyes of NBC, which is starving for hits. The best parents on the small screen, Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, are also set to return to the critically loved, well-written show.

Another day, another newspaper company goes bottom up. This morning, the publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times, the Sun-Times Media Group, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Aside from the Chicago paper, the company owns 59 newspapers and websites in the Windy City's metropolitan area. But it's not the end of the paper, per say. "We firmly believe that filing for Chapter 11 protection and exploring the potential sale of assets or new investment in the Company offers us the best opportunity to protect our respected media properties for the long-term," the company's chairman said.

Two days after eight people were murdered at a nursing home in North Carolina, an apparent murder-suicide in Silicon Valley on Sunday left six dead, including three children. The identities of the shooter and the victims have not yet been revealed, but the 42-year-old gunman shot his wife, their 11-year-old son, their four-year-old girl, a couple related to his wife, and the couple’s 11-month old child. The wife escaped the scene with gunshot wounds and is currently in critical condition. The police are still identifying the victims and notifying their families.

At a United Nations-sponsored conference on Afghanistan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke out about Afghanistan’s current conditions: "For those of you who have been on the ground in Afghanistan, you have seen with your own eyes that a lot of these aid programs don't work," she said. She also stated the programs have “very little credibility” in the eyes of Afghans and the amount of money spent without solid results “heartbreaking.” On a separate note, Clinton said the Obama administration has dropped the “war on terror” phrase heavily touted by President Bush to describe the conflicts with al Qaeda.

Country music has occasionally seized the political moment—see the collected works of Toby Keith. But the recession requires a different approach. Country singer and occasional GOP backer John Rich, known for the ode “Raising McCain,” has recorded a new song belaboring his bailout blues titled “Shuttin’ Detroit Down.” The song was inspired last January by Merrill Lynch’s John Thain and strikes a populist chord with lyrics like “I see all these big shots whining on my evening news” and “his pension plan’s been cut in half and he can’t afford to die.” "The song is not depressing," Rich tells The Times. "The song is defiant."

Should North Korea’s pending missile test fail to foment a global crisis, it seems the country has a Plan B: The Associated Press is reporting that North Korea plans to indict the two American journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who were detained for allegedly entering the country illegally at the Chinese border on March 17. "The illegal entry of U.S. reporters into the DPRK and their suspected hostile acts have been confirmed by evidence and their statements," said the state-run news agency, without specifying what the “hostile acts” were. Espionage charges carry a sentence of up to 10 years in North Korea’s infamous gulag-like labor camps.

To be a convincing Hamlet or not to be? In the case of actor Christian Caramago, the former. In his review of the New Audience company’s new production of Hamlet for The New York Times, Charles Isherwood praises Caramago’s performance, saying he was “born to play the role.” “[Caramago] nails just about everything. The poetry sings softly. The torment of a divided soul is made achingly clear. The antic spirit and buoyant wit delight. The questing intelligence sends a bright searchlight into the darkness of human experience.”

The Obama administration is considering a plan that would bankrupt General Motors and Chrysler and divide each company’s assets into “good” and “bad.” With the ejection of GM CEO Rick Wagoner, the plan marks the government’s rapidly increasing involvement in the auto industry. The plan is risky for Obama, as a bankruptcy filing could hurt thousands of important Democratic constituents—GM’s unionized workers. The “good” GM would retain brands like Cadillac and Chevrolet and remain independent, while the “good” Chrysler would be sold to Fiat SpA, if a proposed merger goes through. “We cannot, we must not, and we will not let our auto industry simply vanish,” Obama said in a speech Monday that set deadlines for both companies to draft plans to save their businesses before receiving more federal support.

Ultimatums are always the smartest way to go: French President Nicolas Sarkozy is threatening to walk out of this week’s Group of 20 summit if his plan for tougher global financial regulations is not adopted. The main item on the agenda for the London summit is financial oversight, but Sarkozy, who has blamed the “Anglo-Saxons” for the financial crisis and says he will not tolerate empty talk at the meeting, specifically wants to create a global financial regulator, an idea British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called ridiculous. Germany, Britain, and the US are pushing for a “college” of regulators, located in several countries, that will supervise companies. Meanwhile, a report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of 30 Western democracies, predicts that unemployment will reach 10 percent next year in most developed nations and that growth will slump 4.3 percent this year.

Another chaotic start to the week: Off the news that President Obama forced the ouster of GM’s chief executive, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 254.16 points, or 3.27 percent, to close at 7,522.02, with GM's share price falling below $3. The S&P and Nasdaq also sank 3 percent. Asian markets took a tumble in the early morning hours, with automobile and financial stocks falling sharply. The news that Japan’s industrial production was down for the fifth consecutive month caused the Nikkei 225 Average to finish down 4.5 percent. Meanwhile, the European Dow dropped 2.1 percent, causing the leads from last week to vanish.